Congress says it might have a healthcare package by August. Obama has made it a top priority since his days on the campaign trail. The health industry seems to be “open” to a healthcare package, even if reluctantly.
So, where does your faith inform you on this issue?
So, my challenge to you this week is:
1) what is the “issue”? does it matter that the US doesn’t have a healthcare system? who is most affected by the current healthcare industry in the US? how do we compare to other systems, financially, but most importantly MORALLY?
2) what’s your Scripture? what are the Scriptures that you feel most powerfully sustain not so much your “argument”, but your “convictions” regarding this issue?
3) what’s another source? who is the theologian, philosopher, political scientist that deeply affects your view on this issue?
and lastly…
4) should the church care? should people of faith care? why?
Jesus healed people who couldn’t afford medical attention in his day. He also healed the prosperous. In fact, there’s no reference in any of the healing that he considered the person’s financial situation. He saw a need and took care of it.
Matthew 25 certainly points to caring for those less fortunate and providing for their well-being regardless of their ability to repay. The parable of the Good Samaritan is another example of caring for the medical needs of one who is unable to return the favor.
I don’t believe we have a “right” to affordable health care, but I think we have a moral obligation to provide it. Despite our current economic situation, America remains the richest nation in history and to have people dying because they can’t get the right treatment is difficult to fathom.
Arguments against funding health care generally spin around anti-government sentiments and accusations of socialism. Boil it down to the bone and you have people who simply do not want to give up any more of their stuff to help others. They have more than they need, but are unwilling to share beyond a certain point. For those who don’t know Christ, this is understandable. But it’s a different story for those who claim a relationship with Jesus and claim to be “called according to his purpose.” Everything we have is from God. He blesses us with material wealth so that we can be his distribution network here on Earth. He gives us more than we need so that we can spread the excess to others who have less than they need.
Should the church care? Yes. And the best way for the church to show it cares is to clearly and noticeably support programs that will spread help the fastest. Stop supporting politicians who preach greed and selfishness and start thinking of your possessions as if you were God’s agent – because you are.
I guess I would have to go back to, of all things, Matthew 25. Who do we as Americans and, more importantly, Disciples view as the least of these. Personally I see the uninsured, the poor, as the Least because that would be who Jesus cared for. Jesus healed out of a sense of compassion and care for his children and to glorify his Father in heaven so that the faith of those people and the people around them. He never asked for a co-payment, never bothered to see if their insurance covered that particular procedure, or wondered if what he was doing was simply a corrective procedure.
Of course, there are two sides to this issue. Jesus had his Pharisees who, after viewing the resurrection of Lazarus, wanted to kill Jesus because he was upsetting the status quo. If they were alive today, they would probably keep things the way they are, siding with the corporations instead of the people they were supposed to care for. Sadly, many of the Religious Right have gone along with making the healthcare industries and pharmaceutical companies richer at the expense of giving people life and dignity.
The church should care about this. If your church doesn’t believe that God still heals today, then what are you offering as an alternative. In abdicating our rightful place of the hands and feet of Jesus, we send our people to substandard healthcare facilities that charge exorbitant amounts of money and deliver worse care than 30 other civilized countries, then feebly respond, “We’ll be praying for you,” instead of anointing them with oil and praying for God’s mighty power to heal that person, as James taught us to.
As a side note, I’m still paying for my daughter’s delivery 8 years later! So you still think this healthcare system works?
As someone who works in healthcare (third party benefits administration) I can see the labyrinth of stuff that even people with health insurance have to negotiate in order to get care and get it covered. The longer I work in the industry (have been in over 10 years now)the more I am convinced that some type of national health insurance sysstem is required to adequately care for the health of our country’s citizens. I can’t imagine how it must be to not have health insurance, but it is bad
even for those who do have it. It seems the whole set up, insurance-wise, is more concerned with controlling costs (mostly of employers and insurance companies) than with insuring better coverage/better health.
I believe we have a moral societal obligation to insure health coverage. We as believers have a calling to be healers – following the example Christ set in his earthly ministry.
It is worth noting that the fiercest critics Christ had – and the ones he scathingly criticized in return -were the Pharisees, the religious conservatives of the day. The thing he pounded on most was hypocrisy. He was moved to anger because the religious leaders were cold-hearted about healing (the passage about the palsied man healed on the Sabbath).
Maybe we need to cultivate some righteous indignation these days in response to the (I believe) apparent hard-heartedness of the Religious Right, and call them out on the issue of caring for the less fortunate.?
A side note- isn’t it interesting that the very people who would never support the teaching of biological evolution (survival of the fittest) seem to have no problem with advocating views that seem to be social and economic darwinism – “I’ve got mine, if you don’t have yours it’s not my fault” ?
2 questions for the OP and commentors…
1) Does the 8th Commandment (Thou shall not steal) apply to governments?
2) Just who is Jesus talking about in Matthew 25 when he says “the least of these, my bretheren?
1) Stealing certainly applies to everyone.
2) In the context, he’s speaking to his disciples, followers at the time who were committed to a way of life, even if they often missed the point.
But does this change, fundamentally, the issue here?
For instance, you could simply believe that the government is just NOT a viable solution to care for people’s needs, and that individuals are the ones responsible.
I agree; I think the community of believers should take care of one another’s needs and help “the least of these.” However, no church program in the country compares to the sheer breadth of needs that the government covers.
Even if you’re middle-class and paying for college, receiving employer-covered insurance, and driving the streets of the suburbs, government is involved at some level. Often times, the levels are meant to protect some order in society, even at the cost of our aggravation.
Why shouldn’t these priviliges be afforded to those who aren’t listened to because they are not a valued class of people?
Furthermore, it really is a choice, whether to use our energies to make government smaller and therefore not responsible for dire needs or to use our energies to make government programs better, even if imperfect.
And I don’t fault you or anyone for choosing one way or another. I think we must surrender ourselves DAILY to Scripture and to the leading of the Spirit
On your second point, surely, just as several on the so-called “right” call on their representatives to make the moral judgments that seem right to them, you and I can agree that the same moral imperative can be applied in this case.
For those of us who think that fair access to healthcare for all people is a moral issue, then I find it within our right, and moreover, our CALLING, to hold our representatives accountable for moral failure. But many are called, as the Scripture goes.
Thanks for your comment.
oxford dictionary defines political as relating to the government or public affairs.
The first command of Christianity love God, self and neighbor. Government is concerned with neighbors that are not in my home.
We are concerned with loving them. Jesus loved his neighbors the way that his situation permitted and I will do the same. I agree with you that my method of seeking what is in the best interest of my neighbor will not be found verbatim in Bible. But then I am not God/Jesus who can die for sins but I can live to eradicate all things in me and in the world that are inimical to human existence- God loves the world enough to do something and hell (pardon my passion) so do I. Submitted in love