A Few Thoughts about Health Care

Even as I type, the Supreme Court is discussing the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (derided as “Obamacare”) and whether or not the United State’s most extensive foray into national coverage is constitutionally defensible. This is a fascinating happening – the High Court spending an unprecedented amount of time deliberating on an issue of critical import to a sitting U.S. President (his accomplishments, his future…) in an election year. You could hardly write a better storyline! But there’s more than the intrigue of a complex partisan politics. The “more” is the actual politics, which is to say, the people (“politics,” from “polis” = “people”).
In all of our nation’s difficult issues, from gay rights to gun rights, from immigration to war to health care, “the people” get lost in the shuffle. We argue partisanship, mostly fighting for votes, and the politics (the actual people) get lost in the dust. So it is with the great healthcare debate.
The basic issue the health of America’s people. 50 million Americans are now estimated to have no coverage. Imagine how you would feel. Our family rarely uses a dime of our insurance, thank God for good health, but I’m not sure I could sleep without it (mostly concerned for my children). The issue isn’t who’s going to pay for it. The issue is people. The health of people is the issue. Don’t we care? Shouldn’t we care – especially about the “last and the least”? We’ll get to the money in a minute – but the issue is people.
“In the days ahead, we will be called upon often to take the age-old moral test of a society – the test which measures how we treat those in the dawn of life – the children; those in the twilight of life – the elderly; and those in the shadow of life – the sick, the needy, and the differently-abled” (www.faithfulreform.org). The age-old moral test. Though we are the most prosperous nation in human history, in so many ways the most successful and advanced, I’m not sure the U.S. is passing the moral test. Are we? Over one percent of our total population is now in prison, and 50 million (15%) are not protected from crippling catastrophe, because they have no health insurance – mostly because they cannot afford it, and many of these are among the “last and the least” in our society (who could also least afford it, should a tragedy strike).
The argument is made by some that health care is a privilege – not a right – and I could not agree more! The sad thing for me is that we live in a country which has the ability and the means to provide this privilege to all – we just don’t have the compassion or the moral conviction to do so. (Even if the Supreme Court leaves the law in tact, we’re far from embracing universal care.)
Now, if you need a financial incentive, and it seems that we do, for everything (does it always have to be about the money?), let’s be reminded that we actually do have “universal coverage” in this country. Thank God we are at least compassionate enough to turn no one away from the Emergency Room. But what that means is that we’re paying ER prices to treat lots of un-insured cases of the common cold. What a bargain. The idea of universal coverage was actually a conservative proposal – because it made more sense, financially, to provide coverage to all, since the taxpayers were going to end up paying the bill (for all) anyway
If you’re Republican and fuming over my words, please don’t. Nothing I write is about partisan politics. Read David Brooks’ excellent Op Ed in today’s Observer. The conservative commentator says “universal coverage” is very valid – he just doesn’t like the way we’re going about it. Now, that’s the argument – not whether the richest nation in the world can care for our citizens, just how is the most effective way for us to do so. The bottom line for people of Christian faith is that we ought to have the moral compunction and Christ’s compassion (who healed the sick) to WANT to do so. The issue is people.
For my part, I hope “Obamacare” stays – and I will pray for Republicans and Democrats (and even Ron Paul!) that our leaders will learn to work together – and work out the best way for us to take of the “least of these” around us. It’s about people.