Is There a “Christian” Position on US Health Care?
In the city of Pergamum, the governing center of Asia Minor, when the Apostle John arrived on the scene in the decades after Paul and Timothy’s work there, he found cities that were intensely religious, though not at all predominantly Christian.
The people in this city worshiped many gods, of whom the predominant ones were:
Dionysus – the son of Zeus and the god of wine and orgy, and patron god of theater. His shrine provided free wine and meat to those who came to worship him there, and he was said to provide life for all, even after death. It was also believed that, during secret rituals, he converted water into wine to give to the people.
Asclepius – The god of healing and medicine. His temple complex – the asclepieion, was, as Dr. Tim Brown puts it, “the Mayo Clinic of the ancient world”. The sick and infirm could come to worship at the asclepieion and receive free healing and medical care.
Demeter – The goddess of grain and fertility. Worshipers at her temple could have their sins forgiven by sacrificing bulls and bathing in their blood. Additionally, they could receive free bread and clean water from her temple.
And then, above all of these gods was Caesar – the “king of all kings and the lord of all lords” in Rome (as Domitian demanded he be called). Pergamum was the first city to deify the Caesars, beginning with Caesar Augustus. At the top of the hill on which Pergamum sits was the temple of Caesar, who provided for all of the gods, and to whom homage must be paid in order to receive the blessings of the gods – wine, food, water, health, and basic welfare (through other minor gods like Hestia, Cybele, etc.).
It is no wonder, then, that the Apostle John chose to emphasize certain miracles of Jesus to provide counterpoint of Jesus’ lordship, with the first three sets of miracles mentioned being 1) turning water to wine (Jesus is Lord and provider of eternal life, not Dionysus); 2) Jesus healing the official’s son and the man at the pool of Bethesda (Jesus is Lord and provider of healing, not Asclepius); and 3) Jesus feeding the 5,000 (Jesus is Lord and provider of our bread, not Demeter).
In short – it is Jesus, the King of kings and the Lord of lords, who is the provider of all, and not the gods and governments of this world.
The Nicolaitans
In John’s book of Revelation, he twice condemns a group of people called Nicolaitans, who appear to hold to a form of antinomianism, believing that because God had fulfilled the law with Christ, they could be free to live as they wished, and that they could partake in the different forms of temple worship and have their needs met, because they knew that the “gods” of these temples did not really exist.
In Ephesus, it is believed that the Nicolaitans were able to escape persecution under Nero and, later, Domitian, by burning incense to Caesar and accepting his “mark” on their goods and their person. This allowed them to freely buy and sell in the marketplace (agora), to hold public office, and to avoid the punishments of Rome for not worshiping Caesar (see Rev 13:16-17).
So What?
By now, some of you are probably thinking something along the lines of “Thanks for the history lesson, Chris, but what does this have to do with a ‘Christian’ position on health care?” Others likely see where I’m going with this:
As Christians, we should all be concerned with the gods of this world – particularly the government – taking over the responsibility for the expanded provision of the needs and desires of its people.
I would underscore this by noting that when we forget who our provision comes from – from God, alone – and see it as the product of our own work, our employer or our government, we become idolaters. However, I see the warnings from John to the early Christians as two-fold – don’t seek to have your needs met by the passive gods of the world, but also beware of what will happen when an active, intrusive one steps in to take over.
This is not to say that we should be in favor of maintaining the status quo, or in turning away the poor from life-saving medical treatment. Rather, we should be looking for ways to make such government take-overs unnecessary.
All Things in Common
A few weeks ago, Rob Bell and Ed Dobson taught at Mars Hill Bible Church on the early church in Acts 2:
All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
They noted that this was a free, loving choice on the parts of the believers, and not something done out of guilt or coercion. Supporting coercive government systems (socialism, communism), they noted, are not the way of following the early church. Subscribing to a “survival of the fittest” or a laissez-faire mindset is not the answer, either. Rather, it comes down to those who have been blessed with abundance to share out of love and those who have been blessed with scarcity to receive out of love (as Peter did, when he allowed Jesus to wash his feet).
A government-managed system of provision, though, circumvents both ends of this equation – coercing those who have (under threat of law) to provide for those who do not (by the government’s definition) under the guise of “dignity” (i.e. they can thank the government for their provision, not individuals or organizations).
The way of Jesus is for the church to see a need and to be enthusiastic about trying to fill it – not out of coercion or guilt – but freely, out of love.
The problem with depending on the government, though, is that every time the government decides to encroach in an area of “benevolence”, the church sees no need and then retreats. This has happened historically, and is particularly evident in the American experiment of the past 233 years or so. Whether it is education, health, welfare, or the homeless, when Christians have acceded these areas of service to the government, the church has retreated and become further irrelevant.
It is no mistake that fundamentalism arose in parallel with this abdication, as focus on the temporal needs of the masses withered and the focus on the eternal became all-encompassing. It is also no mistake that the predominance of the emerging/emergent 180-degree “flipping” of focus from eternal to temporal will exacerbate the problem just as easily.
From where does my help come? If, slowly, as it has been doing, the Caesar of today becomes the all-giving provider of needs, how quickly will worship of this Caesar become the predominant “religion” of the land – or has it already happened – on both ends of the political spectrum?
If there are members of our churches – brothers and sisters – who must take government assistance because they are not receiving it from the church, it is a crime we in the churches are committing via our lack of love. If these members won’t take the assistance from the church, but prefer the “dignity” of the state, it is a matter of the sin of pride. If our churches exist in communities where people are unable to get the care they need, the provision of the government is an indictment of the faithlessness of those churches.
Why should Caesar coerce and redistribute what the church was designed to give out of love?
The Nicolaitans, Take II
Now, just as there were Nicolaitans in the first century, there are sure to be some today who would note that the state is a lifeless entity which need not be feared/revered, but only appeased so that it might be used for humanitarian purposes. Where the line is crossed, though, I believe, is similar to the point at which the temple of Demeter became an instrument of Caesar (or more accurately, where the Church became an instrument of Constantine) – where benevolence becomes compulsory and acceptance of the “dignity” granted by the nanny state is mandatory.
Which is what is, inherently, what is being proposed by the US House of Representatives and committee bills in the US Senate. While there is a good deal of smoke-and-mirrors involved in the plans, the long-term trajectory of these plans is a single-payer system in which the health of the citizenry is beholden to Caesar, and 97% of the people have to accept his mark (noting that I’m speaking from a partial-preterist position, not a dispensationalist one…) or go without.
Will we be selling a little bit of our souls to the state by accepting their mandatory hand-out? Will we just be good little Nicolaitans, crossing our fingers and rationalizing that God is providing to us through the faceless entity of Caesar, while our churches fade into further irrelevance?
Or will we be willing accomplices of the state, cheering it on with homilies like “My hope is that the Church will rise up and speak for the least of these who cannot speak for themselves” while supporting its takeover of the church’s mission? Or will we try and shame the Church into selling out to the beast by saying “my hope is that the Church, despite the prospect of having to make sacrifices, some even costly in more ways than one, will stand up and say, ‘This is the way of Jesus’?” Or might we just try and work the coercive shame on individual Christians, making this into an issue of “selfishness” by telling them “I would like to see less of Christians demanding their ‘rights’ and more of demanding justice for all,” as if this were actually an issue of justice, rather than one of mercy and kindness.
Summing it Up
The bottom line – the government is not a friend of the church or of the people. Its purpose, according to Scripture, is to provide a judicial system, common defense, and societal order. Its mission is completely different than that of the church, and its lifetime is limited.
No matter how much we, like Jesus’ disciples, want the kingdom of God to be a literal, physical, political power on earth, that is not what Jesus came to create. When we abdicate the purpose of the kingdom and hand it over to the kosmos, we are no longer advocates for the kingdom. When we try to make the kosmos the tool of the kingdom – whether from the right or from the left – we are destined to fail. Spectacularly.
In my view, and in light of the roles given to the church in Scripture, I would say that it is no more the place of government to take over the health care system than it is for the church to take over the national defense. That it is even being contemplated is an indictment against the Church and a potentially disastrous overreaching on the part of the state.
Here’s to hoping that sanity will prevail. Government can play a role within its biblical mandate – particularly within the realm of the justice system and in maintaining order – in ‘fixing’ what is currently broken in the US health care system. Making health care a “right”, provided by the state, is beyond its mandate, though, and the church should not be its water-carrier.
[A couple of programming notes - 1) I have briefly ended my self-moratorium on political news/discussion, insofar as it concerns health care issues, as I do have some expertise and interest in this area that could be useful for the discussion; 2) I don't plan on expanding it to other areas of politics; 3) While this article fits the demographic of CRN.Info, I may not cross-post later articles which do not deal with issues of the intersection of Christianity and the health care debate.]
334 Comments(+Add)
Good article, Chris. There are some good thoughts here. I usually want nothing to do with politics, but healthcare is one issue I got involved in because I see the proposed plan as crossing a boundary into a place that the government of a free country doesn’t need to be involved in. As of right now I think there is enough dissatisfaction with Obama that I can’t really see this being passed.
But maybe it will be enough for the American church to realize what we really could be doing. I know of at least one church that has some sort of hospital/clinic in Idaho or somewhere. (I should probably find out more about what it is, haha.) But I believe Christian doctors could do a lot more to help out our own and others.
That human pig photo is so disgusting. Where do you find this stuff? I can’t look away because I keep thinking, like an Escher drawing, that in just a few more seconds it’ll make sense.
Nope.
Excellent article! Especially your historic application and theological explanation of abdication of the church from it’s role in culure. So the question remains….”How does the government fix health care?” And what role do Christians play?
The problem is the Cost. Helping some one/family who maybe hungry to buy a month’s groceries would be about $500.00 or so ….but to help someone with an unexpected hospital bill would be $5000.00 to $500,00.00 … how can any small community of believers cover that type of expense? Most church bodies can’t even agree on the pastor’s salary, let alone who deserves financial assistance. The scripture talks of taking care of those in true need…orphans and widows…Do we start there? We need to pour our giving toward the missions for these in this country… but the cost of health care for average working people would not be affected.
LORD Jesus… we need your wisdom and men in places of influence to effect change!
jill
Jill,
I know of some churches where Christian doctors offer their services to needy families and/or help find or arrange pro bono or greatly-reduced price procedures.
Some offer preventative-care classes for families and provide immunizations for those in need (or coordinate such things). Some churches work with pharmaceutical companies to get donations of medicines, etc. Unfortunately, there are a number of cases where government regulation and litigation-averse insurers work against people willing to donate time and resources in the health care arena.
In the most common cases, though, it comes down to creativity and persistence – and, most of all, prevention. Quite often it is preventative care that can make the difference between $500 in medication and $50,000 in hospital bills, and it is in this arena I see the biggest opening for the church to step in, in the short term.
Also, I’m working through some follow-up articles which outline the ways government can stick within its mandate to “fix” the problems in the current system. These include an overhaul of the medical tort system, elimination of fraud and abuse, technology standardization, and other regulatory issues.
The Amish. The church could learn a lot from the Amish when it comes to health care plans. It’s called community. Speaking of which, will the new “health care for everyone” plan be forced upon the Amish? Just curious…
Troy – interesting question…
I’d also note that the “health care for everyone” is a misnomer, as very few in the US are without health care (particularly emergency care).
Instead, many are without health insurance (and a significant number of those by choice). I had several friends point that out to me today…
Sorry Chris, but this is definitely one of the biggest “What the heck, America?” issues for the rest of us in the “Western” world (speaking from Australia).
We’d riot in the streets before we saw our fairly limited universal cover abolished, and it’s no where near as encompassing as some others in the world.
I think your entire argument about “Ceasar” is a pretty big reach unless you are prepared to stay off the roads, never call the police and hand deliver your letters.
The sad fact is that according to a Harvard Study: “Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007″ and “78% of those filers had medical insurance at the start of their illness, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not Medicare or Medicaid.”
source here
The idea that even one person would be forced in to bankruptcy due to medical bills in a modern democracy is so utterly alien and abhorent to me (and every non-American I know) I would never have believed it was possible until I became better aquainted with the health system in the states.
Sorry, but looks to me like the Church in the US had it’s “chance” at it’s mission. I’m with Ceasar on this one.
Matt, you may have missed some of the details in the OP –
Roads and law enforcement are within the biblical mandate of government. Mail is iffy (and I would note that the private-sector competitors of the USPS are far more reliable and efficient), but (like roads) arguably fits within the boundaries of civil order.
Which speaks in support of my thesis more than against it…
I don’t see a source linked. I’d want to see what data was considered and how it fits within current bankruptcy law, as there are a good number of statistics in this debate that have been ’spun’ for every side to it.
I would note, as above, as well that nobody in the US (not even illegal aliens) can be turned away from emergency health service.
That doesn’t speak to the failure of the state, though, so much as failure of the Church and of individual responsibility. Even so, I do not know Australian bankruptcy law, but in the US, bankruptcy is something that can be recovered from, and is a judicial provision for those unfortunate enough (or irresponsible enough, depending upon the case) to find themselves in financial dire straits. It is not the end of the world.
Again, supporting the point of my OP.
Health care is a service, not a “right” that can be guaranteed. Putting something that clearly belongs within the bailiwick of the church and community into the hands of Ceasar to ration is something that should make Christians recoil.
I can already point to examples of US states with public plans that have already decided that once you reach a certain age you no longer qualify for care (for certain ailments) other than the care of assisted suicide.
As was noted at a recent public forum on healthcare in Missouri:
This is already a commonplace occurrence in the UK and other socialist healthcare systems, it happens here (in Oregon, particularly), and it will only increase under a government system.
And that’s only one example…
Chris L:
You have mentioned a couple of times how poor have access to emergency care. I was just wondering what you thought of laws requiring this. I think for the sake of consistency, you could argue those laws are unjust, insofar as medical treatment falls outside the bounds of the judicial system, common defense, and public order.
If people are going to stop trusting in government, maybe it means saying, “no money equals no treatment, even if you’re dying.”
MG,
I think the key with emergency care is the word “emergency”, in which case the acute life/death situation is the mitigating factor. It is at this point that the issue becomes one of the sanctity of life, rather than the proper role of government (much the same as Jesus taught in the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which the sanctity of life overrode the laws of ritual purity).
Emergency care, though, is a very small (but still significant) piece of the entire health care puzzle.
The sanctity of life, if we examine the Hebrew Scriptures and their threads into the Christian Scriptures, supersedes the roles of the church, the government, the community and the individual. If we look at the first century interpretation of the written and oral Torah as followed by those most closely aligned with Jesus, only the laws against idolatry/blasphemy and sexual immorality supersede the sanctity of life.
I would note that, while you are not turned away for emergency medical care in the US, you can still be billed for all (or a portion) of it. Ideally, the community and the church would assist the individual with this, I would hope…
Man, this is such a bizarre thing with you Americans
.
I’m not being facetious, it’s just truly baffling for me because we don’t have these debates over here, it’s a total non-issue. No one questions it, though we argue about gay marriage, abortion and every other moral issue as much as you guys .
Sorry if I get fired up, I see this as a moral issue more than a theological one, not about the Nicolations, ceasar and the mandate of church and state so much as about what is going to be the best for sick people, though obiviously that’s not the point of your article and I recognise that.
A fair point about roads and social order etc in terms of your argument. What about education? Do you feel it’s a fundamental right for every child to provided with education to a certain level, regardless of their socio-economic circumstances? That’s certainly an area that is in the “bailiwick of the church and community” biblically speaking.
“private-sector competitors of the USPS are far more reliable and efficient)”
This is misleading, the government would not be running the health system in that sense, just paying for it. A more pertinent question is “Is the private-sector health system in the US more reliable and efficent than public health systems elsewhere in the world?” The consistent answer is no, it isn’t. You rank middling or low on all comparable key performance indicators.
Apologies for the link, not too good with HTML apparently, the url is for the article on the harvard study is:
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily
You’ll have to cite me some examples of people being denied coverage because of age in a Unversial Health Care system. I’ve never come across it, certainly not in Australia. If it does occur, it’s stupid and its shouldn’t. It doesn’t make forcing an unemployed person into bankrupcy because they hit their head in the street any more moral.
As to Jim Dale’s question, to be honest the answer is much more likely to be “when he’s in the armed forces in Afganistan” as opposed to “when you over 70″. Commonplace occurrence in the UK? Sources please.
“Health care is a service, not a “right” that can be guaranteed.”
Why? Why shouldn’t it be, in so far as any government can guarantee any right? In Australia we have a dual private/public system. If I want to pay to have private cover I can. If I want to pay for elective surgery I can. But there is literally no situation I can get into where I need to think “Can I afford this, should I wait and see if I get better on my own?” before taking myself or a loved one to the hospital. I and nobody else ever here has to weigh up the cost of looking after our bodies. It’s a given. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Putting something that clearly belongs within the bailiwick of the church and community into the hands of Ceasar to ration is something that should make Christians recoil.”
Every Christian I’ve ever come across in every other western nation disagrees with you. I doubt you’ll find any Christians in Australia, England, Canada, Europe etc “recoiling” at Universal Health Care, though they may agree with you on every other issue under the sun. If you do find some let me know!
Finally: An article from an American repatreated ex-pat which sums up my thoughts way better than I have (I won’t try embedding again):
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/07/american_health_care_the_view.html
and an opinion piece I thought was good:
http://www.mlive.com/opinion/flint/index.ssf/2009/07/the_rest_of_the_world_gets_it.html
Peace from across the sea!
The whole bankruptcy thing is troubling, but I think if you look at the bigger picture it’s a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.
Through Medicare and Medicaid, there are about 100 million Americans who receive insurance through the federal government in one way or another. This also doesn’t count all the state programs for low-income children and stuff. So, I think it’s something like 50% of healthcare spending is already through the government already.
So really what is happening is the government is already fixing prices for what it will pay, and in essence, this is causing the cost for everything else to go through the roof. So if Obama did happen to pass some sort of “public option” for health insurance, this would only be exasperated as private insurance companies would have a hard time competing with an entity that doesn’t have to make a profit to survive.
I can understand the motivation of people who say socialized medicine is a good thing, but I simply don’t think socialized anything brings about the best solutions to problems. It’s interesting that the subject of roadway construction came up, because if you want to see corruption and wasteful spending, you don’t have to look very hard at federal infrastructure projects to see waste and poor planning.
As far as what is a right and what’s not, I would be willing to say that access to healthcare is a right in some respects, but rights are be protected by the government, not granted. So the federal government should do whatever it needs to remove obstacles, but I don’t see that it has a constitutional mandate to provide healthcare to citizens any more than it has a constitutional mandate to provide food to hungry citizens (which is another discussion altogether).
I think much of this discussion is rooted in our natural desire to seek security and find protection outside of ourselves. It seems to me that the Biblical mandate is that God is our source. Yes, he can use doctors and medical procedures, but our hope needs to ultimately be in Him, and as Kingdom people we need to spread that hope to other. Matthew Sleeth had a good discussion of this issue in his book Serve God, Save the Planet. His take was that much of the escalated cost of healthcare comes from the fact that modern western people live in denial when it comes to death.
Understanding that it is not a direct correlation, I still think that the example of Israel’s desire for a king is an interesting peek into God’s desires for His people. God didn’t want to give them a king. He wanted them to live and survive in community, not depending on one main entity to provide for them or on which they could rely. Does God have those desires for us today? I don’t know, because God, above all, understands the complexities in our societies. But I would like to think that His belief in the goodness of living in this way never changes.
As for this:
Oh, NO! Not in America! Once our government puts money into it, they begin to control it. Health care/Insurance will be no different.
This quote from your link above, the bankruptcy one, is essential to consider, also, not just for health issues but also every other government “help” programs. Americans have too much debt. Plain and simple. We buy too many things we can’t afford, and then complain because we “can’t afford” unexpected expenses. Immediate gratification, instead of wise planning/saving, has become the rule here in the land of plenty. In our immense blessings, we have chosen to curse ourselves in this manner. From Charles Geisst, author of Collateral Damaged: The Marketing of Consumer Debt to America:
Just a couple of the multiple issues surrounding this issue.
As a Christian, I resent a government taking away my opportunities to give to those around me who are in need. Yes, I still give as I can, but Christians could get rid of the middle-man and put money and help directly in the hands of the needy much better than our obese government. By doing the church’s job, they have taken away the knowledge of extreme joy from SERVING each other as was, IMHO, God’s original intentions. We should be jealous of that experience, and desire to own/be the solution.
Chris L:
By stressing the sanctity of life, aren’t you thereby assuming that there are emergency situations where the government would be better situated to handle than the Church?
Doesn’t that undermine your basic thesis?
Rather, it seems like there is a job that needs to be done, namely, take care of seriously wounded people. Either the Church can handle that, or the State can step in and say, “hospitals, you are required to accept patients in your emergency rooms.”
It’s clearly the Church’s job. Why let the State step in and make critical care a so-called “right,” when it obviously is not?
And since the Church is up to the task, no one dies because of what the State refuses to provide. As a result, sanctity of life never comes into play.
Right?
I believe that the state has a compelling interest that its citizenry be well-educated, from the standpoint of civil order. As such, its provision of schools to meet the minimum requirements for economic/civil has become more of a necessity than it should be.
This is one area that the church has filled in the past, but has now, outside of home schooling and limited private schooling, slowly abdicated – much to its detriment. One of the reasons the Jewish people have flourished economically through the centuries has been their emphasis of schooling of the youth – with an emphasis on memorization and cross-disciplinary application.
This is not really true. Because the government would be paying for it, it would be dictating treatment, payment, etc. that it would cover, and creating “standards” for insurance that actually end up driving up costs (resulting in the need for more rationing) by eliminating many of the current options which have resulted in more responsible healthcare spending (such as FSA’s).
Actually, this is incorrect, as well. The US lags in mortality rate and a number of cited “key performance indicators” only because death/injury rates from violent crime, lifestyle choice, and (especially) misfortune are considerably higher in the US and drive up the averages. When individual disease states are compared (such as cancer survivability rate) or individual required procedures are compared (such as open heart surgery), the US comes out on, or near, the top in most every case.
Additionally, 75 – 80% of the world’s medical innovation comes from the US. For example, of the top 20 life-saving medications sold in 2009, 15 were developed in the US. “Universal Payer” programs remove all (or most) innovation incentive to the point that the one major country left with a free-market system drives (and ends up paying for) a vastly disproportionate volume of the medical advances in the world.
Here and here for starters. I would also note that in the “stimulus package” (pause for laughter) passed earlier this year was a provision to create the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research – which basically is set up to judge medical outcomes vs. patient long-term survival, and would feed into the government-payer system. Obama referenced this in talking about how giving life-saving treatment to the elderly was too costly when compared to how much time they had yet to live.
As for quality of care? As Obama demonstrated in his complete lack of medical knowledge last week in talking about “red pill vs. blue pill” and tonsillectomies, US citizens would be at the mercy of bureaucrats to determine whether or not they can have access to the treatments and procedures that would be best for them – both in the short and the long run. Instead, it will all come back to the calculations of the pencil-pushers at the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research.
Rights do not come from a government – they can only be protected (via the judicial system) by a government. As treated in the USA, ‘rights’ are things which secure freedoms not services provided by the government or the private sector. Health insurance is not a “right” – it is a service that is provided.
Off the top of my head, I can think of five Canadian doctors I personally know who have moved to the US into private practice. Not as a profit motive, but to be allowed to treat patients as they should be treated, and to use their medical judgment in doing so. I can also think of three Canadian families I know personally who moved to the US, with the Canadian health care system as a primary motivator for leaving Canada and becoming US citizens. I also have a friend from church who was telling me this past Sunday of a family member in Canada who died on a waiting list for a procedure readily available in the US.
And that’s just people I know personally, off the top of my head…
No, I’m saying that emergency care should not delayed while figuring out the payment details – it is better to worry about them after the emergency has passed (not to disregard them, altogether).
It is not that the government is better suited – it is that whoever is readily available at that point in time, be it a public, private or church-run hospital – it is that the government should make it a point of order that the time for quibbling about payment during a medical emergency is after the emergency has passed.
Again, this is a judicial rule (an issue of justice), not an issue of government provision.
Who says anything about quibbling? It seems pretty straightforward. If you have money, you go to whichever hospital you like, and pay immediately. (Or have a card/insurance/proof that says you’re good for the money).
But if you’re poor, you go to a free emergency clinic provided by the Church.
Simple.
I just don’t see how the State has a right to interfere with health care transactions when it clearly does not have to be involved, and it does not have to be an issue of life and death.
Phil, in response to your comments:
Apparently I suck at block qoutes. You can tell I don’t post on forums much
I don’t really have a desire to get in a retracted debate about this, but I’ll say that it’s a lot easier to vote against a corporation than it is a government. Corporations for the most part cannot enforce their will with tanks and guns.
I’ll side with big business over big government anytime.
Chris L,
very fair points in your article. I look forward to when you tackle tort reform and controlling fraud/abuse. Couple of points:
1. To echo Jill Judd’s comment about costs. We can do all the prevention and primary care in a community with Church support but one uninsured preterm infant needing a four week stay in intensive care or a 42 year old needing emergency cardiac bypass surgery will bankrupt the local church. This means the Community will have to decide what to support within their means and then rationing, unhappy members…. Someone eventually has to pick up the tab for the big costs. If the Church is unable to, who should?
2. I have worked in and experienced care in both the UK system and the USA system. Overall, the UK system despite documented failings is far superior in terms of access to the best care for the average individual. The monetary cost is huge in the UK, but the same here. In addition, there a network of private hospitals in the UK for those who wish to carry private insurance.
3. “Universal health care” in whatever form frees businesses from the burden of covering the expensive medical insurance of employees and retirees. As I understand it, the Detroit car companies spent a lot of money on this.
4. The situation where a certain form of treatment is denied because of cost usually on the basis of unproven benefits (rather than because it cannot be afforded) is uncommon in the UK and is the exception (that is why it makes the news) rather than the rule. The insurance companies here do the same, anyway.
5. As a healthcare provider, I have a catalogue of anecdotal stories on how the current system has failed ordinary Americans, some insured and some when they lose their insurance.
6. I think most people agree the status quo is untenable. Unfortunately the debate on reform is largely driven by ideology and culture (both on the left and the right), more than we realize. Matt’s comments from Australia attest to this.
Hi Chris, I’m not sure I follow you with the “dicate treatment” side of things – that’s never been my experience here, though as Zan says maybe that’s inevitable in the US.
That’s great you come out near the top on Cancer survial rates, if you are rich or insured. It’s not the quality of care I am debating, it’s it’s availablity… personally I’d like to know that if I got diabetes I won’t be living in poverty the rest of my life.
I think the sources you linked there aren’t great in regards to the “age limit on UHS” side of things either. One person who has only had an article written about her “ideas’ (in the Telegraph no less) because her views are totally whacky does not make something “commonplace practice”. Oregon’s state-sponsed health care is not “UHS”, and again the article is making the news because they assume people will be (rightly) horrified by it.
Your comments about research are fair, but that to me is not intrinsically tied up in providing basic care to all people.
I’m not familar with Canada’s system, maybe it sucks, who knows. My sister is a christian GP (a general family doctor) who specialises also in obstetrics. She’s allowed to treat patients as they should be treated, and to use her medical judgment in doing so WITHOUT worrying about if they are insured or who is going to pay for it. And she is baffled with the American system. She doesn’t know anyone envious of it in her profession.
Just one thing for Zan:
“As a Christian, I resent a government taking away my opportunities to give to those around me who are in need. Yes, I still give as I can, but Christians could get rid of the middle-man and put money and help directly in the hands of the needy much better than our obese government.”
Well, you’d better have enough to help everyone, because I’d be pretty annoyed if I was dying of Cancer and the government wouldn’t help me because the Christians had demanded it was their job. :S
“Corporations for the most part cannot enforce their will with tanks and guns.”
Can’t they? Shell would beg to differ, they’ve wiped out a few villages in their time.
They can enforce their will through monopolistic control of the market, and they are entirely self-interested.
And you are right, you can vote with your feet against a corporation… but not an essential industry as a whole, unless you want to be uninsured.
Anyway it’s late and I actually have Swine Flu so I should go to bed. Least if I end up in hospital it won’t cost me anything!
Peace and God Bless.
I assume you are kidding… but I have heard people express this very same things as if it were true.
One thing is true – NOTHING is free!
nay two things are true, the other is – When the Gov’t gets involved it always gets worse.
I have not been following tis from a “What is more biblical?” point of view.
But anyone who thinks gov’t run health care will lower costs or improve quality is naive at best.
I don’t know who argues that govt. health care will improve quality. Although going from no health insurance to having health insurance is a good thing.
But in terms of costs, can the U.S. do worse? We spend, what, 15% of our GDP on healthcare? That’s the most in the world, isn’t it? And by a lot?
I would agree there is a problem – no doubt.
And yes, it could get a lot worse… by turning over the management of our health care to the Feds.
My cousin thinks we should go to the Canadian model where, as he says, “Everyone gets all the care they need for free!”
Hmmm, OK.
MG – I agree when it comes to non-emergency “emergency” care. What I consider legitimate ‘mandated’ (post-paid) emergency care is along the lines of: a) an ambulance from the nearest hospital pulls up beside your crashed car; b) the EMT’s pull you out of the wreckage and load you into the ambulance; c) when you get to the hospital, unconscious, the hospital doesn’t try to figure out whether you can pay or not before hooking you up to an IV, giving you a blood transfusion and starting the emergency spenectomy.
The first step, and probably the most effective, would be reigning in the lawyers.
Cap the amount awardable in lawsuits and watch the costs drop.
How is it that every other major Western industrialized nation is able to have single-payer systems and spend half the money, but the U.S. will somehow end up spending more money if the federal government gets involved?
What do Japan, Australia, France, Denmark, Sweden, the U.K., etc., know that we don’t?
RE: 30
If we can have donor cards that inform the paramedics about those basic life choices, I think we can have care cards that determine whether paramedics take you to a hospital or free Christian clinic.
I guess I’m kind of skeptical about a whole post devoted to the Christian conception of healthcare, only to arrive, voila, the status quo.
Seems like a strange coincidence.
So you are willing to hand over your health care to the same folks who give us FEMA, the INS, the Congressional Banking System, the Postal Service, etc. etc. etc.?
Again, it’s not that costs are too high, no one is arguing against that… it’s that the proposed solutions are guaranteed to be worse.
I’m not advocating either way, really. I just think it’s funny when people complain about single-payer system being too expensive. Ultimately, it’s not.
Actually, if I have my druthers, I’d hand over my healthcare to the Navy Seals. I bet they know what they’re doing.
M.G. – as I noted, I’m working on some articles that hit a number of issues withing the biblical purview of government that would improve the situation with US health care w/o pushing the government beyond its mandate…
I had a choice between one HUGE article, with weeks to write it, or a series of articles over the same time.
I chose the latter…
I don’t think you can say this – that is, predict the future in this way.
That said, it’s more than just an expense issue, it’s a freedom issue as well…issues of choice, issues of federal management, issues of bureaucracy, etc…
Higher per capita tax rates, an aging population, and a socialist system that will soon prove unworkable.
I think one thing these countries have going for them is that their populations are generally healthier than the US. We, on average, are basically too fat and getting fatter in the US. There’s a problem when someone hops in their SUV to go to the mini-mart two blocks away.
I think one problem with health insurance being used for every medical transaction in general is that in many ways it prevents people from seeing the real cost of their lifestyle. If a person has a plan that pays for his prescription drugs, he may never know how much the blood pressure pills he needs actually cost, and he will have less incentive to lose those 50 extra pounds. The same could be said for a bunch of things. So people use insurance to pay for all these medical products because they’re not paying for them, and in the end this causes insurance companies to raise premiums, hospitals to raise prices, and it just is a bad cycle.
I don’t deny that healthcare needs reformed. I just doubt that the federal government is capable of doing it.
Hey Chris,
Next time you quote me, how about a footnote?
Chad – If I’m unsure someone would want to be specifically quoted, I opt to allow their privacy…
If you want me to update it, I can…
Chris L – I think the customary thing to do if you are really concerned about someone’s privacy is to simply leave them out altogether. Since that is not really you concern, and since you quoted me verbatim, the customary thing to do is cite them.
Interesting take on the Nicolaitans. That caught my attention having just studied Revelation. What source are you using that claims to know so much about them and what they believed?
Here are my quotes in context:
http://chadholtz.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/thoughts-on-universal-health-care/
I would also note that these countries were at the zenith of their dependency ratios when these systems were created, and (to Phil’s point) their dependency ratio declines will hit a critical level much sooner than the US (which was already 10-to-15 years behind the cycle, comparatively, and has forestalled it via (primarily illegal) immigration). The US has already passed the apex in this particular ratio cycle for a “single-payer” system to even have an illusion of solvency (having rejected universal coverage at its most ‘optimal’ time for funding in the early 90’s) .
Japan is a country about ready to go over a cliff, due to its poor dependency ratio and dismal repopulation rate (via birth & immigration). I suspect its system will crash and burn in the coming decades, followed by most of the others cited. You can only tax the dwindling number of workers so much before they are unable to support themselves and all of the rest of the people the government has strapped to their backs with future-dated IOU’s.
I love how you define what the beast is through a vague notion of the Nicolaitans so that you can then suggest I am encouraging the church to “sell out” to your beast.
Chris, are people who serve in the military “selling out” to the beast?
Matt P – your critique in #8 was spot on.
Re: 43
Dependency ratios and health care are separate issues, though, aren’t they?
*Right now* those countries have healthcare costs well under control. Much more so than the U.S. By a lot. Not even close.
So the answer isn’t necessarily “healthcare for everyone is absurd,” but rather, “hey, maybe we should actually reproduce once in a while.”
MG – their tax structures are significantly higher (across the board) and structured significantly differently, as well.
I would also note that: a) it’s questionable how “under control” their costs are; and b) much of that control has come at the expense of quality and innovation of care.
Because there is no longer an incentive to innovate, and because government boards have proven to be loth to add new, innovative treatments (because they are inevitably more expensive in the short term), you end up with a “locked in time” minimum-care, with no real search for a cure to what ails you…
Earlier I suggested the main culprit in the health care costs are the lawyers. I wonder how much of the cost reduction seen by socializing medicine is directly related to not being able to sue the feds.
Chad,
I’m using the definition of Nicolaitans as provided by Dr. Tim Brown and the archaeologists on site at Pergamum when I visited there in 2006, along with the understanding of culture in Asia Minor in the first century per the Jerusalem School of Synoptic Research.
It has been well accepted since Irenaeus that the sins of the Nicolaitans were related to antinomianism, and further research (primarily from Ephesus, which has the other Nicolaitan mention, and its Caesar-worship practices in the agora) indicates that it is most likely that their source of antinomian behavior was in the “going along to get along” with Caesar, much in the same fashion as the Sadducees in Jerusalem.
Neil – I think the next article in this series will hit the tort system…
It depends primarily on their heart, though I would also note that the raising and using of the military is within the biblical purview of government.
Really, Chris, your argument would carry much more weight with me if you were arguing we should disavow ourselves of all government help on all levels. Let’s revert back to a monastic sort of life where the churches all take care of everyone’s needs. Heck, I’d go for it.
While I agree with the theory (at least in America) that the more benevolence the government does the less the church seems willing to do (IOW, we, the Church, tend to get lazy when we see others doing what we should be doing), this is not the fault of the government per se but the fault of leaders within the church. We who are in the church need to be extra vigilant to make sure we do not become lazy and that we continue to point people to the source of our hope and salvation – God and God alone. I don’t believe the USA is the bearer of salvation because the gov’t wants to make health care universal anymore than I think they are the bearer of salvation because my gov’t. has the strongest military in the world.
My position is simple: I think everyone should have access to health care. Not as their “right” but as a matter of justice (and as you point out, mercy and kindness). I am willing to make sacrifices to make that happen. Both within the Church and outside the church. If the government wants to propose a plan that might make that possible (or at least more possible than at present) I support that. It doesn’t mean I am beholden to the government. It simply means that where I see acts of kindness, mercy and justice, from wherever that may be, I give thanks to God.
Re: 46
I agree completely. Health care reform needs to have a well-formulated innovation policy, and all single-payer systems do lag behind American healthcare in research as well as the availability of top-flight healthcare.
I was simply responding to comments about how greater government involvement would *necessarily* be more expensive, and how it would *necessarily* result in poor care simply on the basis of the U.S.P.S, FEMA, etc.
I think that those objections are more throw-away conservative lines than reality-based.
Single-payer is not necessarily so called “socialized” medicine, and it doesn’t necessarily mean your doctor will all of a sudden be as qualified as your friendly neighborhood postal carrier.
So what?
Except for the fact that they are, in reality, poorly run bureaucracies.
The burden of proof lies on those who think that a new gov’t run system would, for whatever reason, all of a sudden buck the tradition of nearly every other gov’t run agency.
It’s not a conservative throw-away line… it’s a simply expectation from – well reality.
#48: If Tim Brown is being honest (and you as well) than you should note that all this is speculation.
Irenaeus mentions them in relation to Gnosticism. But you would be more balanced if your post made clear that the bulk of what you say about them is conjecture at best.
The truth is, no one really knows what the Nicolaitans believed or taught.
But I guess we could use them as a mouthpiece for whatever is convenient.
Individual postal carriers may be very very qualified – that is not the point.
It’s the system that lacks competition and motivation, it’s a system run by Federal employees… it’s a system that strips Americans of choice and freedom.
Listen to Bill Kristol, conservative writer, laud the best and most efficient medical program that exists for America. It might surprise you who does it
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-27-2009/bill-kristol
Neil,
these sort of arguments are not very helpful, IMO. They are purely consequentialist arguments which can be disproven easily enough.
But the real problem is the logic behind them. What if I was arguing that the church should be responsible for caring for the sick? Would you argue that since the church is not trained to do the sort of healthcare that would be required or that it could not afford to cover the expenses of health care plus do all her other ministries and since private hospitals and insurance agencies can do it much better that we should drop the idea?
Re: 56
I’m sorry, but I don’t think that single-payer means that doctors stop competing.
Single-payer means that a single-entity is responsible for paying all healthcare costs. It does not mean that all doctors instantly become federal employees, or stop competing with each other.
He actually never said it was the most efficient. He said it provided the best level of care. The funny thing is that in the rest of the video Kristol pretty much argues exactly what many of us who are against the federal program are saying.
And having a mother who worked for the VA, a grandfather who gets care from the VA, and being involved in several renovation projects at VA hospitals, I would have to second guess that statement. The VA is a lot better than it used to be, but I don’t think it would be my choice for care.
No one wants people to be denied care. What I would like to see is more actual competition in the marketplace so that prices will naturally come down. As soon as government gets involved in anything, the price mechanism gets all out of whack.
Why does everyone assume that doctors will stop competing or that the level of care will automatically decline? This is not founded in any sort of reality. In fact, if you look at military medicine (of which I worked for 8 years) the facts tell a different story.
Is it possible that such a system will draw people into the medical field because they have a genuine calling and passion for helping people instead of a desire to get rich?
Which renders all these arguments claiming that the sky will fall regarding our health care somewhat moot.
I was a Navy Corpsman for 8 years. What I saw of the military’s health care was an efficient and highly motivated and disciplined line of care. And it was good, quality care. What I also learned is that there are more ways to do the things that need to be done. For instance, I as a Corpsman got trained to a lot of stuff that doctors do and require exorbitant fees for in civilian life.
I agree that it does not mean doctors will stop caring.
What it means is that doctors become part of a massive federal system… like the relationship between the individual postal carrier and the USPS.
Yes, that’s true, but a single-payer system also means the single payer has all the power to decide where and when you get treatment, and it means that the end users don’t actually see the cost of their care. That leads to less incentives to actually making changes.
Think of it like car insurance. You don’t take your car to the mechanic for every little scratch. You should take it for regular maintenance, but you don’t expect your insurance to pay for that. You only use your insurance for more catastrophic things. That’s the way health insurance should be, ideally.
No one is arguing doctors will stop caring – at least I am not.
And seriously, you are offering the Veteran Affairs system as a model?
You are aiming way tooo low…
No stereotyping here, is there?
Neil- I never said anything about the VA.
True, but as Phil said, once you have one entity paying the bills, doctors will have to do what THEY say…
Neil – I’m not the one making the argument that the only reason people excel in something is if they can make lots and lots of money or that research and quality of care will decline because there are no incentives to “compete” with others.
Re: 63
Um, I’ll repeat myself. Single-payer does not mean that doctors instantly become federal employees.
So, no, they are not like postal carriers and the U.S.P.S. (Which isn’t so bad, really).
Plus, I’ll repeat the act that there are single-payer systems where doctors are in competition for patients (sending the bill to the govt. instead of a private health insurance company).
So, again, that’s not akin to some government monopoly where employees are not encouraged to do a good job.
Feel free to say that single-payer stifles innovation, rations care, etc.
But don’t just make stuff up and claim that a single-payer system necesitates federalizing all healthcare workers and destroying all competition.
Yes, because presently doctors do whatever they want irrespective of who is paying the bills.
I know, but that is a government run health care system… therefore relevant.
Insanity is whimsically defined as doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results… like trying to reason with Pastorboy…
It is the same with government run health care…
The burden of proof lies with those who think a health care bureaucracy will be unlike all the other bureaucracies… who think “this time” it will be different.
It seems you think the doctors are the problem here… much of what doctors do is determined by lawyers…
After spending nearly the whole month of May and half the month of June in a hospital at my wife’s bedside, I can confidently say that the vast majority of doctors aren’t motivated by getting rich. I do believe that most of them genuinely care for people already. I also think that a lot of the time doctors are motivated way too much by the fear of getting sued.
Again I agree – they may not become federal employees – but they will have to live and function w/i a federally run system.
Neil, not at all. You are missing the point. You seem to think the problem is some middle man – the “THEY” that the doctors would have to answer to.
When you say:
You give off the impression that doctors at present are free to just do what they feel is in the best interests of their patient. But you realize that in fact, THEY do have to answer to someone else – you name “lawyers.” Great. So at least admit that neither system is ideal but both system mean that doctors have to do what THEY say.
The question is who is the THEY.
Military doctors can’t get sued and yet are highly motivated to do a good job.
As someone who has had to depend on insurance outside of the normal group plans most people are able to acquire through large employers, I have to say that the government can’t do worse.
As a Christian, I have to say that this is nothing more than continued fighting over who gets power, something the world should be doing, not the church.
What’s really hilarious about this is that citizens of a nation that spends 15% of GDP on healthcare are complaining about, of all things, bureacracy.
Really?
More money is spend here on overhead than anywhere in the *world,* and people still think that adopting a single-payer will somehow result in less efficiency.
And for what it’s worth, the CBO, which I tend to trust more than partisan groups, thinks the savings from Tort reform would be minimal.
http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=4968&type=0#F12
“Reality-based”does recognize, though, that (at least in the US) the words “government” and “efficiency” have no relationship to one another in any existing agency. Medicare and Medicaid are existing examples of why government should not be involved in the health care arena. With such bloated and mismanaged behemoths as “reality” – leading to the current crisis – it doesn’t take a genius to say “hey, the government hasn’t managed anything related to health care with anything even resembling efficiency or effectiveness – why should I think ‘this time, it will be different’?”
What existing government bureaucracy is so well-run and well-managed that it argues “government does this so well that we ought to hand over more responsibility to it?”
Not immediately, but most think-tanks on the right and left recognize that a single-payer system unavoidably leads to socialized medicine.
But it does. Doctors essentially become salaried employees of the government (see Canada, the UK, Japan, etc.)
It also means that you effectively kill drug innovation. The results of this are already in from the countries that have already killed it off via their own socialist medical systems.
And who/what is that single entity? In the current discussion, and in all the plans active in congress, it is the government.
Nobody argues that all of the active plans require the rationing of health care – and that it will be the government doing that rationing.
It only took Oregon a decade to decide that it was far better public policy to hand out drugs to kill yourself, once you reach a certain age, than to cover the medications that would save your life. Obama has already signaled that such decisions (of life-saving care for the elderly) will be made by a government board.
Agreed. Currently the “they” are insurance companies and lawyers – over simplifying the issue of course… would you agree?
My contention is, making the “they” the Feds will only make things worse…and this is based on the historical reality of bureaucracies.
Governments cannot be trusted. Now, neither can corporations. But that is the role of Gov’t – to keep corporations honest.
One you remove the corporation and everything rests with the Gov’t – corruption… inefficiency… laziness… etc.
In the majority of case, I’d say they are free. I actually think that what happens most of the time is that they are overly cautious as far as things like ordering blood tests, CAT scans, etc. They want to make sure that there’s absolutely no way someone can come back and say “yeah, but should’ve done this…”. So that results in a lot of wasting of resources.
If I had too choose, and admittedly, it’s a sucky choice, I’d rather have the option that doctors our worried about doing too little than having a federal insurance adjuster telling them they can’t do certain things. And that actually happens quite frequently already with Medicare and Medicaid.
Which kinda proves my contention. Remove the unreasonable fear of malpractice suits from the doctors motivation
Replacing a corporate bureaucracy with a governmental one would be worse – since the governmental bureaucracy reports to no one.
cf. comment 81
Exactly – which drives up the costs… and creates a lot of other domino effects…
Chris L:
Are you familiar with the French model? Taiwan?
Switzerland?
Not all countries with a single-payer are alike, much less countries with universal care.
And of course, these are the countries people are flocking to for their health care – right?
81:
And again, all consequentialist arguments, to which I simply say, who cares?
Someone has to manage it. That is the way it works. Unless the Church is suddenly going to take on health care and build hospitals and train doctors and pay for those without insurance than someone else is going to have to do it. I think all the hype about lack of motivation and laziness and no competition is nothing but fear mongering.
The bottom line is this: Who is striving to make health care available to people who don’t have it and can’t get it? Lawyers and corporations or the government?
Matt P and whoever else,
Don’t know if this has been brought up, but as I understand it, the way the proposed U.S. healthcare bill is set up now, it will require companies to either provide health insurance for all of their employees or pay tax to make up for it. This is fine for large corporate companies, but small businesses will never be able to afford this. Businesses such as restaurants will end up paying more than they are making (besides the fact that being required to insure young employees who are still under their parents’ plan is rather impractical.) This could cause a lot of small businesses to go bankrupt and leave pretty much everyone I know without work.
Furthermore, the plan as it is right now makes no mention of how it will cover people who work through temp agencies (people like my parents who do not have permanent jobs). The proposed bill will also eliminate all private, individual health plans, which is what my family and I have, leaving us and a lot of other people without health insurance and having to pay tax in it’s place.
When Obama was asked about some of these issues, he skirted around it by saying he “wasn’t aware” of the said problems.
Bottom line, the bill is just not well thought-out, and could potentially wreak alot of havoc on the economy.
Re: 84
Actually, Neil, we’d be replacing approximately 10,000 bureacracies with a single one.
Calling it “corporate” v. “government” vastly oversimplifies the issue.
Re: 87
I agree completely! Yes, these countries often do not match the U.S. when it comes to top-flight healthcare!
That’s an objection that’s rooted in reality. Not that single-payer or universal healthcare systems will result in greater healthcare costs.
We spend more money than anyone in the world. We are also the only Western nation without some type of universal care.
Is that a huge coincidence?
You should care.
I am not arguing that the system does not need fixed.
But my comments in 81 are matters of fact. Neither governments nor corporations can be trusted – so NEITHER should be the single authority when it comes to health care.
If you honestly think this about the government “striving to make health care available to people who don’t have it and can’t get it”, I’d say you are a lot, lot more trusting of politicians than me. I’d say this about one thing – politicians worried about getting re-elected. And actually, that’s the only reason it’s been delayed.
I think the Church could do a lot more in coming up with creative solutions. It has actually led the way in the past. It’s more than just a coincidence that so many churches have names like “Holy Spirit”, “Trinity”, etc. Many of these institutions have roots in the Church. It’s a sad commentary that the Church has largely given up this mandate.
I am familiar with the French model.
I suppose if we were willing to have the government pay for medical school, heavily restrict malpractice, set up a VAT tax structure (one that hits all levels of society) along with a 19% tax on employees, we’d be ready to look at it…
And a single governmental bureaucracy is the scariest scenario of all – for they answer to no one!
I’m sorry, Neil, but this just doesn’t make sense. While I might agree with you that neither can be trusted, you seem to think that having 2 devils in the mix is better than one. That is not a tenable argument.
There is a proverb that says “Much can get done when people are not worried about who gets the credit.”
A variation of this could be: “The health care system could be fixed if the Feds were not concerned about power.”
Ultimately it’s all about power and control…
Frankly, no I don’t trust them. And I don’t really care what their motives are for doing it.
What I see as my role in the church as being is to look at offers and accept things as potential gift.
I guess I could quote Rob Bell from VE here and say that where I see truth I affirm it, no matter from where it comes. Health care for people who don’t have it and can’t get it is a good thing. I affirm that. I support that.
If you agree neither can be trusted – why are you willing to give one of them ultimate control?
As I just said, if the feds wanted to, they could create a system that allows for the moderation of competing insurance companies… but that is not what they want.
They want total control – it’s human nature.
And on this we can agree…
But the answer is not handing it over to the Feds… Mussolini made the trains run on time – but the cost was too high.
Re: 94
What does the VAT have to do with France’s healthcare?
And I think you’re confusing the 19% tax on employees with the VAT. VAT is 19.6%, and employee taxes are lower. (.75% for employees, and a social security tax of something like 6 or 7%).
And, personally, I’d love to rein in the costs of higher education in this country. (But that’s a different debate).
So your solution is to allow one entity that can’t be trusted to moderate over other entities that can’t be trusted.
How does that make sense?
2 wrongs don’t make a right.
I agree healthcare for people who don’t have it is a good thing as well (which really, we are talking about health insurance), but I also think that it’s a fair question to look at how best to provide that. Right now, I don’t see any compelling evidence that a government program is the solution to the problem at large.
I guess because I work as an engineer in real life, I am never satisfied with simply accepting the current “conventional wisdom” as the best solution. I think there are always better ways to innovate and improve. To me, handing this over to the government is like punting – “here, this problem is too big for me – you handle it”. I don’t think being disconnected like that is the Kingdom way of handling things.
The role of government includes civil order – which would include basic regulation and laws. Those who do not abide by them are subject to their penalties.
If corporations must act within the framework of the laws and regulations, you have each entity working within its bailiwick, with an appropriate system of checks and balances. The government is doing what it is supposed to do (providing the rules of order in society) and not doing what it should not be doing (delivering goods and services).
You also have room for the church to act within this framework in a way for which it is designed.
Which goes back to the point of the OP…
Because a corporation is beholden to the will of its customer and stockholders. If enough customers get fed up, they can leave the company and the company will suffer the consequences.
I think part of the problem with health insurance in the US is that so many people get it through their employers, that in reality, they have very little power as a customer. I guess, ultimately, what I’d like to see is insurance become affordable and competitive enough that it would make sense for an employee to not have to pay for insurance through the middle man of his company and go shopping for his own policy (much like car insurance, again).
Yes, and it makes complete sense because it’s the best case scenario for the fallen world we live in… it’s the basis for our Constitutional Government… it’s the basis of checks and balances.
Within the Federal Government we have three entities, none of which can be trusted with ultimate power, so each is given the task of checking the others.
Keeping both corporations and government in the health care system is the same check and balance.
Far worse than having two untrustworthy entities keeping tabs on each other would be giving ALL power and authority to either one of them.
Do you really want to give ultimate authority to only one untrustworthy entity?
It’s interesting to me when people talk about how bumbling government entitites are, they always mention the U.S.P.S. and FEMA.
Why don’t they mention the U.S. Air Force, or NASA?
And if our government is so malicious and untrustworthy that we should never let it pay for health insurance, why did we think our government would succeed in invading a Middle Eastern nation and engineering a stable democracy where none had ever been established before?
Now that was a big project. Wow.
Chris L-
Since much of your argument depends on drawing a connection between what gov’t. was used for in the 1st century to today, where were corporations, stock holders, and insurance companies in the 1st century?
The irony in all these arguments is that they start off saying our trust should be in God and God alone and that we should never put our trust in the government or anything else (to which I agree). However, the argument then quickly turns to forsaking God entirely and stating that if we go this route as a country than the sky will fall, our American way of life will be threatened or our economy or our “rights” or the free market or our drive to compete – all will be lost – or that it’s better to put our trust in corporations properly overseen by the government (which, mind you, can’t be trusted either) and so forth….
What happened to God?
We don’t trust God. We trust capitalism and democracy and the free market system. Not God. At least, not as far as these arguments are concerned.
Yeah. His name is Jesus.
forgot to x out the prefix “un” above
108:
well said.
Well, for the most part those are organizations in which incompetency will get you killed. Unfortunately, in the Congress it seems to be a prerequisite for being made the head of a committee.
Yeah, and we see how well that worked out…
This a straw man, at least as it pertains to what people here are saying. I don’t deny that some people would say that, but no one here has once talked about the “American way of life”…
In other venues, I have prefaced my question about government agencies with “With the possible exception of the US military, can you name…”
I do think there’s a good deal of inefficiency in the military, though, but NASA – which always seems to be on the chopping block and highly limited (and responsible) in its budgets is probably a good exception to note.
So, we’ve got one out of a thousand government agencies that may be efficient and effective, though it is also likely an outlier exactly because it is one of the few agencies subject to market forces in ways that most agencies are shielded. Government health insurance has no such parallel…
I use that as an umbrella term that capture all these sentiments about free markets, competition, corporations, shareholders, ins. companies, and a pervasive sense of you are entitled to only what you earn or work for (the last I am not saying is shared by anyone particular).
Re: 113
You see, it’s those kinds of comments that make me deeply sad.
Are there incompetent individuals in the U.S. Congress? Absolutely. But are there also deeply qualified, absolutely brilliant, and very trustworthy people as well. Definitely.
I think there should always be a healthy mix of cynicism and appreciation for the work public servants do for this country.
I don’t consider discussion about free markets and competition inherently American. I see them more as universal laws of commerce. The laws of supply and demand pretty much govern all commerce throughout the world. When governments have tried to interfere with them too much, the results have pretty much always been disastrous.
So it’s agreed that where life and death is involved, the gov.’t can sometimes act fairly efficiently.
Sort of like, perhaps,….health care?
And yet the Church still stands….even thrives in such times.
Once more, God is oddly absent from much of these doomsday predictions.
Again, who here is predicting doomsday? You act like you’re arguing with Rush Limbaugh…
Yes, the Church survives. That’s not the issue. The issue is trying to do the most good for the most people. Frankly, I’m skeptical of any government’s ability to do that.
Chris L:
I think that a lot of agencies do a pretty good job, and most of the time we blast on them either because 1.) the tasks are such that they have to hire less than stellar employees that the popular culture likes to mock (e.g. the Postal Service) and 2.) the tasks are so difficult, any organization would struggle in its place (e.g. the IRS).
That said, I think the DOJ does a good job, including the FBI, the U.S. Attorney’s office, the DEA, etc.
DHS, with U.S.C.I.S., Secret Service, etc.
The CIA, the NSA, etc.
I think the NIH does a pretty good job, and the CDC seems to know what it’s doing.
I could go on.
Not just the first century. From the time that Israel asked for a king (Samuel) all the way through the first century.
No, it does not. I don’t see anyone who is arguing against government take-over of health care as saying it infringes upon their “rights” – the only ones talking about ‘rights’ are those who (mistakenly) see healthcare as a ‘right’ and not a service.
I am only arguing that government be restrained to what it was mandated to do and that communities and individuals (which does happen to include churches and businesses) be contained to the roles they were given, as well. It is not like I am arguing that the church should create the laws by which to regulate health care – or that corporations should be responsible for our national defense – or that we should replace civil magistrates with the clergy.
Each has its place in the biblical mandate, and we ought to honor that.
Additionally, we should become concerned when the government puts itself in the position to be our provider of life, and not accept the mark of that beast.
And, of course, the DMV is always a state organization.
People love to complain about the DMV.
(Though I have always been diligent to go during less than busy times, and so have spent less than an hour of my life thus far in line at the DMV.)
MG – I work with a number of those agencies, and would take a much different view.
It’s hard not to come to that conclusion given all the comments above.
So if no one is predicting doomsday do you and everyone else agree that if this plan is adopted life will go on, people may actually realize all these scare stats are for naught, that the gov.’t actually might pull this off, that innovation will still happen, that care will still be good and that more people will have care?
Or is it all gonna crash and burn?
I admit that I was being somewhat facetious in my previous comment. My dad was in the army, and the old joke about “military intelligence” being an oxymoron sometimes seemed all too true…
I think that part of the reason those organizations can be more efficient is simply because they are smaller. If some sort of government health insurance provider was created, we would be talking about a massive entity. It would most likely dwarf many other agencies in its size. Call me overly skeptical, but I have doubts about the efficiency of such an entity.
Not really. In the examples given, it is the life of the manager/government employee that is at stake, not the lives of their “customers”…
key difference.
123: What does the Bible say about the role of corporations, lawyers and insurance companies? What does the Bible say about capitalism?
Is that right before or right after the tooth fairy rides in on a unicorn to deliver the pot of gold from the end of the rainbow?
Perhaps it really would have been easier for those stupid early Christians to just burn the incense to Caesar & accept his mark so they could buy and sell…
Oh, so the astronauts are also the rocket scientists in your scenario. They are also the ones checking the parts and making sure all is working well. They are the ones in the air traffic control towers.
Must be tough being in all those places at the same time.
lol. and here is the part where Chris L gets frustrated and starts calling me a follower of Satan. I’m now encouraging people to take the mark.
good grief, Chris.
You see, Phil? I guess I was completely wrong to say “doomsday” Chris L seems to think Armageddon is upon us.
Phil:
If the U.S., like Britain, went fully “socialized,” yes the organization would be enormous. Whether it would exceed the size of the DOD is debatable.
If the U.S. did not, the DOD would continue to dwarf all other government agencies by a mile.
1 Timothy 5:18
Why do you want to muzzle the ox, Chad?
gotta go get ready for VBS.
You bringing your kids by, Chris? Tonight’s lesson: How you can take the mark of the beast and where it proud. Tomorrow is: How my faith in hell saved me.
You forget that I am amillennial in my eschatology, and that I see Revelation as primarily teaching, not predictive prophecy.
NASA is an exception to the rule.
Another can-o-worms… but again, no one is saying they cannot be involved. They just CANNOT be the only player
Chris, I don’t really care what you think about Revelation.
What is pertinent is that you obviously think
Whatever is Disagreeable To Chris L = The Mark of the Beast.
Get a grip. Government run health care is not the end of the world.
Are you gonna say that everyone living in Canada, UK, France, Switzerland, etc. are all followers of the Beast?
please.
The bottom line is this… no one would willingly put themselves under a dictatorship.
We have a Constitution that sets up a Gov’t of checks and balances
Why, or why, would we give our health care to anything less?
No one is maligning the individuals who work for the government.
We are talking systems here – let’s not derail the question
No – bowing to an idol for the purpose of personal gain = Mark of the Beast.
In its original context, that idol was the state, and as such we should be very wary of our involvement with the state – whether that be from the right (via ‘patriotism’/'allegiance’) or the left (via the nanny state).
I didn’t say it was (though, granted, if the current plan passes, we’ve basically sold out our grandchildren and their grandchildren, as well)
If they see the government as the provider of their needs, then yes.
That goes for the US, as well, with or without “universal healthcare”. The OP is about caution in concentrating the earthly provider of our needs in a single place – particularly one that sits outside of the biblical mandate and one that robs the church of a portion of its purpose.
I thought it was common knowledge that all Canadians followed the beast? They are, after all, Canadian…
Chris L –
If that is what you really believe than cut out the crap and sensationalism such as this:
Gov’t run health care is not the boogie man. Of course bowing to any idol is wrong. No one is making it an idol. You are just creating a straw man.
Perhaps I should do what everyone else around here does and demand an apology from you for insinuating that I am encouraging people to bow to the beast.
that’s bs and you know it.
You sound like what I imagine a reincarnation of Hannity, Falwell, Lou Dobbs and O’Reily rolled in one would look like
142: you watch too much South Park
Chris L:
So would you be in favor of eliminating Social Security, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, unemployment benefits, Medicare, Medicaid, Public Utilities, Public Highways, Public Schools, etc.?
I’ve come around. We can’t trust Government OR the corportations so healthcare should definitely be in the hands of the Church!
Everyone trusts organised religion to get a job down fairly and well, just look at history! Once the 1,200+ denominations and faith groups in the US get together I’m sure they will put together a hell of a system.
Of course, a non-Christian or even some Christians reading this article on a site dedicated to correcting other Christians from sniping and condemning further Christians might be interested in a different solution, but that’s because they have the dreaded beast-mark.
I’ll hit this only briefly to avoid a full thread derailment:
1) Social Security – I believe this has done a great disservice to the family and the church by fostering behaviors which further enable our individuality and rob families of the joys of caring for their parents in their old age, churches to shirk their mission (because its already taken care of), and individuals of exercising more personal responsibility. It has also created a brand new culture of “retirement”, robbing years of life through a loss of purpose in work. I would be in favor of encouraging workers to save for their aging years, and supporting private entities that would help people save money for their later years.
2) AFDC – much the same thing as above. I would rather see the local government as a coordinator (at most) than a provider – which should be filled by individuals and the church.
3) Unemployment – this is something that is funded by employers and employees while they are working and is fairly limited in scope (for the most part). I think there are bigger fish to fry.
4) Medicare/Medicaid – this is where the church was filling the gap for many through their hospitals. I don’t know how practical it is to move to a church-supported system any more, though. However, with its solvency issues, there may be a place where the church could step in to pick up things that could no longer be funded with other people’s money.
5) Public Utilities – no
6) Public highways – yes (this is truly a common economic good/service), as it is a basic infrastructure item that is shared by all and a key part of self-defense and civil order
7) Public schools – I already hit on this in #16
Enabling/Advocating a system which inherently fosters dependence on the government (i.e. inherently encourages others to “worship the beast”) is not something the church – or Christians – have any business trucking with. I still see this role as just one of Nicolaitan hucksters for Caesar who ‘know better’ (i.e. don’t actually worship Caesar), but enable others into this type of slavery.
Slavery? Yes – just look at Matt P’s first comment:
Exactly my point.
Ah come on Chris! Don’t take my silly hyperbole and use it to prop up your argument. SLAVERY? No one is enslaved in our system, everyone can be privately ensured and never set foot in a public hospital. You are a slave to your insurance company, or your employer, or to your health itself on some level.
I just think it’s right and good and moral that everyone can get healthcare without being forced in to huge debt, and so do the rest of Australians, and we would never let either side of politics take that away. We wouldn’t actually riot anyway, we are more of a bitching and moaning nation :p.
Your making out of Universal Health Care as a theological issue, with extreme claims like it is slavery to the government, is just wierd. To say you think it would be worse than your current system in terms of deliverables is one thing, fine if you honestly believe that, but to suggest it’s intrinsically immoral is bizarre.
I should also point out that we are actively encouraged by our government to be privately ensured and receive tax breaks for being so.
Seems like a damned if you do and damned if you don’t situation.
If public healthcare is implemented and it DOESN’T work well then “The Government sucks”, and if it DOES work so well that citizens refuse to do with out it then “You are a slave to the evil Government”.
I mean, that’s basically what you are saying, if we like something the Government is doing so much that we’d get really angry if they stopped, we are enslaved to them :S
Anyway my feverish Swine Flu brain is rambling on…
ah, yes. If only your entire OP wasn’t based on pure conjecture about a group of people we know little if anything about.
But like I said – you can make anything a mouthpiece for your politics.
Matt P – good points above.
g’day.
But advocating for the dependence on corporations, Wall Street, insurance companies and employers is perfectly A.OK.
Seriously, Chris. Where is ANYONE advocating for dependence on the government? Where has ANYONE made an argument that would even REMOTELY suggest “bowing to the altar” of government or health care? I’m beginning to think you went to PB’s school for discernment and reading comp.
Simply being supportive of a government that is attempting to make health care available and affordable for people who need it is NOT the same as advocating for dependency on the government. If someone took you and your family hostage tonight and law enforcement intervened to “save” you I wouldn’t be making an argument that you and your family are “dependent” on the government. Nor would you. We would rather stop and give thanks for a service provided – a good service.
And even as I write the above I just KNOW you are thinking, “Ah, but governments are scripturally warranted to maintain the peace blah blah blah and therefore I would expect the police to follow through with their God-given duties.”
If you are even remotely thinking that than please show me in your Bible where HMO’s and Insurance companies and employers and the free market are providing health care for capitalists.
There are generally choices present here (though Phil notes the inherent problems with some employers bearing the choice and hidden cost of their provided insurance plans), and because you pay out-of-pocket for a specific service, the sense of entitlement is not nearly the issue it is when provided “free” by the government.
As for “Wall Street” – the last time I checked, it was not an entity unto itself.
As for employers, entitlement can become an issue, but the relationship between work and pay (which is biblical) is clearly visible and not inherently a something-for-nothing-dependence situation (and usurpation of role) that is present with governments.
Dependence is inherent when such vast and unbiblical roles are usurped by the government. You don’t have to explicitly argue for dependence on government when it is implicit in what you are proposing. It’s like saying “where has anyone suggested killing yourself?” when handing over a glass of hemlock to drink.
It has nothing to do with “reading comprehension” and everything to do with not being “of the kosmos“.
I’m not advocating that you should speed on the highway, I’m just giving you a radar detector. (Though I would note that health care is available to most everyone that needs it – just not with health insurance. Also noting that a large percentage of the uninsured are that way on purpose.)
I agree – the example you give is one of the government acting within the roles granted to it.
I can point to a number of passages where we are told to care for one another (ex: All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.). Private insurance is simply the voluntary pooling of community resources to provide for the needs of others in the community. The company that manages this pool employs actuaries who excel in calculating exactly how much needs to be pooled, and the statistical likelihood of each individual’s need, so as to help set the premiums.
[As a side note, I do find it somewhat humorous and ironic that the folks who will get screwed the hardest in the currently proposed plans are in the demographics that voted heavily for Obama. The young, who will be forced to pay high premiums for coverage they don't need, at a time in their career they can least affor id. And the aged, who will pretty quickly come to realize that it is their duty to die and not burden the system. To quote Obama's favorite pastor, sometimes the 'chickens come home to roost.' Brilliant!]
Chris L:
I have thought a lot about your thesis. I’m unsure if you’re right.
To sum up the debate, we have one group of people who are saying “okay, I realize that providing health care for everyone involves cost controls, rationing, and a change in the level of health care that I currently receive. But I’m okay with that if it means that others less fortunate than I am get coverage as well.”
Then you have others saying “all governments ever do is screw up, America has the best health coverage because Sultans in Saudi Arabia fly to Cleveland for chemo, if a man doesn’t work, he doesn’t eat, I don’t want to wait 6 months for crappy coverage from a glorified postal worker with no incentive to offer good care.”
If you ask me which group is more committed to their “rights,” and more dependent on some worldly good, I’d go with the latter.
The thought that those who are committed to the status quo are somehow less dependent on the temporal and those things not from the Lord is, in my honest opinion, completely off-base.
MG – the error in your thesis is that:
a) it assumes altruism only for one side of the argument. I don’t want anyone beholden to the government or dependent on it for any basic human need. That is not its purpose.
b) most everyone who wants it is able to get the health care they need (though not necessarily all they want)
c) It’s not about me. If need be, I’ve got enough connections and the networks to circumvent the system for myself and/or my family. I don’t want anyone to “have to wait 6 months for crappy coverage from a glorified postal worker”.
d) I want innovation in medical devices, pharmaceuticals and treatments to continue to be developed. I don’t want diabetics to just get the minimal insulin and substandard care they will get in a government system. I’d rather see a cure for diabetes. It won’t happen – period – in the proposed system.
I believe God lays out roles for groups of people and institutions for a reason, and when we fiddle with that, the only outcome is a screwup – if not in the short run, definitely in the long run.
Also, I’m not committed to the status quo. This is just the first article, pointing out the theological error in dependence on the government.
“The status quo” is doing nothing. It is not like a government run system of medical services is the only solution to the current problems.
Chris L:
A, B, C, and D may very well be valid points about *your* outlook. But they are irrelevant.
My point is that you misconstrue the fundamental debate. (Which is bigger than you).
The debate is one side saying “health care would be more fairly and efficiently administered by having a single-payer. The neat thing is that it brings in previously uninsured.”
The other side says “I don’t want people messing my *my* health care, which also happens to be the best health care in the world!”
Those voices are the most strident and prominent.
Are there dissenting voices out there? Sure. I imagine that someone out there may think “Gee whiz, I think that the government owes me health care, and I really love welfare. Maybe I’ll go impregnate someone and play X-Box.”
But that’s not the dominant narrative.
The debate, right now at least, is dominated on the conservative side by people are scared about diminished coverage.
And that, fundamentally, is borne out of fear and a lack of faith in God and his provision.
Chris,
I’ll admit I am not particularly familar with the suggested changes to your system and am in no way arguing for any “specific” implementation of UHS that your government has cooked up which may have it’s own problems, I’m arguing generally, so forgive me on that front.
“Dependence is inherent when such vast and unbiblical roles are usurped by the government. ”
I get free coffee in the office, but I still like to go out and buy my own because I prefer the cafe. I’m not dependant on the office for my coffee.
In Australia, as I pointed out above, we are in no way dependent on the Government for healthcare. If I want private cover I can have it, if I want to pay for private treatment out of my own funds I can do it and if the Church wants to pay for me I can do that too.
“Private insurance is simply the voluntary pooling of community resources to provide for the needs of others in the community.”
Except it isn’t voluntary in any real sense, because to go without it is to risk losing everything you’ve ever worked for because your daughter got hit by a car. It’s not much of a choice if you can volunteer for it, potential ruin or death. In Australia it is truly voluntary because their are actual alternatives i.e. public health care.
“The company that manages this pool employs actuaries who excel in calculating exactly how much needs to be pooled, and the statistical likelihood of each individual’s need, so as to help set the premiums.”"
This is such a naive statement… corporations operate for one reason and one reason only, to make as much money as is humanly possible for their shareholders. Providing a healthy person with cover is a good business decision. So is denying that person’s claim when the insurer decides they have a “pre-existing”condition. Individual need has nothing to do with premiums, corporations will charge exactly as much as they think they can get away with. They “excel” in profit making. That’s fine and as it should be in a free-market for most services, but as the only model for health insurance the company has?
You can say, “fine, go with another insurer” but by the time you realise your insurance company is going to screw you over it’s too late, you are already sick and no one else is going to take you on.
“I can point to a number of passages where we are told to care for one another”
What about rendering to Ceasar? You’re perfectly happy for “Ceasar” to spend your tax dollars on neutral things like roads or even evil things like war – but not good things like healthcare because “that’s the churches job and the churches should oppose the Government doing it”.
Finally, did you read the article I linked earlier? It was written by a pastor (now Theological Lecturer) who had experienced both systems:
To qoute: “I witnessed how the privilege of universal health care had awakened a common sense of duty toward my neighbor and mutual respect for one another, causing a tangible awareness that everyone was treated with a fundamental equality, not as an abstract motto repeated on patriotic occasions but as practical as walking into the local doctor’s office or hospital when you or a family member were ill. In other words, my personal self-worth was bound together with a respect for my neighbor’s worth (and health) as well.”
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/07/american_health_care_the_view.html
I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on it. I’m enjoying the discussion and you are presenting your points well even if I disagree with you!
Chris,
You make so many baseless analogies your whole argument becomes mush.
Such vast and unbiblical roles? Usurped? Are you serious?
Are you really suggesting that the entire sum of what governments are allowed and not allowed to do is summed up in Scripture? Seriously?
So governments are not supposed to provide health care. And you believe this because Scripture says so. Wow.
So now, if someone doesn’t have health care because they don’t have an employer that provides it or because they can’t afford it or because of a pre-existing condition and chooses to be covered under the proposed governments plan they are “of the kosmos.” Unlike you, of course, who by your own admission..
How convenient for you and your family. How nice to not be “of the world” with all your “connections” and “networks” that allow you circumvent “the system.”
Of course, he didn’t draft this plan but only set certain parameters.
Honestly, I think this boils down to your still being pissed that a black man is spoiling your White House.
M.G. great point.
159:
Good post M.G – couldn’t agree more.
As an aside, I’ve yet to impregnate anyone but I do enjoy x-box!
Not the predominant voices I’m hearing. I hear more about screwing up the entire system when a full reboot isn’t needed to fix it, and that “crappy care for all” isn’t a good ideal.
As is the other side, as well…
You know, all these people lauding our current system, I have to wonder how many of them have ever had to try getting health insurance outside of comfy group plans.
Cause, I gotta tell you, its a real bitch and I can’t imagine the government being any worse.
No, Bo. The people speaking the loudest against this and try to force it into some theological construction (and as this OP shows, pure conjecture) have…
Matt,
The Australian system is not what’s being proposed in the US. Under the current proposals, you cannot opt out. You cannot take an inexpensive plan that just covers catastrophic injury/illness with a high deductible and low premiums. You’ve got to buy into the whole shebang or, if you buy private insurance, it must offer the whole shebang.
It is a government take-over of 1/6th of the economy and a recipe for financial and medical ruin.
Actually, in co-op plans, the insured are the shareholders of the insurance company, so profit is not purely the motive. Additionally, competition keeps profits from obscenely escalating in most markets.
There are free market solutions which leave health care out of the hands of Caesar.
If we’re going to sell out, we might as well go all in?
Ah yes, time to play the
As demonstrated in the past, the only racist in that particular conversation is you…
It’s OK to sell out just a little bit, then? You need to re-read Revelation.
lol. I know, I know. You have black friends.
That’s not what I said. I just said that government is usurping the role of the church.
You, apparently, though, have no problem selling out to Caesar…
Um, no, that is exactly what you said:
So why did you say this, then?
ANother totally baseless assertion.
Being “of the kosmos” is placing one’s trust in it, rather than God. That is purely what the government plan is about, even if it’s sugar-coated with bleeding-heart “compassion”.
No, you’ve been around long enough that it’s pretty much obvious…
“Additionally, competition keeps profits from obscenely escalating in most markets. ”
Yes it does, but to be frank, it doesn’t seem to in this particular one or you wouldn’t be in the hole you are in.
“There are free market solutions which leave health care out of the hands of Caesar. ”
Well if there are and they work better, by all means go for it. In a straight up “your current system” versus “my current system”debate I’d take mine everytime, but I wouldn’t turn down a better third solution.
“If we’re going to sell out, we might as well go all in?”
Haha, fair enough, but if we are going to stand against anything the government does, why healthcare of all things?
I know what “being of the kosmos” means. And not a single person here has argued for placing one’s trust in the government. What you are implying, however, is that if someone is partaking of a government health plan then they are “of the world.” IOW, they are somehow less trusting in God than apparently YOU are, with all your connections and networks.
LOL. Then it should be very easy for you to come up with even one example where I even remotely advocate anything closely resembling selling out to Caesar. Please, enlighten me. Perhaps it is in the conversation where I argue for pacifism?
I only pointed out my own situation to demonstrate that my position is not about me, but a) ideologically about what is the right thing to do; and b) to note that the overall impact to me is also the overall impact to everyone – the destruction of the American economy and elimination of medical innovation, pure and simple.
“The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” – Margaret Thatcher
As merry notes above, the financing of this proposed rape supposedly falls upon “the rich” which includes killing off small businesses, elimination of jobs to pay for the new
indentured servitudeentitlement, and more bills that our children, or our children’s children will be able to pay.That, and selling our souls to the government for the purpose of extending our lives…
176: You forgot to add, “Oh, but we trust God.”
Again, lucky for you and all your connections and networks. Screw all the suckers who don’t have that.
Chris L:
There is one other area where I think you really distort the debate. You talk constantly about the government “usurping” the proper role of the Church.
Doesn’t this assume that doing good in this world is somehow a zero-sum game? And that can’t be right, can it?
Do you really think the Church was educating people, administering health care, combating poverty, etc., and the government one day said, “alright, enough of this heaven on earth, we’ll take over and make things worse?”
Not so much. Rather, 150 years ago, we had a 75% literacy rate, greater poverty (especially amongst the elderly… it’s dropped dramatically since the advent of social security), nothing even approaching modern health care, etc., etc.
And do we have a utopia now? Of course not! And even with a single-payer system, we still won’t have a utopia.
In other words, the Church, NO MATTER WHAT THE GOVERNMENT DOES OR DOES NOT DO, will have work that needs to be done.
As far as I can tell, this whole business about “usurping” is a ruse meant to ignore or downplay the good that the government can do and has done (as if it’s just meant to be somehow *replaced* by the good done by the church), as well to exaggerate the dependence people are said to have on government when it works for the common good (as if the government could truly do the work that Church ought to provide.)
“Being “of the kosmos” is placing one’s trust in it, rather than God. That is purely what the government plan is about, even if it’s sugar-coated with bleeding-heart “compassion”.”
What a nonsense statement. Are you honestly saying that advocates of public health care for all are “purely” motivated by a desire for everyone to no longer trust in God but to trust in Government? That’s what it is “purely” about?
Caricatures like this only further prove M.G.’s point in 159.
It can’t anything to do with simply making health care available to those who don’t have it and can’t get it. It has to be about “selling our souls” for the purpose of “extending our lives.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Sort of like your whole Nicolaitan construction above that you are selling off as “history.” If you are concerned about truthfulness you really should begin that entire history lesson with the phrase, “This is pure conjecture, but…”
Actually, no – it’s not obscene profits that have created the hole. It is a combination of a tort system that is out of control, too much government meddling, corruption/fraud, and a lack of politicians willing to say “no” to expansion of entitlements. I don’t know of any healthcare companies (including insurers) that have been showing “obscene profits…”
All politics is local and systems don’t shift from one environment to another because those environments (culturally and structurally) reward and punish different behaviors.
I’m all for a “third solution” that a) cleans up the bureaucracy – rather than adding to it; b) eliminates sources of corruption, rather than expanding them; c) moves the onus for wise use of resources to the individual (like with some co-op and FSA options) and not bureaucrats; and most importantly, d) results in the advancement of freedom rather than dependence. I see that both the church and individuals would fit much better in such a system, rather than the utter abortion currently being ramrodded through Congress…
Fortunately, it looks like there will be no vote on a plan before the August recess, and (if this past couple of weeks has been any advanced indicator) Congress is likely to get much colder feet after spending a month at home in town-hall meetings that are currently running 15-to-1 against the bogus “reform” being proposed…
Echoing what M.G says in 178.
Your whole Thesis about Ceasar, the Nicolaitans and “selling out”baffles (and intrigues!) me.
It’s like a bunch of people are standing around arguing about the best way to get a cat out of a tree and you have wandered up and started talking about animal rights, the ancient Egyptians reverence for Cat Gods and who is biblically mandated to call the fire brigade.
182: lol.
“a tort system that is out of control, too much government meddling, corruption/fraud, and a lack of politicians willing to say “no” to expansion of entitlements.”
You see, now you’re just making stuff up. Escalating costs are (on both sides of the aisle) generally attributed to increasingly sophisticated technology, and a system whereby physicians are rewarded for repeated reliance on the latest drugs and diagnostic testing.
Plaintiff’s litigation, “government meddling,” and the expansion of entitlements have had little to do with the recent wild inflation in medical expenditures.
Hey Chris, perhaps the quotes from me that make it “obvious” that I am all about selling out to Caesar came up in discussions where I talked about getting flags out of churches?
Or perhaps you got that impression from my blog post that argued against saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag
Just trying to help you out here. can’t wait to see what is so “obvious” to you that proves your assertions about me. Don’t you usually argue against ODM’s for making assertions without proof?
My apologies if the most likely interpretation of a historical position doesn’t support your current hobby.
I do not see this as a “zero-sum game” – rather I see it as a choice between the easy way out (selling out to the government and giving everyone crappy care) vs. doing the hard work of cleaning up the broken systems that led to where we are and ensuring that basic care continues to be available to all citizens, while not bankrupting the future generations in our country.
No, I’m saying that those who are currently concocting the new system have always been looking for ways move power to Washington and to make the citizenry indebted to them (thus ensuring continued power). Additionally, they’ve been able to use enough of a sales job (which isn’t surprising, since Satan is still technically the prince of the kingdoms of this world) to dupe those who are altruistically motivated into buying their manure as if it were freshly churned ice cream.
Chad – the right sells out to Caesar through ‘patriotism’ tests, etc. The left sells out through its commitment to the inherent goodness of government.
In a week where my girlfrend dumped me on the day I got Swine Flu this discussion has cheered me up no end!
Thanks to all involved parties
If doctors don’t rely on huge batteries of tests and all of the latest treatments, they get the butts sued off.
Maybe I’m a broken record, but I must say I’m continually amazed that in a country that spends nearly 16% of its Gross Domestic Product on health care, we have citizens complaining about the costs associated with a single-payer system.
Really?
FYI – I’ve just been reminded that one’s position on health care is not an essential doctrine of the church.
So, while I think that Christians who buy into the government as an instrument of earthly compassion are naive, at best, I need to tone down my rhetoric…
My current “hobby”? What do you mean by that? And yours isn’t even considered the “most likely” position. The truth of the matter is that no one really knows what the Nicolaitans believed or taught. The closest you get is that they were some Gnostic sect. A dime a dozen.
Ohhhh. So now I believe in the “inherent goodness of governement.” You said it was obvious that I have sold out to Caesar. Where is your proof?
This entire site is devoted to exposing so-called “discerners” from mocking pastors and dividing the church on little more than baseless claims and faulty interpretations of said pastor’s positions. You generally demand of them to provide evidence for their accusations and judgments made on pastors.
I am a pastor. You’ve claimed it is “obvious” that I have sold out to Caesar. You have even gone so far as to say I advocate others doing the same.
Prove it. Or retract your statement and apologize.
Because the costs of moving to a single-payer system without significantly degrading the level of care go beyond the 16% and jettison the source of the improvements in lifesaving drugs, technologies, etc.
Re: 189
The *nonpartisan* consensus is against you on that idea:
Congressional Budget Office. Congressional Budget Office, Limiting Tort Liability for Medical Malpractice 1, 6 (Jan. 8, 2004).
* “Malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of [health care] spending,” and “savings from reducing defensive medicine would be very small.” Limiting tort liability would have no significant impact on health care spending.
* “[S]ome so-called defensive medicine may be motivated less by liability concerns than by the income it generates for physicians or by the positive (albeit small) benefits to patients….
National Bureau of Economic Research: Katherine Baicker, Amitabh Chandra, “The Effect Of Malpractice Liability On The Delivery Of Health Care,” Working Paper 10709, (August 2004.)
* “The fact that we see very little evidence of widespread physician exodus or dramatic increases in the use of defensive medicine in response to increases in state malpractice premiums places the more dire predictions of malpractice alarmists in doubt. The arguments that state tort reforms will avert local physician shortages or lead to greater efficiencies in care are not supported by our findings.”
General Accountability Office: Analysis of Medical Malpractice: Implications of Rising Premiums on Access to Health Care, General Accounting Office, GAO-03-836, Released August 29, 2003
* Noting everything from low response rates to surveys (10 and 15 percent) and the general failure of surveys to indicate whether physicians engaged in “defensive behaviors on a daily basis or only rarely, or whether they practice them with every patient or only with certain types of patients,” the GAO found both AMA and American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons surveys on defensive medicine highly unreliable.
* “Officials from AMA and several medical, hospital, and nursing home associations in the nine states we reviewed … cited surveys and published research but could not provide additional data demonstrating the extent and costs associated with defensive medicine.
* “Some officials pointed out that factors besides defensive medicine concerns also explain differing utilization rates of diagnostic and other procedures. For example, a Montana hospital association official said that revenue-enhancing motives can encourage the utilization of certain types of diagnostic tests, while officials from Minnesota and California medical associations identified managed care as a factor that can mitigate defensive practices. “According to some research, managed care provides a financial incentive not to offer treatments that are unlikely to have medical benefit.”
Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment, Defensive Medicine and Medical Malpractice, OTA-H–6O2 (1994):
* Even before the widespread onset of managed care, the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) found that less than 8 percent of all diagnostic procedures were likely to be caused primarily by liability concerns.
* OTA found that most physicians who “order aggressive diagnostic procedures . . . do so primarily because they believe such procedures are medically indicated, not primarily because of concerns about liability.” The effects of “tort reform” on defensive medicine “are likely to be small.”
Chad -I will dial it back from “sold out to” to “duped by”, as you have made your point about the difference between the two.
MG – I will pick up tort reform later. It goes beyond simple malpractice, and it picks up data from recent changes in tort laws in specific states…
FYI, from here:
Matt – glad to cheer you up, and my condolences on the flu and the loss of your girlfriend (unless you consider it to be for the better
)
195 – not good enough, Chris. Prove that I have been “duped” by Caesar.
Don’t assume that just because someone disagrees with you they must be “duped.” You are suggesting that I am deceived and tricked. I have not said this is the best system in the world and should be hailed as some instrument of God. In fact, in my blog post that you quoted without citing me I even say as much. You obviously read it, so perhaps you missed this:
So show me where I am “duped” by Caesar.
If you read anything I write I am pretty consistently ANTI-government and any sort of collusion with church and state.
so again, do what you would demand of Silva or Ingrid or Chris R. Or, apologize.
and what “hobby” are you talking about in 186?
Another excellent article on the subject that deals with innovation.
“Matt – glad to cheer you up, and my condolences on the flu and the loss of your girlfriend (unless you consider it to be for the better
)”
Hah thanks Chris. She apparently did which I guess is the pertinent point!
Now get back to targeting the ADM’s, something we can all agree on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Daniels_(psychiatrist)
Here’s the link to the wiki entry for “Theodore Dalrymple” who you linked to earler.
Not saying you can’t qoute him or agree with his arguments but he’s not exactly a random GP who got so fed up he decided to write an article.
#200- Yet one more example in a long list thus far of arguments that have nothing to do with God.
Still waiting for you to address 198 and 199, Chris.
You consistently make the argument in favor of Caesar taking actions which create further dependency of the people. It may be well-intentioned, but, as they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions…
Shilling for Obama…
Two things wrong with this. One, you say “consistently.” Where? You earlier asserted that it is “obvious” that I have sold out to Caesar. You even go so far to say in your OP about my quotes (which you haven’t cited) that I try to
Strong words, Chris. I’m a pastor who is encouraging people to “sell out” to the beast and I am “consistently” in favor of Caesar making people “dependent” on him. Prove it.
Second thing wrong is that you automatically assume that making health care available to any and all makes people “dependent” on Caesar. Yet several here have argued that this is far from the truth – that it is no more true that any of us are dependent on Caesar because we get our mail delivered to our door, drive on highways, accept police protection, or send our kids to public schools.
So prove that I am “consistent” about my dependency on Caesar and prove that I am an advocate for being dependent on Caesar.
Why must you always stoop to such sensationalism? Do you find it funny? I mean, why would you say this unless you really believed that a government run health care program is going to send people to hell? I thought you were toning down your rhetoric, Chris. This is not that.
LOL. Yeah, that is my “hobby.”
Nice deflection. Your so-called “history lesson” in the OP is false – you and I both know it. It’s based on pure conjecture and yet you sell it as fact. You may fool the majority of readers here who make comments like (#3)…
…but anyone who has studied Revelation seriously knows its a crock.
What’s the word you love to use? Ah, yes. Eisegetic crap. You have taken your politics and read it into the text, forcing a modern application that just isn’t there.
I’m still waiting for you to either prove your assertions about me or retract your statements and apologize.
Or does someone need to begin a website with the name http://www.informing.crn.info ?
I think the other ADM’s may have been right about something, at least in your case, Chris. You become what you hate.
Speaking of dependence, Chris ignored this in my comment 161:
It appears Chris believes dependence on the government is OK so long as the government is doing what Scripture says they can do. No wonder most people who think the way Chris does also feel war can be “just” and an acceptable alternative to achieve our means. The Church can even support such things.
But what you fail to recognize Chris is that Scripture is not nor never was meant to be read as a political science book. Scripture is not delineating for all peoples in all times what governments can and cannot do. The role of government is not confined to just those few verses which you would cite to make your case.
If that were the case than you would have your work cut out for you. You would need to be against EVERY government agency and office that provides any sort of service to the people that is not explicitly stated in Scripture. Yet you don’t do that. You merely pick and choose which things you think look like the government “usurping” its Scriptural role based on your own politics. It really has nothing to do with being faithful to Scripture or to God or to Church but everything to do with you being faithful to good ‘ol American conservative values.
You play the Scripture card because it looks good. But it really renders you completely inconsistent and makes you look like a literalist in the hardest sense of the word (which you are not in reality).
Sorry, Chad. I guess we will just have to disagree on whether or not Scripture is relevant to most aspects of life, including government.
Chris, stop twisting what I am saying.
Now on top of everything else you have falsely accused me of you add that I don’t believe Scripture is relevant to most aspects of life.
I’m still waiting for your proof or your apology. Which is it?
Chris,
Where does Scripture allow for governments to mandate and oversee the education of its citizens?
If I advocate for better teachers, better books, stronger curriculum, expanding zoning codes to allow for minorities to have access to the better schools, am I bowing to the beast? Am I dependent on Caesar? Am I on a highway to hell and putting others on it?
If not, explain how.
And please provide your proof for all your accusations against me or apologize.
People who supported No Child Left Behind, are they anti-christs?
I hate NCLB. I also hate teachers’ unions. I am a dichotomy.
Posting from my annual Dr. Checkup…
John used roads provided by the Roman government, and (from the list and order of cities and letter format of Rev) used the Roman mail system. However, we can be certain that he didn’t burn incence in the agora and temples to buy and sell.
God did not want the people to have a king, but He gave in to their desire, and they suffered horribly for it.
Sorry to cut and run but one question…
Some one who is dependent on welfare, can he/she be considered depending on caeser? or would they be considered unfortunate?
I would say this depends wholly on the attitude of the person. If the person somehow sees the government as his sole source, than that would be idolatry. If, however, a person sees this as a gift from God, then it wouldn’t. I would, however, caution that even in the second case, it is worth our while to be vigilant. What the government giveth, taketh away…
I don’t begrudge anyone of anything, but I do think that our reliance on the federal government to solve all of our problems can lead to some warped thinking and to some dependence that is unhealthy. Nero knew that if he gave the populace bread and circuses, he would be able do whatever the hell he wanted. Politicians have been operating this axiom ever since.
Personally, my opposition to federal provided health insurance is more rooted in the fact that the US Constitution provides no authority for to the federal government to do it. If it is something that Congress wants to do, the proper way to do it is to amend the Constitution, not simply draft a bill. Of course, this argument doesn’t mean much to a lot of people any more, but it should. The Constitution was meant to limit the power of the government, and it was intended to prevent Congress and the President doing whatever the heck they wanted.
As a Christian, I am suspicious of any who proclaim peace and safety apart from the Prince of Peace.
Chris L –
Still waiting on the proof you have to back up your assertions about me or for you to apologize.
So what? This has no parallel to the gov.’t making health care more widely available.
Where are public schools mandated in Scripture?
One need only read this thread, past threads on universalism, egalitarianism and homosexuality to discern your “hermeneutic” and view of Scripture, Chad, and your view of Obama & his “principles”. I’m not going to re-argue them…
I’ll continue to believe what I see in Scripture as the biblical mandate of Government – along with its identification of the prince of earthly governments. I will continue to see you as a willing dupe for its ever-reaching influence…
Jose – Phil’s answer is correct. To go back to the OP –
I see that the fact that government even believing that it needs to fix this problem as an indictment against the church, not the individuals who have been put in the position of having government assistance as their only option for health care (which many in this conversation – myself included – keep mistakenly equating with health insurance).
Chris, none of what you said proves that I am a “dupe” for Caesar.
You have made some pretty serious allegations. Your missional verse is
I’m trying to hold you accountable to that. What did you mean by saying the road to hell is paved with good intentions? Are you implying that those who advocate for universal healthcare are hell bound?
In what ways do I encourage people to “sell out” to Caesar?
You said that it is “obvious” about me. I’m asking you to prove it. Either do so or apologize for slandering me (not to mention citing me without reference).
Or are you no better than Silva and the rest of the ADM’s who make all sorts of statements about pastors and don’t prove them?
Please show me where I encourage dependence upon Caesar.
Also, please show me where education is a Scriptural purview of the government. Are all kids in public schools going to hell? Is supporting better public schools for children to enable people’s dependency on Caesar?
Your rhetoric is out of hand again. Perhaps the person who rebuked you before needs to get in your ear again.
I need to leave for VBS. We missed your kids last night, Chris. You would have been proud of the lesson.
After a stirring talk about how faith in hell will motivate us to be more like Christ I told the story of Good Samaritan. It warmed my heart when I asked the group, “Who is your neighbor?” and they all responded, “Anyone who is not on welfare!”
awwww. Don’t you just love the sound of American Christianity? Afterwards we all bowed to flag on the altar
hopefully by the time i get back the other writers here, who are concerned about looking like just another ADM, will have talked some sense into you and you either have your proof or apologize.
No, that’s not what I’m saying.
My intended undercurrent is this: If we do things or teach things which lead people into idolatry (or to believe that they get a “do-over” after death), we, ourselves, may be covered by God’s grace, but we have led others to reject Him. I see that giving support to something which takes an already overpowerful entity and grants it even more power over indenturing others unto itself creates a culture of entitlement and idolatry of that entity.
See above. I do not believe it is your intention that they would sell out, but I see it as an inevitable outcome, with evidence from multiple governments around the world and other programs in the US as evidence.
(I updated the article with a link as citation, BtW.)
I’ve already cited my proof via citation of the previous (monstrously long) discussions on universalism, complementarianism, homosexuality and politics.
As I noted above, it is an implicit, not explicit encouragement via your support of a government-run system.
I never said it was. See comment #16.
I never said they were. It’s not my place to decide who loves God and who does not.
Not sure what your question is.
I didn’t say I had all of the answers, or that they were easy ones. We’ve already built a bed we’ve got to lie on, in terms of our existing dependence upon Caesar. The question really becomes – “are will willing to look for a ways to slowly work our way out of that indebtedness, or are we more willing to accelerate it?”
This is nonsensical, Chris, and I think you know it.
Why would you say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions if you did not mean it? It was a stupid thing to say. More rhetoric from you.
As for “leading others into idolatry,” please. You aren’t this dumb. We are talking about health care here – we are talking about making it more available for the 50 million who at present don’t have it. It is no more leading people into idolatry any more than sending your kids to public school is bowing to Caesar.
No, Chris. We aren’t talking about inevitable outcomes. YOU said that I encourage people to “sell out to Caesar.” You also said that I am “duped” by Caesar. In what ways? I want to see your proof that I am a sell out to Caesar, that I place my hope and trust in the government for salvation, and that I encourage others to do the same.
Prove it or apologize.
None of that has ANY bearing on this discussion. You are blowing smoke. You trying to take my position on those issues and make it about this would be like me arguing elsewhere that because of your positions on those issues you are a homophobe, sexists, racist and overly fixated on hell.
Where is the PROOF that I encourage people to sell out to Caesar? Where is the “obvious” proof that I myself have?
Does someone who writes a blog post about NOT saying the pledge of allegiance to the American flag sound like someone who bows to Caesar???
SO WHAT? THAT IS NOT ENCOURAGING DEPENDENCE!!!
Is everyone who sends their kids to public schools encouraging dependence on Caesar?
Then act like it. You obviously think you know enough about me to make wild, false accusations and think you can sling all the mud and rhetoric you wish my way because you disagree with me about politics. This has NOTHING to do with faith and God, Chris and EVERYTHING to do with your political views.
You have slandered me enough.
I have asked you repeatedly to prove your assertions about me and you have danced around it and blown smoke. It’s a play right out of the ADM playbook. You are what you hate.
NT Wright:
Maybe you need to read that a few times, Chris.
Chris,
One cannot help but to read your comments and the undercurrent of your entire argument and not come away without thinking that you look with disdain upon anyone who ever receives help of any kind for any reason from the government.
Of course, all your “connections and networks” keep you insulated from making anything or anyone but God your idol.
Grace and peace to you Chad.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree.
It is no more encouraging independence than providing your kid with a radar detector is encouraging them to drive safely.
We will just have to agree to disagree on this.
Potentially, though schooling is much less an ongoing matter of life, death and physical comfort, but is more and more becoming a tool of the state for shaping cultural attitudes.
No we are not. Those 50 million people have access to all the health care they need via the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTLA). Of those 50 million, there are a portion who cannot afford insurance (which is not care) for non-emergency treatment and consultation. Many of those 50 million can afford what they want, but do not wish to (or need to) pay for insurance.
What we are talking about is pushing government dependency on a grand scale. You may be a willing shill for it, couching it in language of “compassion”, but it is just a set of gold-plated handcuffs you’re selling.
In every industrialized country – whether with or without universal health care – there is a two-tiered health care system. Unless you outlaw money, this will always be the case. The government already provides a safety-net, geared toward acute care. As such, it is limited in its scope and is much less structured to breed ongoing dependence on the state.
If you want an example of how “duped” you are, here you go – naive statements like:
Is it possible that such a system will draw people into the medical field because they have a genuine calling and passion for helping people instead of a desire to get rich?
Such stupifyingly stupid statements already show you’ve bought a lie. Most individuals in the medical field today are there out of a calling and passion for helping people and not a “desire to get rich”. There are far FAR more easier ways of “getting rich” than years of 72-hour shifts, med school bills of $300K+, 24-hour call, 10 minutes of paperwork for every 1 minute you spend with a patient, etc., etc.
No country which has tried this wacky experiment of socialized medicine has seen an increase in those willing to go into the medical field. There is a worldwide shortage of doctors that keeps heading in a downward direction. The US is one of the few countries ahead of the curve, and that is only because so many foreign doctors immigrate here – not out of profit motive, but because this is one of the few countries left where you can have freedom in the way you treat your patients.
The utter stupidity and naivete in your statement shows you’ve already got no clue you’re selling. It gets both sides of the equation so far incorrect that the first time you wrote it (on my FB page) along with similar doe-eyed silliness, a friend of mine commented to me “this guy makes Nancy Pelosi look like a John Bircher”.
No, you asked me for proof to back up my statements on how “seriously” you do (or don’t) take scripture. I need go no further than these threads, as the reader can draw their own conclusions from them as to whether my assertion is correct.
Sorry, Chad. My theological views are that we should not encourage (implicitly or explicitly) people – believers or unbelievers – to become idolaters or to support systems that foster dependence on Caesar.
The public school systems already existed when I was born, and I don’t (yet) possess a time machine to go back and argue for a better managed system of education. All I can do with them is find ways to wean them from dependency/entitlement mentalities. Whether that is through fully transferable vouchers, expansion of private school opportunities, etc., I support that vector. Not out of political ideology – out of my theology.
I do not see the kosmos as the friend of the ekklesia. Jesus said it was not, and I’ll take his word for it.
I haven’t “slandered” you at all. Just because you preach against the pledge doesn’t mean you haven’t sold out.
It just means you aren’t a right-wing sell-out… If more government is your answer to a problem that theologically doesn’t belong to the government, then – to some degree – you are selling out. It may only be a degree or two, but like a frog in a pot, the vector is the key.
Go back to the OP.
I do not look with disdain upon those who receive help from the government. I look with disdain upon the failure of the church that led those individuals to have ever needed to go to the government in the first place.
I’m copying Chad’s response from the other thread here, because I don’t want the whole healthcare debate to bleed into that one.
I have to say though, Chad, that I see Chris’ point. Even though you aren’t explicitly encouraging people to sell out to the system, you are in some sense implicitly doing it. By trusting the federal government to fulfill this role, we are essentially saying that it is OK for people to trust the federal government with some pretty important stuff. Now of course, we already do that to a big extent. So in some ways, we’re all guilty. But I don’t think the excuse of “we’re doing this already” is a good reason to keep going down a certain path.
I do think Chris has a tendency to “go for the jugular” when he is arguing here, and I can understand why it’s off-putting to many. He goes further than I am comfortable going many times. He may have ventured into the realm of judging your motivations, Chad, but I also think you’re doing that to him. It might be best for you guys to call a truce on some of this stuff.
And where schooling bleeds into shaping cultural attitudes that divert one away from Christ we, the Church, have an opportunity to teach and speak up. But so long as schooling is about a “matter of life, death and physical comfort” you seem OK with it.
Gee, Chris, what is health care? Health care does not have nearly the ability to indoctrinate people as public schools do. Doctors aren’t teaching patients ideology. You are going after the wrong boogie-man, Chris.
LOL. I laughed when I read this:
You must be at a loss for words.
Sorry, but that is not a naive or stupid statement at all. It was in reaction to one of the other comments that I posted in that same article, which read:
So as you can see, if you quote me in context you will find that my statement is a rebuttal against this person’s fear-mongering.
Apparently the person who made that comment feels that the only reason smart people would become doctors is to get rich. I (and it seems, you) disagree with such sentiments. So my comment is not so stupifyingly stupid after all.
Oh, and you couldn’t stop there, you had to add:
You seem really pissed off, Chris.
So I am still waiting on all your REAL examples of how I am duped.
Perhaps you want to quote me where I said:
Naw, that wouldn’t be fun for you, would it? Much more fun to sling mud at me and be redundantly redundant in your insults.
No, you seem to laud yourself as the only one who takes Scripture seriously. I’m glad you do, but I have pointed out your inconsistencies. You claim that you will stick with Scriptures mandates for what governments can and can’t do – that this is good enough for you. I have asked you if you believe Paul (or Jesus) was making a universal claim for all peoples and all times about what agencies and offices can exist in government. You did not respond to that. I also asked you to show where schooling is something Scripture allows governments to have a hand in. No answer. What about mail delivery? Is that in the Bible?
You say this like it is something I would disagree with. Why?
More insinuations by you that are not based on reality.
Still waiting on your proof. Or you can apologize.
Point taken, Phil.
As my wife has said to me from time to time, “you have the ability to quickly see people’s ‘buttons’ and to know how to push them. Sometimes, though, it is best to see the button, but let the opportunity to push it pass by…”
In my RL conversations & thoughts, I have typically seen (what I perceive as) Chad’s errors as ones of naivete, not purposeful intention. If this has not come across very well (or at all), I apologize…
That works for me… It’s why I hesitated even bringing up the past threads (and didn’t link to any specifically).
Phil,
The problem is NONE of you are arguing for a church take over of all health care. ALL of you are arguing in such a way that suggests your faith and trust is in the free market system and the insurance companies and lawyers more than anything else. The arguments are all geared towards saying that if this plan happens our american way of life will collapse and people will start dying left and right and innovation will cease.
Now, if you guys wanna start arguing that all Christians forfeit their private insurance or group plans and we all pool our money and “have everything in common” and go that route, I’m in. I’ll be your biggest fan and voice.
Yet you are not doing that.
I am not implicitly or explicitly encouraging faith in any system or plan. I am simply and ONLY saying that there are people without health care and I am in favor of plans that provide health care to people without it.
I don’t care who does it. I don’t care if it requires large sacrifices. I don’t care if it brings down the whole damn American way of life. I. really. don’t. care.
If I am selling out to Caesar than Chris and all of you have sold out in the same way to capitalism and the American dream – another Caesar.
Sorry, Chris, but while you may explicitly say you don’t have disdain for those who receive help from the government your comments and rhetoric throughout this thread make it implicitly clear that you do.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And Chris, you haven’t figured out my “button.” Anyone would be upset if someone was lying about them and refusing to prove their wild accusations.
I believe that the purposes of government (as laid out in the OT and by Jesus & his disciples in the NT) are a universal claim.
We have to make a judgment call as to whether agencies and offices (which are not mentioned) fit within or without of the purposes.
I referred to #16, above. I believe that a component of having an educated citizenry fits within the purview of civil order. As such, the government does have a compelling interest in regulating schools (ex: minimum standards). I do not believe it would be in the best interest for the federal government to provide schools (which they do not), and I think that the church was in a position – now missed – to provide this years ago. I believe that it is now feasibly too late to scrap the public school system and start over, so the best course of action is to seek actions/programs which decrease the government monopoly in this arena and weaken its ability to indoctrinate via this system.
I also covered this above, but I’ll do so more explicitly here.
Mail delivery is an agency that, in my opinion, fits within the biblical purview of civil order. The government must have some means of sending communications to its citizenry.
I would be willing to say that it is very likely that John’s Revelation was sent to the Seven Churches via the Roman mail system. The churches are listed in the same order (and are the major stops) as they existed on the Roman mail route in western Asia Minor, and the form of the letter (apocalyptic, rather than didactic) would also make it ideal for government mail, rather than private delivery, which Paul seems to have used (I could discuss this for half a page, but this boils it down).
I’ve never made an argument along these lines. I’m not saying anything about the “American way of life” or anything. I do think that historically every federal program exceeds its projected costs and ends up costing a lot more than it originally intended. From what you’re saying, it simply sounds as if we should just ignore those sorts of conversations and totally let the ends justify the means. It almost is as if you’re saying we should have health insurance for all at any cost. That’s a nice sentiment, but unfortunately we still live in a world where the costs make or break these sorts of things.
I really don’t understand how capitalism, in its purest sense, can be compared to Caesar at all. Capitalism is by definition giving freedom of choice to all. Sellers can freely sell and buyers can freely buy. Now I will admit that there are certainly corporations who have tried to force people to buy what they’re selling, and in that sense they are operating out of something other than capitalism.
Fair enough. So since when did you become so confident that your judgements are right and anyone who disagrees with you is a “sell out to Caesar”?
ha! And yet you don’t think that healthy citizens or providing health care for a nation’s citizens fits within “the purview of civil order”?
thank you for not boring me. Especially if that history lesson is like the pure conjecture your OP is based on.
233-
Phil, the point is that none of you are arguing for a purely faith-based, church take over of health care. And yet Chris has the nerve to paint me as the one selling out, bowing to Caesar, encouraging dependence, making idols, not having faith in God, blah blah blah.
Chris’ faith is in the free market system and the corporations/ins. companies/lawyers, etc. Oh, and lets not forget his “connections and networks.”
My point is that if you guys are going to label someone as “shilling for Obama” or as a lapdog for Caesar than I would hope you are presenting an alternative reality that is completely and dependent on Christ alone for your health care.
Otherwise, Chris, shut up with the judgments and rhetoric and apologize.
We all tend to hold some level of confidence in our own judgments (holding some more firmly than others). The provision of care for the sick is pretty squarely placed on the church as one of its key temporal mandates. It is an indictment against the church that the system that currently exists has come to where it is.
The government has no compelling interest as it pertains to civil order that its citizens receive non-emergency medical treatment.
No pure conjecture – based upon a number of historical studies which also take into account the context of the passage (including the reference to Balaam), along with the context of other passages in the same letter (ex. Rev 13), contemporary literature and archaeological evidence. I would also note that the Nicolaitans were not the focus of the history cited in the OP…
I’m working on a write up of alternative ideas. As for whether they are “dependent on Christ alone”, I cannot say that they are, because we are working within a system that is a long way down the wrong road. I can say, though, that I am trying to set a correct vector.
As for “faith in capitalism”, I would agree with Phil. In reality, “capitalism” is not an institution, but rather a lack of institutions. Unfortunately, corrupt individuals may create problems in such situations, such that there is a need for justice in preventing corruption. The solution, though, of preventing corrupt individuals from exploiting others is not for one huge corrupt institution to take their place in the exploitation and dependency curve.
Chris, are you going to address 227?
You quoted me out of context (again) and called me “stupifyingly stupid” and “naive” and “duped.” I think I adequately showed how the comment I made was justified. I think you owe me an apology.
Agreed. And yet you are not arguing for a church takeover. You are arguing for something else altogether. Yet you have the nerve to accuse me of bowing to Caesar.
Sure it does. Every nurse and doctor I know complain of the drain on resources for millions going to the ER for a cold.
There is also a thing called preventative care – something that millions are without.
lol. the only way your OP could be classified as “truthful” is if you began your whole segment about the Nicolaitans with, “No one is really sure what they believed or taught, but let me offer one possible theory….” and then make your eisegetical argurment.
Chris L:
I’m pretty much baffled on how significant you think that people are permitted in our society to receive treatment, but not coverage.
From a public policy standpoint, it makes no sense to say we won’t let people die, but we will manage to treat people in the absolutely most expensive manner possible.
What sense does it make to refuse treatment *until* it becomes an emergency? It seems like that is making us a less healthy, and more inefficient, society.
I say either shut down care for people who can’t afford it, or find a way to treat people in an efficient and cost-effective manner. But this whole, “Oh, we treat people, but we do it in a really stupid manner” busines is baloney.
I also love the fact that you assume that encouraging people to go to an emergency room is not depending on the government, but encouraging coverage prior to an emergency is.
Seems like an utterly arbitrary line to me. Why do you get to draw it?
Phil:
Maybe I’m repeating myself, but I continue to be amazed that people are so concerned about cost, when we spend more on healthcare than any other nation on this earth.
Ohhh. So it is OK for YOU to encourage dependence on means and ways that are not Christ alone, assuming that you will nuance your argument in such a way that insists we do not put our faith in these means and ways….
However, you cannot extend the same courtesy to me. Because I look at the scene before us and think offering health care to everyone is a good thing – a truthful, noble thing (sort of like Bell saying that where he sees truth he affirms it as a good thing) you cannot imagine that people are smart enough to not place their faith in the government for the salvation? You really think this is going to tip the scales and Christians everywhere are going to renounce their faith in Christ alone and start clinging to Caesar for their every need? Why? Because 50 million who didn’t have heath care now have it?
I’d hate to live so scared all the time, Chris.
I’m not denying there’s a problem, but I think largely the injection of the federal government into the system is what’s causing the escalation of cost. Injecting it in a bigger way will simply cause it to escalate more. There’s a reason why some of the big pharmacy companies have actually come out in support of Obama’s plan – it’s not because they will lose money. They know that with a government insurance plan, they will essentially be able to engage in price fixing, and they will have a guaranteed source of revenue.
What we need is actually more in the way of competition, not less. And when the federal government enters the competition as a player, it’s sort of like the referees suiting up to play. They get to dictate the rules for everyone.
You also can’t ignore the supply and demand aspect of the healthcare system. Because the US system offers much that can’t be gotten anywhere else, there are good number of non-citizens willing to pay premium dollars for it. I actually just heard a report on NPR (yes, I listen to NPR) yesterday about hospitals in Miami marketing themselves to wealthier Latin and Southern American patients.
Cost is the mechanism that regulates supply and demand. If you try to regulate it one place, it will go up in another. So with the federal government dictating costs to a large portion of the industry already, the industry is forced to raise it in other areas to make up for the lost revenue in others. So really, the next time insurance premiums go up, thank Uncle Sam.
Chad,
Very good point. I don’t think it is an easy answer, but I do get tired of hearing Republicans claim that “health care is not a right”. The millions of Christians in this country do have the responsibility to take care of “the least of these” so we better figure out some way to do it.
interesting read on the topic: http://markshea.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-i-think.html
I think we could do a number of things which shift people away from ER’s (or prevent some of the current abuses) but do not move toward government dependence.
I do not know all of the answers, though, but I will never support a move that says that the government should take over something so overarching as health care.
No, I didn’t. A “profit model” is not analagous to “get rich”. A system which supports a profit model simply means that one can be fairly and adequately compensated for the work they do. “getting rich” implies an element of greed (wanting more for yourself than what would be a fair compensation for your services). Perhaps you equate the two, but as Phil pointed out, “Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain” is the principle being applied
Chris et.al-
Have I not heard you elsewhere defend Warren’s PEACE plan and other ventures that seek to give aid and relief to people around the world? And is that not a plan that is not solely made up of Christians?
I’m curious how you can be in support of an entity offering aid to people which might encourage the recipients to put their faith in say, Allah, rather than Jesus and yet you will not allow for the government to be involved in extending assistance to those who are in dire straights right now because they have no health care and no one who can or will help them because you fear they might put their faith in the wrong thing.
How do you reconcile this?
Oh please. The person who made that comment wasn’t talking about what you are suggesting. It is quite clear: if it is thought that profits will drop, the best and brightest wont’ want to be doctors. No matter how you want to spin it, that is the argument.
My comment was simply to point out that not everyone becomes a doctor because of “profits” or because they desire to get rich.
And the proposed plan isn’t going to put doctors on welfare.
Silll waiting for your apology.
Phil:
I don’t know what you mean when you say the federal government has caused health costs to go up, and I really don’t understand how you believe that more competition will make things cheaper.
Right now, as far as I can tell, we have intense competition, amazing innovation, and millions of astoundingly expensive drugs and treatments.
That, more than anything, is what has produced the rampant inflation in healthcare costs.
Americans are really scared of death. We hate it. And we’ll pay out the nose in order to avoid it.
And, honestly, the people who seem most scared, most upset, most concerned, are those fearful of government involvement, which could lower the cost of healthcare (via some type of rationing) in this country.
But, no, it’s those in favor of single-payer who are trusting in something other than the Lord, right?
Yeah, right.
I guess another thing that bugs me in this discussion is that we are acting as if there are 50 million completely helpless people in the US who simply cannot get health insurance or see a doctor at all. We are simply taking the aspect of personal responsibility out of the equation.
How many of these 50 million people have a flatscreen TV? How many of them have an Ipod or Iphone, for that matter. Now certainly not all of them, but I think if we looked into that group a bit more, we’d see that not all them are as helpless as we make them out to be. There is still something to be said for priorities and decision-making.
Now I’m not saying grace doesn’t transcend poor decision-making or bad priorities, but I also don’t think we need to simply ignore them. In some ways, this is about the American way of life. I think that as American many of our priorities are simply screwed up, and the healthcare thing is really a symptom of it.
Again, I’m not saying, “it’s all their fault, don’t help them”. I’m saying that let’s not get so myopic that we try putting a band-aid on a cancer.
Actually, Phil, government formularies and price-fixing are what many are quite scared of (noting that in “price-fixing”, the government sets the price, and – if we examine the UK and our neighbors to the north – this price is often below the ‘break-even’ cost). Rather, I would say that from some companies I’ve talked to (not speaking for my own, which does not support Obamacare) came out early as a form of ‘damage control’ to get a seat at the table in something they saw as inevitable. On the medical side, AMA came out early for Obamacare for similar reasons, and is now hemorrhaging its member rolls.
No, competition always causes costs to go down. It’s simple economics. Just look at the costs of drugs where generic equivalents are available – they’re a lot cheaper. That’s why Wal-Mart can offer generics for $4 a month.
What happens with Medicare is that the Feds say we will only pay this much for this procedure. Period. Well in many cases, it actually costs the hospital or clinic more to do that procedure that that price. So to stay in business, the hospital has to make that money up somewhere. So they end up charging more to the actual paying customers, i.e., HMOs and other private insurers. In the end, it causes premiums to rise. It’s not the only mechanism at play, but it’s a big one.
I’m trying not to get into judging motivations or levels of faith. I think the vast majority of people involved are well-intentioned, if that means anything to you.
I read an article which I cannot find to source that said…
10 million of these are college students who are covered by parents
10 million are people who could be covered by existing governmental programs but failto do so
10 million… shoot, there was another 10 million that I do not remeber.
Bottom line is – just like they did when they counted homeless and other such statistics – the numbers are greatly inflated to heighten the urgency.
I think I also need to restate something about my position which is different from many people who argue for universal health care.
I do not think health care is a “right” for anyone. In fact, as Christians I believe we don’t lay claim to any “rights.” The “american way of life” which suggests we all have a “right” to “liberty, life and the pursuit of happiness” is a myth most CHristians have bought into. We don’t even have the “right” to live. ALL is a gift from God.
So I am not arguing that health care is everyone’s right to have. Which is why I find Chris’ allegations of me, that I am encouraging dependence on Caesar, totally absurd. Rather, I believe everything is gift – some good, some bad – but all gift. The question that faces Christians is, “How will we appropriate this gift in the life of faith?”
I see my health care in this country as gift. It could be taken away at any moment. I realize there are many, many who live and around the world without this “gift.” Anyone who wishes to extend this gift to others is, IMO, doing a good and decent thing.
Those who are recipients of this gift I will teach and encourage to give thanks to God.
I agree in principle, Chad, I just disagree in implementation.
Phil, and of this I applaud you. Maybe you can have a word with your head writer so that he will follow suit.
Well, I don’t disagree with that in theory, but it’s a bit more complicated in theory. I’m always wary of government officials when they come bearing gifts…
Why, Phil?
If a government official dug a fresh water well in the Sudan for a thirsty village would you be wary?
Or would you join me in giving thanks to God for working through even what is often nothing more than an ass?
It is axiomatic that competition drives down prices – this is reality.
Phil outlined one reason for the rise in health care costs in 249…
But the other culprit that has not gotten much traction here are the lawsuits.
Protecting those in the system from frivolous lawsuits and outrageous settlements would go a long long way in reducing the costs of health care.
I mean, seriously. Lets be real. If the same government that comes bearing gifts then turns and says, “Pay homage to me,” than we have problems. At which time we will see who is really a sell out to Caesar or not.
That isn’t happening. At least not now. Despite the evangelical right-wing scare tactics.
Well, sadly, historically (and by historically, I’m talking on the grand scale of human history), governments have learned how to use the promise of “bread and circuses” as a way to pacify and oppress their citizens. We have to be careful that by accepting a gift we aren’t freeing ourselves from one demon just to be taken captive by another.
In your scenario I would rejoice – Chad.
But more often than not, the Gov’t’s motivations are never so altruistic and rarely is the result so beneficial.
I think M.G. already addressed this, Neil. Lawsuits I believe make up less than 2% of health care costs.
But there is a system where this happens. Military medicine. Doctors can’t be sued. A government run health care system that is efficient, without lawsuits, and offers quality care to everyone.
Phil:
Of course, competition causes prices to go down. I was simply noting that, in the area of medical services, we have a fairly competitive market.
The reality is, innovation has created a market for advanced technology and highly expensive treatments. That, combined by the numerous inefficiencies introduced by the thousands of overlapping insurance companies and healthcare providers, has created a situation where the U.S. spends 16% of its GDP on healthcare.
Quoting Adam Smith may make one feel better, but it won’t solve the problem of healthcare costs.
By the way, this is where I would agree with Greg Boyd over Walter Wink when it comes to the possibility of the “powers” being redeemed. I agree with Boyd’s assertion that ultimately the powers that oppose Christ are defeated, not necessarily redeemed. I also agree with him that all human governments are fundamentally corrupt.
In a way it’s the difference between a post-millenial and amillenial view of eschatology.
No, the person who made that comment (on my FB page) is a medical professional who works with folks who have fled from Canada, the UK, Australia, France and other socialized-medicine countries where doctors are salaried and are not compensated fairly for the services they perform. I know him, and his comment had nothing to do with greed, but the very way you seem to see “profit” as “greed” (and therefore, evil motivation) speaks to my characterization of your position.
It is not that profits will just drop – it is that they will completely go away.
I have a son who is considering med school, and I’ve already told him that he should consider:
1) He’ll likely pay $300,000 (or more) for the additional twelve years of his life he will spend in school.
You will be vilified as “greedy” or just wanting to “get rich” because you want to be paid enough for your services to cover all of the associated costs and have enough left over to take care of your family.
2) Depending on his specialty, he will pay $150,000 – $1,000,000 per year on malpractice insurance.
3) He will work 60-80 hour weeks in an environment where mistakes can be life-or-death issues, so he can depend on having high blood pressure and more stress than most other professions
4) He will frequently be on 24-hour call, which will take him away from his family at all hours of the day, night and weekend.
5) He will not be able to easily spend his “off work” time at home – because even if he is not on call, if his patients (or friends) know where he lives and that he’s home, they will show up on his doorstep for every ailment (even if he has no means of treating them there).
6) He and his staff will spend 10 minutes filling out government and insurance company forms for every minute he spends with a patient.
7) Whenever someone’s health outcome is not what they would most desire, he will have to live with the stress that a good number of them will try and sue him for malpractice, with no matter that he’s done nothing wrong.
[...]
100) You will get the satisfaction of helping those when they are most in need.
In actuality, I hope that he chooses medicine, because #100 should be enough to negate #’s 1-99.
However, if we add:
[101] The government will make you a salaried employee and tell you how you can and can not treat your patients, and – oh, by the way – not compensate you adequately for the services you provide.
At that point, I may just tell him that he’s better off sweeping floors at a hospital than treating patients in one.
That’s not advice made out of greed or faithlessness. That’s advice from father to son about the responsibility of caring for your own family.
Actually, this is quite low (noting that 2% is still quite significant) than reality when you consider the cascading effects…
Neil:
Feel free to see #194.
The non-partisan consensus is that tort reform is a *very* small piece of the puzzle in taming healthcare costs.
In the 30’s and 40’s the feds spent massive amount of money bringing electrical service to remote rural communities – this was a good thing… and from what I can tell there were no strings attached.
a) At the time there were no other options – wither the government did it, or those folks went without.
b) At the time, giving electrical power to those w/o did not take away freedoms from those already electrified.
The difference is, in the health care system, there are better options than government run system (a) in which people already covered do not lose existing freedoms (b).
258 and 259 – we may have been responding at the same time. I think my comment 257 addresses this.
Accepting gifts does not mean we cease being wise as serpents. We know from where our help comes from. It comes from the Lord.
I don’t have less faith in God because I send my kids to public schools.
When missionaries go into developing countries and set up clinics and schools where there were none I don’t cringe and fear that the people there will put their faith in medicine or education rather than Jesus.
When people in this country who currently don’t have health care get it I will not cringe and be in fear that those people are beholden to Caesar or that they will lose faith in Jesus (if they have it).
No. I will be thankful.
As I see it, the costs are the symptom of the problem, not the cause of it. Addressing the costs can’t really be done without addressing the underlying structural issues, many of which are the feds involvement in the market.
We tried price-fixing for gasoline in the ’70s and we saw how well that worked. It’s the same underlying principle in healthcare. When you fix the cost of something which has a limited supply, the demand can’t be met.
Chris L:
RE: 263, perhaps I’m repeating myself, but a single-payer, much less some type of universal system, is not the same thing as making a doctor a salaried employee of the government.
People generally know this, right?
Chad,
I agree – 267 – I just do not think your motives are shared by those in Washington.
I see you have genuinely wanting to see those w/o insurance get it.
I see them as wanting those who do not have insurance get it – but get it from them so they can continue to secure their power base.
We get it… speaking for myself it is not the issue… the issue is doctors becoming beholden to a Federally run system… their status as federal employees or not is moot.
Chris L:
Also, where did you read that doctors pay between $150,000 and a $1,000,000 for malpractice insurance?
Averages run about $50,000 for GPs all the way to $150,000 for neurosurgeons.
I have never read about anyone paying a cool million for malpractice insurance.
I think I will save this comment and repeat it every 25 comments or so…
And still the “right” side’s argument is completely devoid of God and faith while it continually maligns the “left” side as bowing to Caesar and encouraging dependence on something or someone other than God.
In a word: Hypocrisy.
(repeat as needed).
Imagine what it would do to costs if each and every doctor (not to mention nurses etc.) could reduce their operating expenses by – say $25k to $100k per year…
But Neil, in the space of a few comments we have already reduced their costs from (puts pinky to chin) ONE MILLION DOLLARS to at max 150K. We are making progress!
For the sake of accuracy how about saying “Some on the ‘right’ argue…” instead of “The ‘right’ side’s argument is…”
It’s not like we have one monolithic argument, and it’s not like we are all arguing that point.
276: Point taken. “The head writer here at CRN.info’s argument” might be more accurate.
thank you, Neil, for at least acknowledging that some of them are doing this.
I guess I don’t see the point of this. I suspect you would accuse me of arguing from the “right” side of this, but I’m encouraging anyone to rely on anything. I am simply stating that a system built on solid economic laws makes more sense.
Arguing against economic theories is a bit like arguing against laws of physics. Supply and demand aren’t just some sort of theoretical notions – they are forces at play in the real world. They’re simply laws which God has put in place that govern human interaction.
RE: 274
Ha.
That would awesome, no doubt. But in a 2.5 trillion dollar industry, we’re talking a drop in the bucket.
Re: 278
No one is arguing against economic theories.
It seems just so simple to me. We spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare. France spends 11%. Canada, the U.K., and Australia all spend less than that.
The cost actually goes down as the government gets more involved.
Which has nothing to do with relying on the church or God for our health care.
And it is not as if the government is saying, “hey, lets forsake all the laws of economics on this issue.”
Your argument is one that seems to assume capitalism is God’s plan for the world. Am I wrong in that?
In any event, you are asking us to rely on something other than God to make this mess go away. And yet I am not accusing you or Chris for bowing to Caesar or encouraging the faithful to become dependent on corporations or insurance companies and that you are on a “highway to hell.”
That is where the hypocrisy lies.
There are all sorts of other things involved in that as well such as level of care, the number of elective procedures involved, etc. Again, cost isn’t necessarily the only issue.
Personal choice should also be a consideration. Of course the government can control the costs when it dictates what the end users can and can’t do.
Phil –
If the dictation is so bad or restrictive as you seem to think it is in those countries, than why do all the people I know from those countries have no problems with it?
In fact, their life expectancies and overall health is way better than ours.
But this does not happen in a vacuum… sure the percentage of the GDP may go down… but so will the quality and quantity.
face it – we could guarantee every one health care from a federal source… and the result may (and I say MAY) be a lower % of the GPD spent on this…. but it will (and I say WILL) mean lower quality and lower quantity.
I also do not see the relevance of what % of the GDP goes to health care.
Exactly, a very valid concern. That’s why government providing and government controlling healthcare are 2 different things.
It could be argued that the finest healthcare institutions that ever existed in this country were catholic hospitals. They were not created to make profits, they were created to help sick people. As a by product they were able to provide employment to health care workers, and train and educate future generations of health care workers.
1. Why does the government have any right to mandate that nurses at these institutions (who may not even be paid for their services) meet certain government guidelines?
2. Why does the government have any right to control what procedures can or can’t be performed at these hospitals? (ie abortions)
3. Why does the government have any right to control what drugs must be made available at these hospitals (ie birth control pills)
4. Why does a patient at these hospitals (who may not even be paying for the service) have a right to sue for any treatment that doesn’t go as he/she may have liked?
I’m not asking us to rely on any single entity to make this mess go away. I think that’s it’s such a behemoth of an issue with intermingled state and federal involvement that it’s really not going to be “solved” anytime soon. I think injecting more government involvement will not help.
My position is that rather than look for someone else to provide the solution, we should be doing what can right now to help. As far as capitalism being an answer, all I’m saying is that when left unhindered, these economic theories work like they’re supposed to. Unfortunately, people throughout history have tried hindering them in a number of different ways. I actually do thing the government has role in preventing one group of people from oppressing another, though.
I could just as easily find people who are unhappy, probably. I would say that issues with life expectancy have more to do with our poor lifestyle choices than the quality of our healthcare in this country. There’s many reasons for that, and I don’t think it’s the government’s responsibility to take care of those problems, either.
Re: 282 and 284,
I agree completely! Of course this is the case, and it’s the crux of the whole debate.
One side likes the fact that you can get the most experimental drugs, and the best top-flight care in the world here in the United States. No waiting times, no hassle. As Pastorboy pointed out once when he was defending U.S. healthcare, sheiks from Saudi Arabia fly here for surgery, so what we have is the best.
What more do you need?
The other side basically wants to limit costs and achieve universal coverage.
And that’s why I think Chris L.’s thesis is, well, backwards.
Because I think that if one side is trusting in the temporal, it’s the former group and the latter.
Maybe I’m weird, but I’ve always believed that God has my future under His control, and if me waiting a few months for a doctor’s appointment means that we treat people *before* they are so sick they go to the emergency room, then so be it.
This is an anecdotal sword that cuts both ways… for everyone who is happy to get “free” in home child care for the first 6 months after having a baby there is a widow pissed off that her husband died because they waited months for a simple test and by the time it was run it was too late – or worse, once diagnosed it was decided resources would be spent on someone else…
Which may be both true and moot.
Re: 285
Are you serious? You don’t get the significance of how expensive health care is for our nation?
In simplest terms, health care is really expensive here. More expensive than anywhere else in the world. And unless we figure out how to solve that problem, we will be bankrupt.
Period.
288 –
M.G. – as I said before, I am not following the argument about who is relying on Cesar and who is not… I have a suspicion if I were, I probably would come down on the side both are – but in different ways.
I am simply arguing that monopolies (single payer systems) are not good… and Government monopolies are even worse.
You’re weird…
I understand your point, actually. I guess we always live in the tension of accepting the status quo (or in this case the new status quo), and trying to take what we think is our God-given gifts and talents and changing things. I guess the way I see it, with all the gifted doctors, surgeons, nurses, etc. in the US, and all the talented people interested in becoming those, there is no reason why anyone should have to wait in line or go without the care they need.
Yes, I do think that it’s a problem that insurance is so freaking expensive. But I think the government is the cause of, not the solution to this.
Oh well, it been fun. I’ve got to go.
287- Phil, I feel as though you aren’t hearing me. My point is that you have faith in a “system” to hopefully fix this mess than has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus Christ. And I am not accusing you of bowing to Caesar or leading people to hell or placing your shilling for this or that or any such nonsense. My point is that “you guys” (and by you I primarily mean your head writer) use unnecessary rhetoric to paint the opposing view. It’s unfair, uncalled for, unwarranted and unsubstantiated. I have asked repeatedly for an apology to no avail.
Unless you guys are offering an alternative that forsakes ALL models and depends solely on the Church alone and Christ alone, then “you” are hypocrites for calling me a sell out to Caesar.
I’m sure you could. Which is why these consequentialist arguments are moot. I could probably find 50 million in this country who are unhappy with the current system of health care, as well.
Granted, it is expensive. But you argue as if we should set a % to shoot for and let the quality and quantity be damned.
Is it expensive – yes… and you get what you pay for.
Is it too expensive – sure. But let’s nit shoot ourselves in the foot to be France.
RE: 294
I think you may want to use the U.K. as a foil here and not France. France has pr