A while back I wrote a blog post in which I asked my readers to imagine how Jesus would have treated people who came to him to be cured if he operated like a Health Insurance Company (See "If Jesus were a Health Insurance CEO." I think that the question of religious faith and universal health care is an important one.On that note, I am going to refer the reader to two pieces from the Washington Post "On Faith Panel"
First, Jim Wallis explains the rules for Health Care found in Leviticus, the basic idea was that everyone in Israel must have health care whether they could afford it or not.
See Wallis' piece here
Second, Aana Marie Vigen argues that anyone who follows Jesus is committed to making sure that all people have access to health care. In other words, Health care is a right. Furthermore, Vigen argues that a strong public option is the best way currently under discussion to ensure the christian duty to provide affordable and universal coverage.
See Vigen's piece here
I confess that I cannot understand how anyone could claim to be a follower of Jesus and think it is acceptable to live in a world where anyone is denied care, or even in a world where people regularly fall into debt and go bankrupt because of their medical bills. This seems utterly wrong for those who follow a man who preached "good news to the poor" and spent all his time healing the sick (without asking for a premium by the way).
As for the public option? A public option is a proposal that if passed would simply be a government funded insurance option that would force private insurance companies to provide better coverage at lower costs. The CBO estimates that no more than 12 million people would enroll in said public option. The bills that include have crafted in a way that it can't have an unfair advantage over private plans, and public plans work well in other countries and even in our own (Medicare) without any of the horrors that its opponents fear. Nor is it too expensive, simply reversing the Bush tax cuts, or cutting unnecessary subsidies by medicare to private insurance companies, or curbing unnecessary military spending, or not invading another country like Iraq, would provide far more than enough money to pay for the change. All a public plan will do is cut costs, and improve quality of care.
And people who follow the healer from Nazareth oppose this?!
I'm not particularly religious, so I don't find it at all unusual for religious zealots to do or say most anything, including take positions on issues, such as health care, that seem to fly in the face of their professed faith. I'm cynical of course, so please excuse me for that.
ReplyDeleteI don't find it unusual either. I think, however, that it is important to point out that they are contradictory. Of course, if you read studies of the Historical Jesus, or even just read the gospels .. it's not hard to see that much of Christian action in history is not only different from Jesus, but totally the opposite of Jesus
ReplyDeleteHow far do we take our affinity to Christ? We lambast the "religious zealots" for being anti-abortion, but then presuppose to tell them how they ought to feel on health care. Our record of protection of life, I think, isn't very strong.
ReplyDeleteMost of my religious friends are very empathetic to the poor and uninsured. Setting their position as anti-government care = anti-health care is a fallacy. All want reform and better coverage; almost all of them see BETTER ways of doing it than a federal mandate. When one sees a better way of providing this moral imperative, should not one stick to those guns?
Thanks for the link to Aana Marie Vigen's cogent article. The hope for a health care "government plan" is waning. However, I hope that the likely outright defeat of a "government plan" or at best the unhappy compromise that may still be possible will activate the "religious left" to come out of its lethargy. The "Forty Days to Health Care Reform" is a start. As I suggested on my recent blog (Theory and Practice of Religious Studies), I believe that the "religious left" has been distracted by sex politics. It has been self-absorbed in the obsession with extending the privileges of its professional class (its clergy) and has overlooked the larger issues of justice and mercy for the masses in the US and the world. The nation is looking to the Democratic Party for leadership to bring us out of the mess caused by Reaganism. If it does not deliver on genuine health care reform, many like me will look elsewhere for action on our nation's problems. Likewise, if liberal Christianity does not stand up and fight effectively for health care reform, I and many others will see how irrelevant to the daily concerns of ordinary Americans that it really is. Ross Aden
ReplyDeleteThanks Ross,
ReplyDeleteThere is an interesting post by John Dominic Crossan that makes the same point you do:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/john_dominic_crossan/2008/12/gay_marriage_another_devilish.html
You wrote,
"The nation is looking to the Democratic Party for leadership to bring us out of the mess caused by Reaganism. If it does not deliver on genuine health care reform, many like me will look elsewhere for action on our nation's problems. Likewise, if liberal Christianity does not stand up and fight effectively for health care reform, I and many others will see how irrelevant to the daily concerns of ordinary Americans that it really is."
I agree with you entirely!