Absent is anything about that one way or the other. That equality changes is your interpretation by putting something in there that isn't there.
It says nothing about people remaining equal in all aspects of their lives. True. Rather shortsighted in some respects as those were days of slavery and indentured servants and later exploitation in the mills of New England and crowded cities of new immigrants seeking a better life which they could not have foreseen.
It says nothing about people remaining economically equal throughout their lives, nor was that thought even meant to be. Freedom allows people to improve their lives, and it is not the government's role to stop that to make everyone remain equal.
True, and there's the rub. Does that absolve us of our moral obligation to love our neighbor as ourselves and do what is within our power to ensure that they are paid a living wage and have timely access to affordable healthcare, the same we want for ourselves? Or is it better to expect the poor to go to substandard clinics who have waiting lists while the lucky insured go first class?
Does it give us carte blanche to trample on the downtrodden and poor and as long as we have above-subsistence employment and adequate medical coverage for ourselves and loved ones or in the name of profits?
"The Wall Street Journal led its Sept. 30 issue with a well-reported article about how the retailing giant controls health-care costs. "Wal-Mart makes new hourly workers wait six months to sign up for its benefits plan and doesn't cover retirees at all." It won't pay for flu shots, child vaccinations, or [contraception] (don't personally endorse employer-paid contraception), which many other firms cover. By keeping deductibles high, Wal-Mart manages to spend 30 percent less per employee on health care than its competitors. And because so many companies try to benchmark their costs to Wal-Mart, its penny-pinching ways could lead to a spiral of declining benefits for all retail workers."
http://slate.msn.com/id/2089532/
I'll try to track down the article, but this thread may be dead by the time I get ahold of it. In any case, I can't post the entire article.
And in the interest of fairness, some retiree's probably don't need health care because they already have it or are on medicare and, for others, spouses provide their coverage, but there are some who fall through the cracks.
If it is true that policies are driving health costs up, it behooves us to take a closer look or we may get universal healthcare shoved down our throats whether we want it or not.