Our sermon this morning was on approaching life with generosity because God is in charge, versus approaching life with fear because there's not enough. The immediate context of this sermon is stewardship season, when church members make their pledges for the coming year. Most church people are probably hearing similar sermons now.
I heard this sermon in the larger context of the vote yesterday in the House of Representatives that the richest nation in the history of the world can afford to make sure every citizen has basic health care.
God is good.
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It is not the government's job - ahem, taxpayers' job - to provide health care for people. It's neither a federal power nor responsibility per Article I, Section VIII of the U.S. Constitution. Why should I, a healthy individual, subsidize the piss-poor life choices of others who refuse to care for their bodies? This issue properly belongs in the realm of private charity.
For the same reason that we all pay for schools, even for dumb and foolish people. Public health is a collective good.
Moreover, it is unethical to let people die just because they don't have insurance, even if their illness is their own dumb fault. This is why emergency rooms take everyone in. Thus, we all end up paying for everyone's health care, anyway. A universal health care program is cheaper than emergency room care.
It won't be cheaper even though it makes you feel better to think that it will be. At least admit that.
Now older people who have paid for medical insurance their whole adult lives won't get the care they get today because there will be rationing.
By the way it is unethical to take money from someone who earned it and give it to someone who did not, at the point of a gun.
Abortions will be paid for too. I guess you are alright with that. I guess it is ethical for the unborn to be aborted with public money. Your heart is in the right place. Your head is not.
Today in my church we prayed for the unborn that will be killed under government healthcare.
Preventive care is cheaper than emergency room care.
The bill does not introduce new rationing for Medicare. All health care is rationed, and must be. Now we do it by wealth, which seems to me to be the least just method.
All taxes take money from people who have earned it and give it to people who did not - the roads we all drive on, for example, are paid for by those who make enough to pay taxes, and driven on by those who don't.
Abortions will not be paid for - the Stupak amendment passed.
This whole argument will be more civil and true if we stick to the actual facts in the actual law. Both extremes are prone to stick to talking points they made up years ago, which they don't change no matter how much reality changes.
catastrophic illness or injury DOES NOT just occur only to those who make poor choices; sorry to burst that bubble, shay...
as for constitutionality...i don't suppose social security is any too constitutional either. but JUST TRY to take it away! the fact is that america superseded the constitution long, long ago in many respects.
"Preventive care is cheaper than emergency room care." I know Mr. Obama's Kool-aid can be refreshing, but not everyone agrees with his health care rhetoric. Dr. Welch for instance. Simply saying something, Mr. Gruntled, doesn't make it so.
"I think it (preventive care) almost always costs more money," said Dr. H. Gilbert Welch, a professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical School and author of "Should I Be Tested for Cancer."
"All health care is rationed, and must be. Now we do it by wealth, which seems to me to be the least just method."
Vacations, homes, automobiles etc. are all rationed by wealth. Is this also unjust. If you feel it is, then feel free to give your wealth away. Ever notice how the left always want to give other people's money away.
By the way Gruntled one, rewarding dumb and foolish people will only result in more dumb and foolish people.
The medical association of Quebec is in the process of formulating a proposal for covering euthanasia under the provincial health care system here. The Canadians are servile enough that I'm sure that it will pass unopposed.
The eagerness with which so many Americans are willing to trade their inheritance (liberty and self-government) for a mess of pottage (leaching off the teat of the nanny-state) makes me certain that the US will end in the same place as Canada. 'Brave New World', not '1984', is the American destiny.
By the way, those who believe that the Canadian system should be a model for American health care reform should be sentenced to life in Quebec for five years. Shortages of doctors and hospitals, health care rationing, emergency room waiting times which average 48 hours, lack of sophisticated medical technology, you name the problem and we have it. The Canadian health care system, like its British counterpart, does ensure that the very poor get some health coverage but it comes at the price of drastically reduced quality for 95%of the population.
Dumb and foolish people are still people.
Vacations and cars are not rationed, they are choices that some people choose to earn or are able to earn, or not. You can still live without them. Clean air and water, on the other hand, are not choices. I think health care is more like clean air than it is like a car. It is a public good that it is worth spending public money for.
When did Americans become so angry? People should stand up for what they believe in, by all means, but we seem to be coming ever closer to a genuine hatred of anyone who holds a different opinion. I almost hesitate to share my thoughts lest some of you find out where I live...
Here's what I'm excited about: my parents no longer having to pay $20,000 a year for health insurance for their company (in which they are 2 of the 3 employees), and the opportunity for more people to become self-employed if they so choose (I know many parents that would love to be self-employed for a little while so that they can have greater flexibility while their children are young, but the hurdle of affordable insurance has tied them to their current jobs).
Here's what I'm nervous about: having less control over my family's health care (we had to hop the border into NY for my daughter's vaccinations because the Dr. here in Canada couldn't order singular vaccines), and long waits for specialists.
Regardless of what worries me about government run health care, I would rather have it than not. Why? Because I don't believe that my relative wealth and education make me a special. Being more financially comfortable and having a higher level of education than most Americans does not make me a better person or a more valuable person. Every last person is special and valuable enough to deserve to have this most basic of needs met.
Katie, A qustion for you. You said "my parents no longer having to pay $20,000 a year for health insurance for their company".
Who do you think is now going to pay for their health insurance?
Maybe this isn't Christian, but I do get really angry at the prospect of people who have worked hard their whole life, perhaps serving in our armed forces, who now, as they approach old age, will have their health care rationed -- like my parents.
That will certainly happen as the cost for universal healthcare skyrockets.
Think it won't happen? Please cite me a few examples of government run entities that break even. Anyone familiar with the USPS and Amtrak?
To Katie.
No one cares where you live sweet heart. We become angry as our liberty is tested by government that is set on controlling more and more of our lives. You should be angry too. No need to fear though.
"If this country didn't have the stomach to stand up for its principles, we'd be Canada by now."
-Ann Coulter
"Best Sunday News: The House Passes Health Care"
Second best? Jesus died for our sins.
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