Federal Role in Health Insurance? No! Use Constitutional Methods

These words of J. Reuben Clark, former Undersecretary of State, Ambassador to Mexico, and prominent leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, spoken in 1935, remain pertinent in today’s current debate over the Health Care Issue. Consider:

I am convinced that the problem of relief for the unemployed and the care of the maimed, decrepit, and old, will equally yield to solution by constitutional methods. Over-reaching of Constitutional functions and Constitutional powers are not necessary. As a principle, and as a practice, the Federal Government should not undertake the solution of these problems and the meeting of the needs incident thereto. These burdens should be left where they now legally rest–with the local State government. Speaking generally, there is no major area community of which I am aware, where to allow the burden so to rest would be either unequitable or impossible.