Declaration of Health Care Independence

In order to retain the Blessings of Liberty as secured to us by our Founding Fathers and as expressed in our Constitution, We the People reject the imposition upon us of a new, Washington-controlled system of government-run health care. We demand Constitutional protection of the right to make our own health decisions and our own health care choices free of government denials, bureaucratic red tape and greater intergenerational debt.

A Washington takeover of American health care will:

• Deny fundamental personal and economic liberties and indisputably violate the Principle of Limited Government as established by the Constitution;
• Impose increased costs and taxes upon individuals, families and businesses, as well as taxpayers at the federal, state and local levels;
• Irreparably cripple the American economy, at the cost of jobs, businesses, productivity, and quality of life;
• Create an inescapable new tax by imposing individual and employer mandates;
• Institutionalize a massive, ever-expanding federal bureaucracy that is impersonal and impractical;
• Empower bureaucrats to interfere in the doctor-patient relationship, undermine the quality of care, limit choice, and increase the cost of health care.

We have appealed to the decency of the elected majority to respect the rights of all Americans, but their leaders have been deaf to the Voice of the People. We are appalled by their cavalier disregard of the Constitution and of the demands of the People. We are repulsed by their blatant political bribes and kickbacks.

We, the People and Representatives of the United States of America, therefore, do solemnly Publish and Declare that health care reform, as a matter of principle, must:

• Protect as inviolate the vital doctor-patient relationship;
• Reject any addition to the crushing national debt heaped upon all Americans;
• Improve, rather than diminish, the quality of care that Americans enjoy;
• Be negotiated publicly, transparently, with genuine accountability and oversight;
• Treat private citizens at least as well as political officials;
• Protect taxpayers from funding of abortion and abortion coverage;
• Reject all new mandates on patients, employers, individuals, or states;
• Prohibit expansion of taxpayer-funded health care to those unlawfully present in the United States;
• Guarantee Equal Protection under the law and the Constitution;
• Empower, rather than limit, an open and accessible marketplace of health care choice and opportunity.

This document was prepared by Rep. Michelle Bachmann and has been signed by at least 100 members of the Congress to date. If you agree with this Declaration of Health Care Independence, please let your elected officials know by adding your name to the petition.