If Health Care Is a 'Right,' Obama is Violating It

White House press secretary Jay Carney insisted on Monday that health care is a “right,” not a “privilege.” That is a theme the Obama administration is sounding with increasing frequency as the rollout of Obamacare becomes a bigger policy and political disaster. No one bothers to point out where, exactly, the Constitution provides for a right to health care, or other socioeconomic rights long coveted by the left.

Those rights, however, are a double-edged sword. The example of South Africa’s Constitution–a major inspiration for the American left, including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the legal coterie around Obama–is instructive. The new South African government was proud of the right to health care, to housing, and so on–until the poor and the sick began suing for enforcement of those rights.

If health care really is a right, then the Obama administration is violating that right by forcing millions of Americans to lose their current insurance. According to some estimates, more Americans have lost their health insurance through Obamacare than have signed up for new (and, without subsidies, more expensive) plans. Obama might want to be more careful, lest he create grounds for new lawsuits to stop Obamacare.