How moral is it to create a healthcare system in which the sickest patients, no matter their income, are not tended to? Everyone in the nation will agree that we should help as many people as we can and that there should be realistic limits on how much is spent on a single patient. So why did “progressive” clergy side with the President?
First of all, I believe they wrongly used a broad-brush assessment of a very complex situation. Nowhere does scripture imply that the rich who are sick should not be visited or that the lower middle class sick person should be counted less worthy of help than the abjectly poor. I would argue that Jesus calls us to value all life – not simply the value of the lives of the poor versus the lives of the rich. The question we should be asking is this: “Is my life worth less because I am worth more?” The answer is obviously: no.
The second faulty assumption these clergymen make is that if you live in the right zip code, you can afford whatever the additional price of health services. The president has publicly acknowledged that many people go bankrupt because of “healthcare bills gone wild,” but somehow “progressive” ministers seem to think that “rich” people can just come up with the money.
Third, under the currently proposal, the administration wants to create a Robin-Hood-like healthcare system. The system will take from the rich and give to the poor. Although the concept works well in speeches, it is flawed. Imagine a 30-year old homeless man receiving a pacemaker that has been paid for by revenue that came from denying my friend Arnie his vital surgery. Our nation cannot place a higher value on one of these lives versus the other.
In addition to the assumptions about the value of rich people versus poor, there is a patent disregard to the fact that the proposed system will pay for abortions. Imagine a teenage girl that does not have to tell her parents she is pregnant before she gets a “free” abortion – paid for by Uncle Sam. Is it moral to increase the likelihood of abortions by at least a third? In my hometown, Washington DC, this would mean that one out of two pregnancies will be terminated by abortion. Further, three out four of those dead babies will be black.
Is it moral that every healthcare premium I pay for my 50 employees will finance abortions, when these monies are coming from the tithes and offerings of people that believe that killing a fetus is murder? Is it moral that elderly people are afraid that the plug will be pulled on them? Can we guarantee them that their lives are worth as much as anyone else’s?
The answers to the questions I just posed are obvious. The administration’s healthcare plan is flawed at best. I want to encourage all Americans to challenge their congressmen to vote against the bill as it stands. Let’s slow down the Obama express and create reform that we can really believe in!