Five Christian Considerations for Health-Care Reform

Actually, when the constitution was ratified, we gave over to the government the responsibility to protect our -existing- inalienable rights, and gave over the authority to use force in order to provide these protections. An individual didn't have a right to community resources before the ratification, and he didn't have them after. Rather, afterward, his private property and personal liberty were more secure. The governments role, as envisioned by the founding fathers, is as a protector of rights, not a provider of services. (Governments are instituted among men to preserve these inalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness) The constitution is not difficult reading - way easier than researching the truth about the health bill. We all need to know what it says, and what it means. The constitution was never intended to address or fix the painful and real injustices of capitalism.

Everyone that I know wants to help those in need with their medical needs. Others have helped me with my medical bills in the past. However, they did so willingly, without the government forcing them to do so. That is why I think the analogy to Acts 2 does not work in the health care debate. It is a non-sequitur to say, "because early Christians willingly shared with one another and those in need, the government can force everyone into a program to pay medical costs."

Also, we must not allow good intentions to justify an economically-flawed program. For example, those who support raising the minimum wage to $100 an hour might have compassionate motives to help the poor, but their plan would not help them in reality and many low-wage workers would lose their jobs under such a "compassionate" law. Pres. Obama's health care proposals, although well-intentioned, do not make sense economically. His plan will drive up costs, increase demand and reduce medical care for all, including the poor. Those who have enough money will fly to the Cayman Islands or Costa Rica or drive to Tijuana for car from the American doctors who flee the ineffective, bureaucratic system we might get from Congress. There are ways to set up an effective system, but it would mean that the Democrats in Congress would have to admit the massive flaws in their government-run proposals.

An Acts 2 model encourages private people to meet the needs of others, but not government coercion of everyone into one, ineffective system. If there is a need for government intervention, it needs to be done skillfully with cost incentives (like health savings accounts) and in a way that will effectively help others. The present proposal doesn't do that.

"Beginning with Acts 2, we see the earliest believers holding things in common, pooling resources, and selling off assets in order to meet the needs of the weakest among them. It was not about me and mine, but we and ours. In the perspective of that early faith community, my personal self-interest includes your well-being. They realized that we are deeply interconnected with one another. "

The question is: how do we coerce people into believing in the common good, especially libertarians, who believe their individual rights to property trump any regard to the common good? They would say that it's up to a person's free will, aka conscience, to be a Good Samaritan, but nobody should force them to do it. That's a great big hurdle in the debate.

I agree that Acts 2 does not necessarily mandate a government-run system of welfare, since the generosity and such was voluntary. It's been said before, but I'll repeat it. If the church won't step up with regard to helping the vulnerable and weak, then the state will end up doing it, and the results may well be less than pleasing.

That being said, yes it is true that we are all connected in some way. No reasonable person can argue that the current system isn't dysfunctional. One where the average cost per person is $8000/yr is not reasonable. The runner-up (IIRC Japan) has a cost that is half that. Yes, I believe everyone who works and/or is willing to work has a right to needed health care, and the current system is failing to deliver. Ultimately, insurance reform, no matter how it's set up, cannot end up reducing the overall costs by itself, but only spreads the cost among more/different people. Any reform that would work in the long run must address net costs, and I'm frankly scared that no current proposal seriously does that, dooming any "reform" to one more failure.

Actually, when the constitution was ratified, we gave over to the government the responsibility to protect our -existing- inalienable rights, and gave over the authority to use force in order to provide these protections. An individual didn't have a right to community resources before the ratification, and he didn't have them after. Rather, afterward, his private property and personal liberty were more secure. The governments role, as envisioned by the founding fathers, is as a protector of rights, not a provider of services. (Governments are instituted among men to preserve these inalienable rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness) The constitution is not difficult reading - way easier than researching the truth about the health bill. We all need to know what it says, and what it means. The constitution was never intended to address or fix the painful and real injustices of capitalism.

No, it was the anti-reform screechers at the town hall meetings who called President Obama a Nazi. It was the talking heads like Rush Limbaugh who called President Obama a Nazi. It was one of the anti-reform people who called health reform a Nazi plan when addressing pro-reform, Jewish Barney Frank. The screaming and yelling and name calling has been much, MUCH heavier on the right, no matter how you try to spin it.
The public option is just that, an OPTION. Why people continue to call it a government takeover of health care is beyond me.

I am sixty one years old and the coverage I had in my early twenties was much better and cheaper than what is availabe now. It was not a group plan either. The insurance covered so much more then, also. I was in the hospital for three days for tests. I didn't have to get up at five am to drive across town to the hospital and be poked and prodded and then, already sick, have to drive home again at the end of the day.

Everyone that I know wants to help those in need with their medical needs. Others have helped me with my medical bills in the past. However, they did so willingly, without the government forcing them to do so. That is why I think the analogy to Acts 2 does not work in the health care debate. It is a non-sequitur to say, "because early Christians willingly shared with one another and those in need, the government can force everyone into a program to pay medical costs."

Also, we must not allow good intentions to justify an economically-flawed program. For example, those who support raising the minimum wage to $100 an hour might have compassionate motives to help the poor, but their plan would not help them in reality and many low-wage workers would lose their jobs under such a "compassionate" law. Pres. Obama's health care proposals, although well-intentioned, do not make sense economically. His plan will drive up costs, increase demand and reduce medical care for all, including the poor. Those who have enough money will fly to the Cayman Islands or Costa Rica or drive to Tijuana for car from the American doctors who flee the ineffective, bureaucratic system we might get from Congress. There are ways to set up an effective system, but it would mean that the Democrats in Congress would have to admit the massive flaws in their government-run proposals.

An Acts 2 model encourages private people to meet the needs of others, but not government coercion of everyone into one, ineffective system. If there is a need for government intervention, it needs to be done skillfully with cost incentives (like health savings accounts) and in a way that will effectively help others. The present proposal doesn't do that.

"Beginning with Acts 2, we see the earliest believers holding things in common, pooling resources, and selling off assets in order to meet the needs of the weakest among them. It was not about me and mine, but we and ours. In the perspective of that early faith community, my personal self-interest includes your well-being. They realized that we are deeply interconnected with one another. "

The question is: how do we coerce people into believing in the common good, especially libertarians, who believe their individual rights to property trump any regard to the common good? They would say that it's up to a person's free will, aka conscience, to be a Good Samaritan, but nobody should force them to do it. That's a great big hurdle in the debate.

I agree that Acts 2 does not necessarily mandate a government-run system of welfare, since the generosity and such was voluntary. It's been said before, but I'll repeat it. If the church won't step up with regard to helping the vulnerable and weak, then the state will end up doing it, and the results may well be less than pleasing.

That being said, yes it is true that we are all connected in some way. No reasonable person can argue that the current system isn't dysfunctional. One where the average cost per person is $8000/yr is not reasonable. The runner-up (IIRC Japan) has a cost that is half that. Yes, I believe everyone who works and/or is willing to work has a right to needed health care, and the current system is failing to deliver. Ultimately, insurance reform, no matter how it's set up, cannot end up reducing the overall costs by itself, but only spreads the cost among more/different people. Any reform that would work in the long run must address net costs, and I'm frankly scared that no current proposal seriously does that, dooming any "reform" to one more failure.

Pastor Hay is clearly misinformed as to the problem with the heated debates. It was a congressman who advocates a public option who called protestors Nazi's. It was Nancy Pelosi and her cohorts on the left who called anyone opposed to their plan as un-American, mobsters, and thugs. It is clearly the one's on the side of Pastor Hay, who obviously supports a public option, who are the one's intolerant of the views of other people. He seems to imply that anyone with a different plan for health care reform (those opposed to a public option), are somewhat less than Christian.
I don't know of anyone who doesn't think we need some kind of reform. But there are many of us who don't advocate the socialist ideas of this writer.

No, it was the anti-reform screechers at the town hall meetings who called President Obama a Nazi. It was the talking heads like Rush Limbaugh who called President Obama a Nazi. It was one of the anti-reform people who called health reform a Nazi plan when addressing pro-reform, Jewish Barney Frank. The screaming and yelling and name calling has been much, MUCH heavier on the right, no matter how you try to spin it.
The public option is just that, an OPTION. Why people continue to call it a government takeover of health care is beyond me.

Minnesotan, I'm on the same page as you. I would venture a bit further, and say that the health care debate is on because Christians have not meet the needs of our brothers. I agree with you, Mr. Hay, that this is a moral imperative, and this debate is a call to action, but I disagree that it involves political activism. Christians (myself included) need to step up and work thru the Body, not Caesar.

The question is: how do we coerce people into believing in the common good, especially libertarians, who believe their individual rights to property trump any regard to the common good?

The problem here is the word "coerce." I'm for peaceful activity and mutual agreements. Individual property rights are very important in this debate because it is individuals who are made in God's image and deserve respect and due dignity. "Common good" is a great idea so long as it does not destroy dignity and ignore human value. Slavery could be justified as a "common good," but it devalued personal property-that is, the right of a slave to his own property: himself!

and how's that been working? not well for 40 some million people.

Minnesotan, I'm on the same page as you. I would venture a bit further, and say that the health care debate is on because Christians have not meet the needs of our brothers. I agree with you, Mr. Hay, that this is a moral imperative, and this debate is a call to action, but I disagree that it involves political activism. Christians (myself included) need to step up and work thru the Body, not Caesar.

Medicare and Medicaid may be broke as you put it, but Medicare got my father-in-law through 2 years of pancreatic cancer treatment without a problem and Medicaid help with the medical care for all our foster children and scores of people would be devastated without it.

Because we have more uninsured than ever before (employers dropping coverage, more "contract labor" excluded from benefits, more part timers, pre-existing conditions making insurance too expensive to buy, etc) those people will still need to go to a hospital eventually. That's why this situation is on a different scale than owning property. Health care is like education and police protection -- ESSENTIAL for "our welfare" -- and those words, my friend, are most definitely in our CONSTITUTION that our forefathers drew up for us.
Obesity is the #2 reason why Medicare isn't able to keep up with costs. In 1980, with a lower weight population, knee replacements were a rarity. Now they are the norm. That's just one of dozens of health issues. Our older populations are less healthy than they were in the 60's and 70s.
The people fighting this plan keep refering to things "we might get". Well, we might also get a plan that relieves the hospitals of having to worry about un-insured people causing them to raise rates by 70% each year. We might also get to a point where people don't have to file bancruptcy because of a bad heart.

But I know what WE WILLGET -- we will get out of a, for-profit entrapment that is currently dictating how many procedures we can have, what labs we can have run, how high our premiums will be - and worst of all --- they dictate EXACTLY which people will be - and won't be - allowed to have health insurance! Try that program out sometime --- that COULD be you one day! You have no guarantee that you can keep your current private health insurance. Lots of people who once thought that have discovered it's a myth.

My copays and deductibles are both much higher than they were 30 years ago. Before that, my aunts/uncles/grandparents/etc. didn't need insurance because the costs were doable for a one-income family with 9 kids.

The government interference in healthcare will not solve problems long term. Just like Social Security and Medicare this programs will suffer from not having enough financial resources, funded through tax dollars, to support the program and the inevitable cuts will come. A better solution is to allow faith-based and community-based health clinics to care for their own citizens within the community. Government grant funding could help these ministries and non-profits but these clinics are most effective when they are supported with local funds by individual contributors and local foundation grants.

In my work with Here-4-You Christian Grant Consulting I meet ministries striving to provide healthcare services, healthcare sharing programs, free clinics, pregnancy centers, and other health related organizations. It is predicted that these programs will be harmed or even shut down by "healthcare reform." The Christian and faith-based organizations are most concerned as to how new regulations may interfere with their missions.

The government interference in healthcare will not solve problems long term. Just like Social Security and Medicare this programs will suffer from not having enough financial resources, funded through tax dollars, to support the program and the inevitable cuts will come. A better solution is to allow faith-based and community-based health clinics to care for their own citizens within the community. Government grant funding could help these ministries and non-profits but these clinics are most effective when they are supported with local funds by individual contributors and local foundation grants.

In my work with Here-4-You Christian Grant Consulting I meet ministries striving to provide healthcare services, healthcare sharing programs, free clinics, pregnancy centers, and other health related organizations. It is predicted that these programs will be harmed or even shut down by "healthcare reform." The Christian and faith-based organizations are most concerned as to how new regulations may interfere with their missions.

Because we have more uninsured than ever before (employers dropping coverage, more "contract labor" excluded from benefits, more part timers, pre-existing conditions making insurance too expensive to buy, etc) those people will still need to go to a hospital eventually. That's why this situation is on a different scale than owning property. Health care is like education and police protection -- ESSENTIAL for "our welfare" -- and those words, my friend, are most definitely in our CONSTITUTION that our forefathers drew up for us.
Obesity is the #2 reason why Medicare isn't able to keep up with costs. In 1980, with a lower weight population, knee replacements were a rarity. Now they are the norm. That's just one of dozens of health issues. Our older populations are less healthy than they were in the 60's and 70s.
The people fighting this plan keep refering to things "we might get". Well, we might also get a plan that relieves the hospitals of having to worry about un-insured people causing them to raise rates by 70% each year. We might also get to a point where people don't have to file bancruptcy because of a bad heart.

But I know what WE WILLGET -- we will get out of a, for-profit entrapment that is currently dictating how many procedures we can have, what labs we can have run, how high our premiums will be - and worst of all --- they dictate EXACTLY which people will be - and won't be - allowed to have health insurance! Try that program out sometime --- that COULD be you one day! You have no guarantee that you can keep your current private health insurance. Lots of people who once thought that have discovered it's a myth.

lol. You need to better than that. Churches should be applauded for the efforts they make to care for the worse off in the world. But given it seems they're too busy with Africa, who will take care of American citizens without healthcare?

Incidentally, world-renown development economist Jeffrey Sachs reports that the USA provides a smaller proportion of its income in aid, even including private donations, to developing nations, than most of the rest of the Western world. How about supporting some government initiatives to provide some real aid to the world's dying and starving, instead of the pitiful private aid which is currently provided?

While I agree that an educated, healthy population is essential for prosperity, your reference to the Constitution is incorrect. It actually says "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare." That does not promise individual rights to success or a standard of living, but rather to promote the pursuit as such.