Comments for Three Moral Issues of Health Care »
Posted By scott4261 5 months, 3 weeks ago in ReligionGood health is the will of God for each and every one of his children. Death, disease, and pain did not exist in the Garden, and Revelation tells of a “new heaven and new earth,” where once again they will not exist. We live in a fallen world where injury and sickness are a fact of life. In fact International Classification of Disease now identifies 68,000 distinct diagnoses. Every year in our country there are about 119 million ER visits, up to 902 million doctor’s office visits, and about 3.5 billion prescriptions filled.
Perfect health will never be achieved and physical death on this earth will never be overcome, but the scriptures paint a clear picture that this was God’s intent from the beginning and will be the goal once again in the end. This means that on a personal, national, and global level the physical well-being of all God’s children is close to God’s heart and should be close to ours as well.
There is not a religious mandate or God-ordained system of health care or insurance. No amount of biblical exegesis or study will lead you to a policy conclusion on health care savings accounts, personal versus employer provided insurance, single payer public systems, or private insurance plans. Luke might have been a physician, but he still never commented on whether or not computerizing medical records should be a national priority.
These policy questions are still of vital importance and will be debated and discussed in the coming months at the White House, in Congress, in the press, and I hope in our churches. With an issue like health, deeply personal but of great public concern, I believe that the faith community has a unique and important role to play. That is, to define and raise the moral issues that lay just beneath the policy debate. There will be a lot of heat, maybe even a few fires, over the weeds of the policy, and the faith community has the opportunity to remind our political and national leaders about why these issues are so important - why they speak to our values....
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scott42615 months, 3 weeks ago
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I have read many comments from those who claim to be Christian who simply cannot wrap their minds around a universal health care system. They use words like "socialism" and terms like "socialized medicine" to dismiss it as un-American or even un-Christian....but is it?
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This article is excellent opinion from the "religious left" on health care reform. As an Episcopalian, I fully embrace Jim Wallis's view here...as I am sure do many Catholics and other Christians who may not be so liberal on all issues.
My God would not want any of his children to be without basic shelter, go hungry, or to be denied basic health care... This, I believe to my core. So if we are going to debate this, let's not frame in a left-right paradigm. Rather, lets frame it as a moral imperative. This is really about right vs. wrong, in my view...-
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Goppy5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Thank you for posting this, scott4261.
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Health Care for our very own citizens is one of the defining issues that exactly points to the fact that Modern Christian Conservatives are NOT true Christians.
They can ONLY be described as a Hardline Right Wing Political PAC.
Charity for the Sick was one of Jesus' defining missions ... as was Compassion ... But the modern Christian Conservative fights AGAINST Compassion ... choosing rather ... to fight the political fight.
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How can anyone believe that Red State Christian churches are simply Republican Registration centers?
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libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned2 Replies
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Georgia505 months, 3 weeks ago
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Scott,
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I believe that mixing ideology and religious or spiritual values is a path best not taken. Since when is government the arbiter of health care or promoters of government health care the arbiters of Christian values?
For the past 3 centuries, Christian missionaries--often at their own expense and peril--have traveled the globe to bring food, medicine, shelter, and custom-made written languages to the world's forgotten in far off places. In the 1700s and 1800s, British missionaries shipped off with their belongings packed in a wooden casket. They knew how they were going to return to Britain; they just didn't know when.
NOW they (read: we) are to be lectured to? NOW someone comes along, deigns to solve the problem--as they define it--with someone else's money, and because they claim the moral high ground, we're obliged to listen? And not only that, but Christ's name is enlisted in this effort to provide universal mediocrity in the name of compassion.
Christianity wrote the book on the provision of life-saving health care to those who not only couldn't afford it, but who lived in societies and cultures that never heard of it. So for starters, let's keep the horse in front of the cart where it belongs.
Secondly, if we're going to invoke biblical themes, let's go all out and quote the bible. I know...let's play I QUOTE-YOU QUOTE. I'll go first.
"If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." Mt. 18:8, 9
From this text, we see with absolute clarity how Christ prioritized between physical and spiritual health, and between well-being in this life as opposed to the next. As I see it, any confusion on this matter would have to be intentional or the result of bona fide spiritual blindness.-
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willottica5 months, 3 weeks ago
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How is that quote in any way relevant. We're not discussing physical OR spiritual health. The two are not mutually exclusive, therefore to say that Christ didn't value physical health is ridiculous. We're talking about physical health. Providing it for all will not result in a decay of spiritual health. (In fact, it might result in BETTER spiritual health, because fewer will wonder how God abandons them to unpayable medical procedures and bills.)
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Dionys5 months, 3 weeks ago
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"For the past 3 centuries, Christian missionaries--often at their own expense and peril--have traveled the globe to bring food, medicine, shelter, and custom-made written languages to the world's forgotten in far off places. In the 1700s and 1800s"
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You're right. They did great with the Native Americans, didn't they. Well.. At least after they killed off 90% of them. Well.. Maybe not then.
"NOW they (read: we) are to be lectured to? NOW someone comes along, deigns to solve the problem--as they define it--with someone else's money, and because they claim the moral high ground, we're obliged to listen? And not only that, but Christ's name is enlisted in this effort to provide universal mediocrity in the name of compassion."
Maybe Christ's name should be enlisted to provide healthcare and food to all in the name of compassion.
"Mt. 18:8, 9"
Interesting how you take it out of context. Matthew 18:1-14 is about 'Big people and little people' in the Matthean community. Matthew 18:6-7 (which you conveniently left out) is specifically about how the 'little people' in the community are far from being dispensible and are the ones to be "shown the greatest consideration, and that without condescension" (NIB Commentary -- Abingdon Press 375). One should "live one's own life of discipleship in such a way that no stumbling block is placed in the way of the weaker members of the community" (IBID).
We are told that we will encounter stumbling blocks, but that "the more mature members cannot use this as an excuse for their own lack of care for the little people of the community" (IBID).
The portion you quoted, 18:8-9 is a return to 5:29-30 and a call for the "most radical measures to be taken against lust in one's own life" only instead of being applied to disciplining the sex drive, here the measures are to be taken against "the drive to power" (IBID). In 18:8-9 we see the drive towards power makes one into a predator against others and "threatens to dominate one's existence, becoming a threat not only to oneself but to the faith of others and the life of the community" (IBID).
It has nothing to do with prioritizing between physical and spiritual health. It has to do with caring for the weaker people in community and sacrificing one's own lust for power for the bettering of the community.
This is all from the New Interpreter's Bible Commentary, Volume VIII. So there's no confusion on this matter on the part of Biblical scholars, exegetes or preachers. It seems like the "spiritual blindness" you're speaking of is more projection than anything else.
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Candida5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Finally someone is dealing with the fundamental issue of what kind of society Americans want to have. That is the basic issue that has to be decided. Do Americans want a society where some live in luxury and have every minor ailment attended to while other can die as a result of lack of medical care. Does Americans want to take care of all their fellow citizens?
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The rest, like whether it should be a single payer or competitive system, what kind of wait times are acceptable, how much the society is willing to spend on health care, and how the costs should be distributed are details that can be worked out once Americans decide whether they are their brothers' keepers.-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned8 Replies
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AnteUp5 months, 3 weeks ago
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FTA: An estimated 60 percent of bankruptcies this year will be due to medical bills. Seventy-five percent of those declaring bankruptcy as a result of medical bills HAVE health insurance.
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The insurance that those 75% have - is that the GOOD insurance
that they will leave if there is a public option? I think not.
I have heard that Americans are HAPPY with their health coverage. If that were really true, then why would they leave
something that is meeting their needs? My guess is that if
they were to leave their present insurer for a public plan -
if it gets passed - it would be because it was always less a case of being truly satisfied - and more like it was better than nothing.
Nice find, Scott. Hope more will join the discussion.-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned2 Replies
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calitennflo5 months, 3 weeks ago
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We...that are intelligent...do not need money....
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Money...puts a man on his knees...worshiping the wrong things as a focus. When man should be focused without all the distracting things. Especially managing money.
Health comes in two forms...the psychic and the physical...they both combine to result the psychosomatical conclusions we see and feel each moment of our lives.
Life is not a complicated affair...it is one with this government called the united states, as it now does not accept what is dictated by nature, as our founders once declared...it became the Beast and the anti-Christ.
Do not vote for either a Democrat or a Republican. Vote only for those who admit what money is...and that they will remove it from out sight. Using money is part of what causes sickness...and it's due to it's diminishing nature. Physics!-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply
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antibrainwasher5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Who would baby jesus deny health coverage?
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Would jesus support the insurance monopoly run health care system where you pay and pay each month, then are denied coverage when you need it, or cant change jobs because you are afraid of loosing it? Is this make the rich richer, make the insurance execs richer system what baby jesus was all about there in palistine, being tortured to death by the totalitarian government?-
libsRfunnyComment removed: Hard Banned1 Reply
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antibrainwasher5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Hey Libs, matter of fact I not only am an american, I can almost guarantee you I pay much more taxes than you. I understand the health care system, its a Insurance Monopoly, the thing Obama is trying to end. Of course, you would think anything that requires the rich to relinquish one dime of power or their billions is unamerican, that's the one and only principle you have, as is true for all lockstepping morons.
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Insurance monopoly health care does not work, just ask GM, one of the main factors killing all manufacturing in this country is health care. Conservatives want to conserve power and money in the hands that already have them, the monopoly of insurance to decide health care while enriching them and similtaneously bankrupting the country is just the kind of basarkward casino capatilist thinking that is shouted on the only channel you watch, Murdock anti-american billionaire noise.-
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amazed5 months, 3 weeks ago
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I believe that a better way to vanquish the health insurance monopoly is to repeal McCarran-Ferguson rather than replacing it with another monopoly that is run by the gov't.
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Eliminate the requirement foisted upon us by the insurance companies (probably in collusion with big businesses) that make anyone who is not a "bonafide full-time employee" of your company ineligible to be a part of your plan.
Require larger companies of a certain size (we can argue the details) to either demonstrate that at least 90% of ALL of their employees have insurance coverage -- either through the company or the spouse's company -- or face an additional payroll tax (on the employer) for the average amount of the premiums in their area and a payroll tax (not income) tax credit for smaller employers (again we'll argue about the details later) who do provide health care.
I would like to see something along this line implemented before we spend, literally, trillions of dollars on a system that has had limited and spotty success in many other countries
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TechnologyExpert5 months, 3 weeks ago
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A few things:
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a) Compare the life expectancy and infant mortality rate of Canada vs. the US. It used to be about the same as ours. Since they got single-payer, ahem ... need I say more?
b) I applaud this post. As Michael Moore said so succinctly, why should the bottom line determine who lives or dies?
c) We are the only industrialized nation w/out some form of Universal Health Care. Is it because we are right and EVERYONE ELSE is wrong? Doubtful.
d) Just look at Cuba's lifespan. A 3rd world country, yet they are right on our heels. They have universal health care.-
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mesodude5 months, 3 weeks ago
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I just find it sad that people who probably don't have passports are slamming other nations they've never been to over healthcare but they're perfectly willing to be like other countries when it comes to promoting torture and creating pollution. Amazing. ;-(
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DarkWizard5 months, 3 weeks ago
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I appreciate the intent of this article, but find it hard to believe that the "moral" perspective will effectively dent a system that is morally bankrupt and seeks every legal avenue to bypass any ethical practices which are not driven by profit margins.
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As implied in this article, the lobbyists will be flocking in droves to every Senator and Representative to convince them that changing the health care system is more evil than letting it be.
18,000 deaths per year, on an average, is perfectly acceptable to those that worship the dollar and have locked their consciousness away in the recesses of their minds.
60% of bankruptcies being caused by medical hardships is also perfectly acceptable while government officials are guaranteed a health plan that blinds them from the ills of others.
The amount of money that insurance companies and medical institutes will pour into stopping any change in the health care system is a paper monument to the corruption that permeates, not only through the health care system, but through Congress. -
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dunkirk5 months, 3 weeks ago
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Yeah we dont need none of that universal health care. We have them insurance clerks deciding who gets what treatment and not wasting the time of them high priced doctors who can be out golfing.
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ROFLMAO, we rate 37th in health care for our citizens, this is something the right seems intent on preserving and in fact making worse. The best care provided? Countries with some form of socialized medicine but then again the right has shown repeatedly that facts dont mean nuthin, -
moonstream1Comment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned1 Reply
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