Lines for democrats, republicans, and independents. 2027488000 if youre a democrat. 2027488001 if youre a republican. 2027488002 if youre an independent. You can also catch up with us n social media o. Twitter, cspanwn. On facebook, its football. Com cspan. Very good monday morning to you. Throughout the 2016 cycle, progressives like Bernie Sanders and elizabeth wear republican made the case that healthcare should be a right that should be guaranteed, and amid that debate over the effort to replace and replace the Affordable Care act, democrats again made that case. Heres congressman john lewis from friday. I rise to oppose this bill. As the elected representatives, we have a mission, an obligation, and a mandate to fight for each and every american. I ask you, mr. Speaker, who will stand for the American People, who will speak up for those who have been left out and left behind. Mr. Speaker, ive said it time and time again, healthcare is a it is not a privilege reserved for a wlt eye few. Host other democrats making that case, heres senator harris of california on saturday after the failure of the republican plan to repale and replace the Affordable Care act. Yesterday she wrote the American People sent a powerful message to washington, healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Congressman scott, democrat from virginia, last week saying healthcare is a right, not a privilege. We have the Affordable Care act to thank for that. And then Bernie Sanders earlier this month, never lose sight of the fact that our ultimate goal is not just playing defense. Our goal is a medicare for all, single payer system. Heres a conservative talk show host on kid radio 590, he wrote in a column from over the weekend that rights typically are signals to the government that stay away, not to get more involved. In fact, the founders ar articulated our rights in order to protect them from an intrusive government. In better than hes world, the rights are andrens active, Clinical Services we can demand. The idea that healthcare is a right comes with so many questions it cant possibly be defended intellectually as a traditional right. Are all possible procedures under the banner part of that right . If not, who decides . What about Health Concerns that arise out of stupidity or poor dietary choices, which bureaucrats are designated to issue the list we have the right to which we do not. Isnt that giving that decision frightening . Lastly, if healthcare can be construe into a government right, why cant somebody why is food not a fundamental right . Should government provide groceries and cars to everyone . This can spin out of control very quickly. Another column, of course healthcare is not a right. We want to hear your thoughts. Phone lines are open for you. Well put the numbers on the screen. Richard, republican from kentucky, good morning. Caller of course healthcare is not a right. If you can pay for it, then thats fine. To those poor people who truly, truly need healthcare, they will be taken care of. But if you think youre going lay home, have babies, and then the rest of the country is supposed to pay for it, i mean, just how stupid do you think we really are . Now donald trump and his failure host can i stay on poor people will be taken care of . What is the system for that . Caller this has to do with that. Donald trump surrounded himself with a bunch of Establishment Republicans and they have led him wrong, and he went down in defeat. Paul ryan should be removed from his position. And he should take a hard look at what conservatives have to say. At leasts let them into the room to discuss the issues, but he wont do it. Host question for you this morning, is healthcare a right . Line for independents, jay is waiting, connecticut. Jay, good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead, sir. Caller i dont really believe ts a right. Seems to me that, like they say, isnt it in the constitution that you have a right for healthcare . And i dont know why they seem that kipping the fact this whole bill is a benefit for the upper class. He democrats didnt even expound on that particularly. I mean, and they put it in the bill like taxes is not money. Ts just kind of a thats something you can just give away. Host a few comments from our Facebook Page this morning. Steph writes, if healthcare is not, it should be. The other rights dont matter much when youre dead. Healthcare should be the life part of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Below that, gary writes in, its a stupid question. Everybody wants to be healthy. The question should be what form of government you want to regulate it. The democrats want a socialist government, the republicansment a Constitutional Republic government. Question for you this morning, is healthcare a right . Is it a right that should be guaranteed in this country . Line for democrats, republicans, independent this is morning. Well look for your tweets and facebook posts as well. Arizona, democrat, good morning. Caller good morning, world. The reason i describe it as world is everybody listens to your program. But let me try and be scientific about this discussion, all right . In algebra, we used to discuss the idea of factors and everything to do with government and the Peoples Health and calling something a right or not, calling it a right t. Has to do with factors. Look at some of the factors, ok . Were in a position where theres quite a few billionaires and people have a lot of money that can get very, very rich by rigging the market, lets say, on healthcare. You know, you buy into the idea of it, you should get richer and richer and richer, and somebody should get more poorer, and what i go around doing here in the arizona in the Southern Arizona area of tucson is i try to help people that are in dire need. Some of them have been through the military. Some of them are just, you know, bummed out of their life, and they have terrible life. But the factors are, the fact that the whole world is polluted. The fact that our mines are with a lot of angst. Lets use that term, angst. And the fact that one side has all the money and theyre buying the government, theyre buying the media. They own everything. And the democrats dont have enough money to actually run a Decent Campaign about anything. Maybe they have some money in some areas but we to get to the point of describing the constitution. Host do you think healthcare is a right something, that they can run an entire campaign on . Caller the constitution was actually written for the colonize theres needed to take over this land to promote their commerce. And thats the way it went. Some people got hurt, some people got rich. And its very, very unnatural for people to treat each theyre way. Civility has to do with trying to find a Comfort Level. I dont believe that this country is at any kind of a Comfort Level at all. Host all right. Thats robert in arizona. On twitter, only the most callous would say that healthcare is not a right, especially in a country with the resources that we have. One person writes in, shouldnt we have a right to food, housing and protection first . Go to eddie, line for republicans in new york. Eddie, good morning. Caller good morning to you. I think it should be a right to have healthcare. When drawing up the constitution and other documents, left a lot of it open because they knew in the future things would change. We cant be held to things that were written 1002, hundred years ago. Thats how i feel about healthcare. Were also one of the richest countries in the world. Everybody here should be taken care of as far as americans. Number two, the democrats and republicans, what kind of healthcare do they have . I bet you they dont have the same healthcare theyre giving to the people, which i think they should put a stop to. Its funny you can work between two to six years in any sort of position and have coverage the rest of your life. And the taxpayers have to flip that bill. I can keep on you the phone nor another hour. Host your point about members of congress, we had a member of congress on recently, its a dwhea comes up, she informed us that members of congress are required to buy their insurance through the Affordable Care act. They can pick their program through the a. C. A. So thats the member of congress plan. Lisa is in laurel, maryland, line for democrats. Lisa, good morning. Caller good morning. Absolutely it is a right. Ask your facebook person who wrote in, if youre dead, you have no other rights. So it makes sense that healthcare should be a right. And for your very first caller, the republican who called in and said if peoplement to lie around and have babies then its on them. But the republicans are the ones who want to take away a woman as right to choose whether or not she has a baby. So if you dont want to take care of the baby, let the woman decide whether or not she wants to have the baby. I get sick of hearing these republican men telling pem what to do with their bodies. Healthcare is a right for all. If a woman does not want to have a baby, she should not be made to have a baby that you dont want to take care of. Host so lisa, to neil larsons questions that he posed on this in his column that we read earlier, so who gets to decide what procedures are covered as part of that healthcare is a right guarantee . He poses breast august men television, nose job, sex change operations. Who gets to decide which one of those procedures are covered under this healthcare is a guarantee . Caller those are not healthcare procedures to me, when you have nose augmentation or breast augmentation. It is healthcare if u breast cancer. Its not healthcare if you just want bigger breasts. Thats on you. If its your life or not, then its healthcare. Its not healthcare if you just want to look better. Host all right. Lets go to ed in west virginia, independent. Ed, good morning. Caller good morning, yeah, you want the right to healthcare is a mighty big brush, because just like the lady before me said, breast implants, sex changes, that aint health. Healthcare is when you get pneumonia. Healthcare is when you have to go to the hospital because you ell off a ladder hit yourself. People with healthcare are the people, ill tell you who they are, im 82 years old and im blind. I live on 1,000 a month. People with healthcare are the people the people that go out and work for the minimum wage. They dont have no healthcare. People under minimum wage who dont work, they got medicaid. People who work for the government, operations and all that, they have got healthcare paid for by the corporations. But the little guy that goes , out re, works the line there in dennys and makes 10 an hour and they give him a little bit of healthcare, it aint much, but id even be willing to pay 8 of my income of 1,000 for healthcare. I did medicare, but my bills on the side are so expensive, i still cant help myself. So i think we ought to have healthcare for people that are youre people talking about not healthcare, people who just want to make themselves look a lot better when ear out on the road. Host thanks for the call from west virginia. In the daily beast, evan writes a column, a republican explains why healthcare is a right. As part of that column, he writes, like it or not, the passage of the Affordable Care act, obamacare, made Health Coverage for every american a right. Even speaker ryan admitted this when he stated its an entitlement program, as did senator bill cassidy, a republican of louisiana, who took this step further when he said the federal government established the right for every american to have healthcare. Yet some republicans still have not recognized that the debate has shifted from one over whether or not Health Coverage is a right to one about how to best provide Health Coverage for all while reducing costs. He saidist not helping the republican party. Americans of all beliefs and backgrounds do not react well when an established right is threatened with removal. Even the per stheapings a right is in jeopardy causes people to become very upset. If you want to read more from the column, its in the daily beast. George is in clarksville, tennessee, republican. George, good morning. Caller good morning to you. I do not believe healthcare is a right. Obviously its nowhere stated that it is. But if it is, how do you force people to become doctors . Obviously somebodys got to fulfill that right. How do you do that . Host youre saying if you do a single payer system, it will destroy the market for Health Professionals . Caller even if it isnt a single payer system, how do you force somebody to become a doctor, to fulfill somebody elses socalled right . What rights do they have if they dont want to become a doctor . Somebody has to do it. Host all right. Lets go to maryland in cambridge, massachusetts, line for democrats. Marilyn, good morning. Caller of course its a right. Its always been a right in every society, civilized or not so civilized. The ain gent egyptians fixed the bones of their slaves when they were hurt in an accident. Theres evidence of that. If youre a native American Indian before there were any white people here, you got to go to the medicine man. In the cave days, it would be a medicine woman or a medicine people have always had a right to go to somebody when they were sick, and you say you have a right to trash collection, do you have a right to clean water . I mean, you can say you dont have a right to trash llection, but there would be theyll pay if there were no trash or garbage collection, and if the water wasnt dependablely clean. Its just a stupid argument to say you dont have a right to healthcare. Of course you do. Im talking about people have always had to deal with sickness. 2349 old days it was contagious deals. People were nearly crazy trying to how to stop the plague, thousand stop all the contagious diseases that were killing people by the millions. So healthcare has always been a concern, and part of the society, civilized and not so civilized. So the stupid thing to say people dont have a right to healthcare, its ridiculous. Thats all i have to say about it. Host mary, this debate over whether or not healthcare is a right is described as a distraction by a spokesman for the Heritage Action for america. This is in the article in the Christian Science monitor this week. Ill show it to you. The article in the Christian Science monitor notes that the political debate thats been going on. Host cody is in arizona, an independent. Good morning. Caller good morning, john. I do believe that healthcare is a right, and i take it to the perspective of how we wrote our constitution. In it, there are three things it speaks about for the individual, life, liberty, and he pursuit of happiness. Now, is life not health . Is health not life . What we have to understand, in that is, at an early age as an infant, its essential that you have health. As a senior and you have all of this lifes knowledge that you an pass on for generations and into generations, health is critical. Host thanks for the call. John is in maryland, a democrat. John, good morning. Caller good morning. How are you, america . Thank god for cspan. Its a place that allows the American People to voice their opinion. First of all, america, i would like for you to think of this life health being a right. It is definitely a right. Let me explain a single system that we all are familiar with, the military. Thats a single payer system. We all pay taxes. The United States gives us protection. It doesnt matter your wealth, doesnt matter how poor you are. You have the right to be protected in america under the single payer system and the military, ok . Lets look at the healthcare system, ok . As it relation to the military, when the military needs assistance for outside of the military functions, they hire contractors to come in and do the work. If we do a single payer system like that, the thats similar to the healthcare system, where we pay through taxes or whatever other means, we pay into one system, where the United States is able to give us a card, where we can go to a hospital or agency thats affiliated with the single payer system and get health. I know there are some callers saying what about the welfare people sitting at home. Well, we can take some of the money from their welfare check to pay into the system. We can make it work. We can make it work. Were the United States of america. If we cut out some of these big businesses thats taking all of this money and turning it money into Something Else and an investment into other things, stop paying them, pay out government. Lets do a single payer system where everybody has healthcare and then we can move on. Host john, neil larsons question that he pose insist his column that we read earlier, if healthcare is considered a fundamental right thats guaranteed, what isnt . Do you think that could become a slippery slope . He poses things like mobility, should the government provide cars to everyone . Is mobility a guaranteed right, the ability to get to a job, to get around . Does it become a slippery slope . Caller not at all. Listen, you have people throwing stuff into the pot, of course theyre going to throwee nones things into the pot. Were talking about healthcare here, ok . A person walks into the hospital. Hes got a pain in his chest. What does that have to do with a car, ok . You got ambulances. The ambulance pick him up at the house, take him to the hospital. He has a car where he can get help f. A person goes to the hospital and they say, ok, youre 50 pounds overweight, if that person loses a few pounds, the next time they go back to the hospital, you get a rebate, ok . We can work things out to make it reasonable for everybody. We dont have to throw that you will extra stuff into the pot. Its justee erroneous. Just like the government pays 1,000 for a hammer, 50 for a pencil. These are things that we can look at and say we dont need to deal with that. We need to cut the price on this. We need to b