Posted on 09/16/2009 1:25:32 AM PDT by fabrizio
Concerns to take to heart in health care and proposed reforms
"The overwhelming preoccupation of our national political government and consequently of the captive media is the vexed and vexing question of health care reform. It is almost impossible to get reliable consistent figures as to the number of people who lack health care coverage in the United States. Each advocacy group inflates or minimizes the numbers to suit each group’s respective fantasies. If, for instance, the number of people who actually, at this moment, lack health care is estimated from a low of 18 million to a high of around 50 million, the difference is considerable (from about 6 percent of the population up to around 16 percent — a vast range).
One analyst breaks down the 50 million figure into about three equal groups:
1. Those who do not want any health care but would rather have whatever the employer spends on health care given to them in wages;
2. Those who because of changes of employment or medical condition are disqualified from the coverage they formerly had; and
3. Those who have no hope of getting adequate health care (children whose parents do not or cannot provide it for them).
[...]As Catholic people, however, we are not allowed to wash our hands of it and to let things shake out as the federal government would have it. Our more than bicentennial experience with our federal government leads many to the conclusion that our government really does only one thing well: waging war. In every other area of life, when someone says, “I am from the government and I am here to help you,” our survival instinct tells us to run and hide.
[...]I would suggest, after many who have approached the problem from a Catholic’s perspective, that there are certain Catholic social principles that any countrywide health care provision must satisfy.
1. The first is the dignity of every human person. Whatever we do we must respect all human life from conception to natural death. We do have a collective duty to provide access, affordability and quality of care for all citizens because they are human beings. This of course includes personal responsibility for our own health care.
2. The second principle is that any such plan must manifest a commitment to the common good. This demands prudent use of resources and ethically and economically sound market-oriented reforms. Pope Benedict has stressed the common good as one of the “motors” of all just human society and it is no less true in health care than in any other area.
3. The third principle is solidarity. This social justice principle requires us to hold that health care reform proposals will address the needs of the poor and vulnerable, which include those suffering from chronic disease. The Scriptural warrant for this is found in St. Matthew’s Gospel in the 25th Chapter in the terrifying scene of the last judgment, when the king will ask each of us: “What did you do for the least of these?”
4. The fourth principle is subsidiarity which commands us to seek the most effective approach to solving the problem. Our federal bureaucracy is a vast wasteland strewn with the carcasses of absurd federal programs which proved infinitely worse than the problems they were established to correct. It perhaps is too extreme to say that competent government is an oxymoron, but sometimes it seems that way. The moral principal of subsidiarity implies decreasing the role of government and employers in health care when lower order groups can better serve individuals and families. We need to think of health care as more of a market than a system. The Catholic Medical Association has warned that: “The clear historical experience in the United States assures that a unitary, or a single payer, system of health care financing and administration would profoundly subvert the sanctity of human life” (from the Association’s publication, “Health Care in America: A Catholic Proposal for Renewal” in Linacre Quarterly, 2004, available at www.cathmed.org/publications/health%20CARE.pdf).
It was observed by the ancients that usually the problem with totalitarian governments is not that they do not love their people; the problem seems to be that they love them too much — they just do not trust them. To establish control, these governments have always tried to control food. Remember why Jacob’s sons went down to Egypt in the Book of Exodus. But since homo sapiens is an omnivore, this proves increasingly difficult. Modern socialist governments like to control not food but the means to protect and extend life. Some have called the current efforts of our federal government “senioricide” or “infanticide.” That perhaps is too severe, but we as Catholics should take care that health care does not morph into life control.
Wonderful post by the Bishop.
The healthcare and other Obama agenda issues are on the back of an Icarus heading to the Sun as we watch and debate their nature. In the meanwhile, back on the ground, Karl Denninger speaks directly with todays’ video on what is of primary importance. Namely, the financial collapse of the US as we are entertained or repulsed by the Ob dog and pony show of socialist dreams.
The Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1VbGcaVvFM&feature=player_embedded
The issues could not have been articulated better. We are blessed to have Bishops who understand what is really at stake in Obamacare.
Excellent words! Thanks for posting.
Incredible.
Doesn’t the bishop know that Jesus preached a gospel of niceness? And that federally-run healthcare seems like a nice thing to do, especially for the poor? So therefore, Jesus commands us to have Obamacare.
No. Instead of thinking things through, the bishop gives us a bunch of superficial right-wing slogans.
1) Affordability. The ability to provide healthcare coverage to whatever millions of people you deem need the coverage. If you have to spend borrowed money or establish new taxes to cover the people, if you borrow the money you are putting that burden on future generations, if you tax the people you are taking money they could use for other reasons such as charity, or housing, food or clothing that they cannot now use for those needs.
2) Another is that of slavery. If you mandate that physicians and nurses provide care for others at government mandated rates, you essentially are usurping the time and talent of others for the needs you determine are important.
As an RN I work in health insurance with a focus on medical economics which is my area of expertise and specialty. I like this work. If they nationalize the healthcare industry I will likely lose my job and the only employment I'll likely find will be in the healthcare setting. I'm getting too old to be getting people in and out of beds and working shifts. But what choice am I going to have?
Seconded. A wonderful letter.
They think that it is money food, health, shelter, etc. and so they bow down before it.
Money is just a medium of exchange. It is a facilitator of the transference of information. It cannot provide health care (or food or shelter or anything else).
Money is quite useful if it is trusted but once people stop trusting the information contained in the money, it becomes useless.
Gee! That was a lot of words.
I have a suggestion. Christians should help the poor personally.
I find it fascinating that the Catholic Bishop has noted the LARGE NUMBER (even considering the lowest figure of 18 million) of those without healthcare insurance, and yet makes NO positive suggests or offers NO resourceful plan to deal with the problem. Rather he makes a blanket statement about the government making an “absolute mess” out things. Question: Does he feel that our police, fire, road crews provided as a public good by the government is a mess? I would respectfully disagree. Does he believe LIHEAP (program enacted by the CONGRESS (BIPARTISAN BILL PASSED BY YES, OUR GOVERNMENT!) and/or the Family Leave Bill is a mess that the government has perpetrated. Really, when one discusses topics in terms of the absolute as in “absolute mess” a deeply ingrained bias that may not even be conscious is showing through. How sad that one who has so much influence thinks so irrationally. I was educated by my schools to act morally, think freely and measure my words. I challenge him to reconsider his position and his words.
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