What Would Jesus Do… About Health Care?
God, the Constitution, and the wacky logic when the two are mixed.
Oct 30th, 2009 | By Skye Jethani | Category: Features, PoliticsAn interesting debate has been started on the Jackson Sun website. The newspaper’s editorial page editor, Tom Bohs, wrote a column asking why so many conservative Christians are opposed to health care reform. He writes:
There are plenty of people who are perfectly happy with the system we have. Their argument is: Why tamper with a system that 80 percent of the people find adequate? It’s a good question. The answer is: You wouldn’t tamper with it unless you care about what happens to the other 20 percent of the people. So we are back to our basic moral dilemma. Should American citizens be entitled to adequate health care coverage with the cost borne by all?
It is interesting to me that the one group we have heard almost nothing from on the moral question of providing everyone with adequate health care coverage is churches.
Imagine, churches not wanting to address such a basic moral question. They address every other moral issue of our lives, why not this one? Who is asking: “What would Jesus do about national health care?” We can pretty much guess what he would do about everything else, what about something this important, especially to the least of his flock?
I don’t mean to be irreverent, but I detect weak political knees here on the part of churches since many of their members are decidedly conservative, and conservatives are the chief opponents of health care reform. Opposing them could well be felt in the Sunday collection plate.
(Read the entire column here.)
Bohs’ piece provoked a response from Brad Green, a teacher of theology at Union University. Green lists a number of traditional conservative arguments against health care reform:
1. Government is inept
2. Loss of individual freedom
3. It violates the Constitution
4. Government abuses power
Green concludes:
So, what would Jesus do? Jesus would (and does) command people to repent of their sins, care for the poor, the sick, the lame and the down-trodden. And Christians are commanded to do the same. But is a Christian then obligated to call for increased federal power and a massive expansion of the federal government’s role in controlling or managing America’s health care industry? Probably not.
Such an expansion of federal power is not even legal, since the U.S. Constitution does not grant the federal government such power. What Jesus would not do, it would seem, would be to encourage those in power to break the law without good reason, and the proposals currently being discussed would - if enacted - be illegal since the U.S. Constitution does not grant the Congress the power to enact such legislation.
Those calling for massive federal health care legislation are making two key errors. First, they are being imprudent in naively calling for a radical and dangerous expansion of federal power. Second, and perhaps more serious, they are calling for their elected federal officials to violate the law of the land, and to violate their oath of office, by clearly and unabashedly taking one more step in the destruction of the very Constitution they have sworn to uphold.
(Read Green’s full article here.)
Once again, I’m not going to wade into the details of health care reform. But what I find so fascinating about Green’s response is that he appears to be saying that Jesus wouldn’t do anything, “without good reason,” that might violate the U.S. Constitution… even if it might help the poor and save lives. Apparently Jesus was okay with defying the Roman Empire, but the American Empire is beyond divine critique. And if the Constitution, rather than the Bible, is the final authority of matters of life and faith, then I wonder if Green thinks Jesus supported ending slavery and granting equal rights for women–both of which violated the Constitution as originally written.
Green illustrates what bothers me so much about the union of evangelicals and political conservatives–it make God a servant of a political philosophy. Green may have legitimate reasons to be against the proposed health care reform bill, and there may be good reasons for Christians to be opposed to the bill. I’m just not sure Jesus’ advocacy for the Constitution is one of them.
What would Jesus do about National Healthcare–probably nothing. Here’s why I think this:
Christians are called to help the poor, sick, widows, children, prisoners, etc. They are NOT called to ‘let the government help the poor, sick, widows, children, prisoners, etc. so we don’t have to.’ There is a HUGE difference between saying, “20% of our nation cannot afford proper and adequate health care and are suffering as a result. Let’s do something about it–have our Doctors provide care to those who cannot afford it. And then let’s NOT charge everyone else more to make up the difference,” and saying “20% of our nation cannot afford proper and adequate health care and are suffering as a result. Let’s pass legislation that increases taxes/debt/bureaucracy/government, so that hopefully people will follow the rules and the system will change.”
The third option, “20% of our nation cannot afford proper and adequate health care and are suffering as a result. That’s too bad. It’s just capitalism.” THIS IS THE OPTION THAT SHOULD BE EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN TO ANYONE WHO BELIEVES THAT JESUS CALLS US TO CARE FOR THE WEAK.
And did Jesus really defy the Roman Empire? Or did he simply claim that there is a greater Authority to which we owe allegiance? In response to the ‘Head Tax’, Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesars [the $1 head tax] and give to God what is God’s [your loyalty, your life, or literally–your head].”
Let the government do what they will–we’ll probably still end up with an inadequate, inequitable system that doesn’t properly care for the poor and marginalized. I’m guessing that good health care services won’t be located in Englewood, where violence is high, drugs are prevalent, life expectancy is low, and people are poor and cannot afford health care. That is the place where Christians ought to be providing the care that the government cannot or will not because of cost, safety, or political expedience concerns.
The government is going to do whatever they want. Christians should stand up and do what we are called to do to help the poor REGARDLESS of whatever action the federal, state, and local government does or does not do.
/My $.02
It is my experience that many of the people who don’t want health care reform have awesome insurance.
I just found out TN has a partially state-funded program for self employed & uninsured people and it’s very reasonably priced. I used to have private coverage when I had a “real” job…and loved my docs. With the state plan I get to keep them.
I just applied today because my coverage runs out next month from the “real” job. We’ll see what happens. My credit is already #*@^ed because I had inadequate coverage when I had an emergency surgery 3 years ago and couldn’t pay $1200/month for a year to pay for it.
So…I just don’t want to get more #*@^ed if something else were to happen now that I can’t afford an $800/month premium through private insurance. Can’t afford a $40k surgery either.
Skye,
Let’s take all of this a step further, and where I think the real reform needs to happen, with the following question, “Is it moral for hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, biomedical companies, etc. to make a profit off of the sick? If so, then should these companies be held accountable by the amount of profit they produce or the quality of care that they give? Should these types of companies be publicly traded on the stock market where profit is the primary driving force behind decision making?”
In my mind the moral dilemma lies here, and not whether or not a government should fund health care. In fact, the government already funds health care in the form of research grants, the CDC, medical cards, Medicare, etc. Our government is already in the health care business.
My issue with the public option is that it is not addressing the real moral issue…the sin of greed, which is why we have rising health care costs. In my opinion, the public option will begin to erode the quality of care because what is not profitable will eventually be unavailable.
Good questions, Robert. But why stop at questioning the morality of making money off the sick by providing health care? Is it immoral to make a profit from the hungry by selling them food, or to make a profit from the ignorant by selling them education, or to make a profit from the grieving by selling them a casket and burial plot? When is profit ever moral?
Your question calls into doubt the morality of capitalism in general as a social and economic framework. You are right in saying that the public option fails to address the “real moral issue…the sin of greed.” But to be fair, from a Christian point of view there isn’t a government program anywhere that can erase the “sin of greed.” The government can punish it, restrain it, discourage it…but the government cannot remove it. You may be setting your expectations too high.
Skye
Dear Skye,
Thanks for bringing this up. I am woefully ignorant about many of the subtleties involved. I am not a theological professor nor a Constitutional lawyer. But what I have read is portions of the Bible. I’m sure I’ve read the whole thing at least once. What I’ve noticed is that God is all about helping the marginalized–the poor, the weak, the widow, those in prisons–and the list goes on. I’ve also noticed that though there is this “to do” list, there are no directions on how to complete it. It seems we are left to our own devises.
One of those devises that would be applicable in these current situations would be the social contracts that we construct, namely government and markets. We have invented and created these things so that we can all get along with one another. Once again, I’m no historian, but it just takes a cursory glance through European history to see how these things came into being.
It would be nice if we could tweak these social contracts to adhere ever more to Biblical standards instead of the other way around. The Amish think that the height of culture and theology happened in the 1860’s. Many conservatives think government was perfected in the 1780’s. My humble and possibly ill-informed idea is that God is making all things new–not trying to revert to a particular time and place in the past. The Holy Spirit is on a rampage in the world trying to bring all of this about. If we Christians do not help in this process, Jesus will probably again threaten that the stones on the road to Jerusalem will have to pick up the slack in praising him and doing his will. It would be nice if we could do something for it, too.
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Skye,
The question is not do we believe in helping people with health care - but how do we help them.
Giving it to the government is where the church began their shirking of responsibility to take care of people.
The church needs to, and does in many cases, work to provide things for people, rather than just saying “oh yeah, we can get government to pay for it, meaning we’ll have them force people to give money to them, in a horribly inefficient system, to manage what we don’t want to take the time to figure out. Really bad answer!
I received a letter - yes non-electronic correspondence from Sam Brownback outlining his approach which helps people be able to have more affordable coverage and pay for it themselves. Taking personal responsibility is what the bible teaches. And for those the church needs to help, it will be easier to use the limited funds to do so. Just some thoughts!
I agree with much of what has been said, however, I look up any solution that puts the distribution of anything of value in the hands of the government as a system ripe for abuse. The distribution of value by government automatically creates a dependency as well as a method to “steer” society. I am fully aware that that CAN be good but it is not without costs, most of which are of a non-monetary nature. I am not an advocate of totally free markets as I have made my living trading grains as well as having seen the abyss “self-regulating” markets have led our economy to.
Christians, by our very profession of faith, cannot walk around the sick at the roadside, the vulnerable at the drug house, the prostitute under the bridge, the uninsured at the storefront clinic. There are those that see great efficiency with turning these issue over to the gov’t . However, it has been my experience in the ag community (which is no stranger to gov’t “help”) that in the long run,taking assistance from Uncle Sam is not a lot different than taking a loan from Don Corleone.