What idea do I have to insure that all Americans will have high quality health care? I'm proposing to add a health care amendment to the U.S. Constitution!

Does it also have economic and employment implications? It would be a larger economic stimulus and job creation program than any health care program offered in Congress.

The proposed amendment is House Joint Resolution 30.

H. J. Res. 30, states:

Section 1. All citizens of the United States shall enjoy the right to health care of equal high quality.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to implement this article by appropriate legislation.

Constitutional amendments are broad statements of principle that establish a premise, a foundation and framework - or in this instance a right - upon which legislation must be built. Congress, through the laws it passes, and in the final analysis the court's interpretation of those laws, will define the amendment's meaning at any given time in American history.

In constitutional amendments, every idea, concept and word is important. So let's examine H.J. Res. 30.

1. Like the first ten amendments to the Constitution - the Bill of Rights - this amendment provides every American with an individual right.

2. It's an individual right that is universal - it applies to "all citizens" of the United States. It's the only absolute 100 percent solution to our health care dilemma and crisis! It's the only proposal that actually and in reality covers everyone and "leaves no American behind." No other plan, Democratic or Republican, guarantees that every American will have a right to high quality health care.

3. H.J. Res. 30 uses the terms "shall enjoy." That means it's a positive and affirmative individual right as well as a societal and governmental obligation. Most current amendments to the Constitution are legitimate limitations on the government and provide individual protection from the government. They tell you what government cannot do. Government can't interfere with your right to free speech, your right to peaceably assembly and protest, your right to privacy, and your right to engage in the religion of your choice or to choose to practice no religion at all.

4. H.J. Res. 30 puts "the right to health care" in the Constitution. It means the human and moral right to health care would become a legal right that can be realized through legislation and enforced in a court of law. The Constitution would be affirming that every individual American is entitled to health care - that health care, like free speech and freedom of religion, is a new American citizenship right.

5. The amendment says that every American is entitled to health care "of equal high quality." The amendment doesn't merely say "equal," because "equal" could lead to a "zero-sum" outcome - that is, lowering the highest standards and raising the lowest standards to meet in some amorphous middle. That would satisfy no one. The standard in this amendment is "equal high quality," which means that every American would be entitled to the best health care the American economy, the medical profession, and the health care system can provide. As the economy grows stronger and medical science advances, all of the American people would benefit - to the degree possible and on a continuous basis, and for as long as the country and the Constitution exist.

6. The second part of the amendment assigns Congress the power and the affirmative responsibility to write legislation that will provide every American with health care of equal high quality. Without the amendment, no member of Congress has a legal mandate to draft or fund universal health care legislation, and no court has a constitutional basis to enforce any comprehensive health care plan that is offered by Congress, whether Medical Savings Accounts, single-payer or something else.

How does one compare my proposed health care constitutional amendment with other member's health care plans?

I can support virtually all of the Democratic plans as a step in the right direction because they are an improvement, in varying degrees, over our current health care system - and certainly better than anything President Bush and the Republicans are offering.

However, virtually all of my colleagues are proposing plans that accept a "states' rights"-based health care system. There are 50 state health care programs (plus the District of Columbia), over 3,000 county programs, and countless other municipal programs operating through a system of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and nearly 1,000 different private insurance plans - all separate and unequal.

So how does one propose to provide every American with "equal protection under the law" in health care with such a separate and unequal system? Practically speaking, it can't be done. Even though a universal health care system should be locally based and controlled, it must meet a single high standard. That's the purpose of H.J. Res. 30 - to provide a universal right to health care and a standard of equal high quality.

All of the presidential candidates and all of my colleagues in the Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, are doing what I call "putting the cart before the horse." They are proposing health care plans without first establishing a health care premise. Each makes a health care legislative promise without first establishing a health care constitutional right.

As a result, some of my colleagues are proposing medical research as a way of meeting and improving America's health care needs, while others are proposing plans that would cover 97% of the American people. Only a few are proposing a single-payer plan that covers all Americans, but such a plan has no constitutional basis and, therefore, legally could be declared unconstitutional by conservative federal courts!

Who is offering the American people the biggest and newest idea? I believe I am! Virtually every plan offered so far by the President, the Democratic presidential candidates, and members of both parties in Congress would be declared unconstitutional and DOA (Dead On Arrival) under the constitutional right and standard set in H.J. Res. 30.

All politicians will tell you their eventual goal is to provide the best health care possible to all Americans. But if their goal is "the best health care possible for all Americans," isn't that tantamount to, or just another way of saying, that they essentially believe all Americans are entitled or have a right to such health care?

And if they don't believe that the best health care possible should be equally available to all Americans, let them explain who is to receive it and who is not? Furthermore, they should explain the criteria for receiving or not receiving it? If the goal is for "all Americans," wouldn't a health care amendment - or even the fight for it - speed up the day when all Americans would receive it?

Fighting for this constitutional right to health care is non-partisan. An individual health care right for all Americans is neither Democratic nor Republican.

Fighting for a constitutional right to health care is non-ideological. This individual health care right for all Americans is neither conservative nor liberal, neither left nor right.

Fighting for this individual constitutional right to health care is also non-programmatic. A health care constitutional amendment doesn't tell you how to achieve the right. Therefore, those in Congress who believe the right could be achieved through a Medical Savings Account could write their legislation around this amendment. Those who believe in a single-payer approach could write theirs. Still others might have different ideas and new approaches. But in a practical political sense, it might take some combination of all of the above to achieve the desired result and meet the constitutional standard.

But if Congress failed to provide such a plan, or the money to fully fund it, every American - unlike the current situation - would have a choice, a chance, and an option to go to federal court to have their individual right enforced or fulfilled. The American people would now have access to all three branches of government - the Executive, Legislative and Judicial - in seeking to assure that their health care needs are met.

Campaigns for President of the United States, the U.S. Senate and House would also be affected. Without the amendment, candidates can now espouse policies and propose plans that do not cover all Americans. With the amendment, candidates would be competing to offer better policies and pay for the best universal health care plan possible for all Americans.

Logically, legally and constitutionally the practical means - the policy and the plan for getting us there - is secondary to the end of equal high quality health care as a right for every American.

Even after acknowledging that there are primary and secondary questions, some still ask such secondary questions as, "If we add such an amendment to the Constitution, what will it cost the American people"? It's an interesting (and unanswerable) question - and one that utterly fails to understand the nature of constitutional amendments. It's like going back in time and asking the Founding Fathers, "What will the Bill of Rights cost?"

In fact, instead of costing money or jobs, the First Amendment (alone) has stimulated the economy by creating thousands of newspapers and magazines, thousands of radio, broadcast, cable, and satellite television stations and networks. It allowed for the creation of the internet and the book publishing industry - all of which adds economic stimulus, creates millions of jobs, and those workers pay taxes.

What has the First Amendment cost? It has allowed several major religions and hundreds of different denominations to exist and thrive in America - most of which build buildings, hire people and use a variety of goods and services - all of which contribute to the society and the economy.

The First Amendment also created an industry of constitutional scholars who teach, and lawyers who seek enforcement, clarification and interpretation of various dimensions of the First Amendment in our courts - all job creating endeavors.

The same would be true of a health care constitutional amendment!

There's also a related question: "Can we afford such a right"? Some respond, "Morally, we can't afford not to have such a right."

Let me try to combine both questions in my answer.

There is no question that our $11 trillion economy is the largest and strongest in the world. It dwarfs every other nation. On the other hand, we are the only industrialized democracy that doesn't have a national health care system for all of its citizens - other than the most expensive last resort of an emergency room. The only citizens who are legally guaranteed a right to health care are prisoners.

Additionally, we spend a lot more money on health care than any other nation, approximately 15 percent of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or about $1.7 trillion. With much smaller economies, Canada spends around 9 percent and other nation's significantly less - but they cover all of their citizens. It's why, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), we barely rank in the top 50 nations in the world (37th) in terms of meeting the health care needs of our people. In part, it's because about 25 percent of our health expenditures have nothing to do with providing health care. One-quarter of our private health dollars are spent on advertising, bureaucracy and other non-health-care-related activities - compared to 2-3 percent for Medicare. If we spent the same amount of money (currently $1.7 trillion or 15% of our GDP) more efficiently and effectively, and created a unique American health care system on the basis of H.J. Res. 30, we would have the greatest health care system ever constructed for all of the American people.

In short, we have the best health care system in the world for those who have the money to pay for it. But 44 million (and growing) Americans have no health insurance, and 49 million in the middle class are becoming dissatisfied with the health insurance they have, because it is growing ever more expensive even as it is providing fewer services and less care.

The truth is, health care is not a national priority, and our health care system is not efficiently or effectively organized.

Before 9/11, we were told we didn't have enough money for education, housing, Medicare, Medicaid, or to keep Social Security solvent. After 9/11, somehow, somewhere, the President and the Congress found billions to seek a caveman hiding in Afghanistan - and we still haven't found Osama bin Laden. We found billions more to bailout the airline industry and pay for airport security. We're now spending $5 billion a month to occupy Iraq and prop up a government in Afghanistan. President Bush found another $350 billion - on top of the $1.35 trillion he found in 2001 - to provide a tax cut to the richest Americans. And what is the result of this trickle-down economic stimulus? We've lost over three million jobs since President Bush took office!

By contrast, my proposed constitutional health care right would be the largest job creating proposal offered by any of the presidential candidates or anyone in Congress. It would have a huge positive impact on every sector of the economy and every class of worker.

A constitutional rights approach would repair and modernize aging hospitals, build thousands of new hospitals, rehabilitation centers, community health clinics, nursing homes, and hospice care facilities - which would mean jobs for bricklayers, plasters, carpenters, electricians, glaciers, roofers and brick masons.

We would have to equip these facilities with sophisticated medical equipment, beds, bedpans, tables, chairs, surgical gloves, sheets, pillows and much more - a huge boost in money and jobs for those businesses that produce and supply health care goods and services.

We would need to train thousands of health professionals, including doctors, nurses, paramedics, nurses' aids, home care workers and others who provide health care - not to mention the thousands of basic workers who scrub and wax the floors, clean the other public areas, cut the grass, shovel the snow, and in many other ways physically maintain our health facilities.

As a result of this health care amendment, we would create a surplus of health care and other professionals. Thus, instead of exporting wars and weapons of mass destruction - the U.S. sells one-half of all military weapons sold in the world - we would be exporting builders of hospitals, health administrators, doctors, nurses, medical care, and training indigenous people in other nations to become healing agents themselves.

An initial sizable public investment in organizing such a comprehensive and efficient national health care system would constitute a direct major boost to the economy through job creation, make us a healthier nation, directly contribute to a more productive work-force benefiting business and, in the long-term, indirectly reduce health care costs through prevention.

Thus, putting a new health care right in the Constitution would be morally, economically and physically beneficial to the nation. It would be a permanent and universal fix for the nation's health care needs, while at the same time aid in providing employment and economic stimulus, stability and security.

I urge the presidential candidates and my colleagues to join me in endorsing, co-sponsoring and advocating H.J. Res. 30.

I challenge the American people to contact their member of Congress and ask them to become a co-sponsor and advocate for H.J. Res. 30.

If President Bush and Republicans can support a "right to life" constitutional amendment to overturn Roe v. Wade; support a don't "desecrate the flag" amendment to overturn the First Amendment; support a "prayer in school" and "10 Commandments" amendment to eliminate the separation of church and state; hypocritically support a "balanced budget" amendment in the face of their deliberately created record deficits; support a "marriage amendment" to perpetuate discrimination against gays and lesbians and undermine equal protection under the law; and Charlton Heston can believe that the Second Amendment gives every American an individual right to a gun - all of which are used to politically stimulate their base voters; then Democrats can believe in and fight for an "individual right to health care" constitutional amendment - which will stimulate our base voters.

The vast majority of Americans don't support any of these Republican amendments. Republicans simply use them to motivate their base, as wedge issues to help win elections, and to divert public attention from the real issues of jobs, education, health care, housing and infrastructure decline. By contrast, the vast majority of Americans would actually support a health care constitutional amendment.

If Democrats fight for a health care amendment, those without health care, with inadequate health care, and those who want to build a more perfect Union - a majority, but many of whom aren't voting now - will come running to the polls to join and support us.