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Towards Achieving Lasting Healthcare Reform: Rethinking The American Social Contract, Fazal Khan

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The famous preamble to the United States Declaration of Independence reflects a concise and eloquent understanding of the Lockean social contract theory that underpinned the foundation of the original American government: that free people will naturally find it in their self-interest to leave the state of nature (and the tyranny of foreign rule) and join a society where a legitimate sovereign power and the rule of law protect the citizens' fundamental rights. As of the writing of this essay, a new decade approaches and both the U.S. Senate and House have passed historic healthcare reform bills. The two legislative bodies, …