My Thoughts on Universal Healthcare

My Thoughts on Universal Healthcare
With the 1000 odd page health care bill being rushed through congress like they don’t want anyone to read it, I had a few thoughts. They are in no specific order or reasoning.
1. Healthcare for all is not, in reality for all, nor is it free. The resources (doctors, drugs, nurses, facilities) remain the same while the consumption increases as more users are added. It will mean: longer waits for procedures and fewer life extending drugs. Just read any British, Norwegian, or Canadian healthcare news.

2. There is a price associated with how long you live. In this case it is monetary. You cannot escape it. Society cannot escape it. All we can do is shift the focus and tradeoff areas. For instance, a billionaire will most likely live longer than someone who cannot afford last measure efforts to save their life. At some point the poor person’s family will have to make the decision either by choice or bankruptcy to end treatment on a terminally ill or gravely ill family member. The billionaire will not have to make that choice. He or she has more money, can afford more healthcare, and might live longer because of it. Is that wrong?

Ok so what are we doing with universal healthcare? Supposedly we’re making personal price/cost not an issue or means in how long you live. We want all to have the same healthcare. So the poor will get what the billionaire can get. All is fair is it not? It still isn’t. The criteria for how long you live will be your age, weight, or condition. Something else will disqualify other groups of people from getting life-saving or life-extending treatment. We are just exchanging one life determining criteria for another. I tend to believe the groups that will suffer tremendously will be terminally ill patients, old people, the deformed, and the unborn. Just look at the beginnings of socialized medicine in Germany. The deformed, racially impure, old, deranged, and sickly were all exterminated to make room for a stronger race. According to an evolutionary worldview they contribute nothing to society and are deadweight. Again, look at Britain, Canada, or even Norway. All examples of “socialized” medicine and shifted criteria.

3. The healthcare tax on the small business owners and wealthy will reduce gross income, lower hiring rates, make it harder to get a job, and strike another blow to the economy.

4. Healthcare is a personal responsibility and not a right. Once any personal responsibility is abdicated to the government greater amounts of personal freedom are lost.

5. I predict that this will expand government power to nanny the people of America. I have already heard talk of states banning junk food, cigarettes, booze, soda, and other life-shortening freedoms enjoyed in the US. What’s to stop the government from banning, aka ”protecting,” people from other liberties that could be dangerous? If other such dangerous activities are not banned, I believe they will be taxed and regulated in a way that is almost as good, if not more effective than banning them. If the government is fitting the bill for your healthcare, does it not have the RIGHT to tell you how to live so that you will cost it less?


6. Peoples in Britain, Canada, and Norway do not generally complain about how fundamentally flawed the system is. The two most common reasons presented for poor healthcare are overpopulation and immigrants. Why blame the system? That would be too obvious. If healthcare is crapulent, slow, and overtaxed it must be because it is available to too many people… How do you keep the population down in your country to afford healthcare to all? Let everyone exercise personal responsibility to pay for it as he or she sees fit? No, no, no. Close the gates of your country to immigrants and kill the unborn future citizens. That way the people that you deny healthcare to will not be heard.

Again healthcare for all with limited resources and fewer people putting into the system what they get out of it is not sustainable. People WILL be denied healthcare. Those people will just be harder to hear.

So how does this apply to a believer and follower of Christ? I think this is a pretty big problem. I think I have a few humble suggestions. I’m figuring this out with you so they might be completely off.
- Pray for our leaders and love your enemy. It’s in the bible. It’s hard because I feel and know that they oppress me and will make it harder to support a family. But nonetheless, God has charged me to love them.

- Don’t, when you have the opportunity, vote for the lesser of two evils (or the evil of two lessers). Vote your conscience. It belongs to Christ, not Caesar. If that means not voting then don’t do it. Why cast your lot with profoundly wicked men for the sole reason of them being the only ones to choose from. Be careful who you put your weight behind.

- Know your history. This is the same old shtick that swept through Europe in the earlier part of the last century. Progressives have been working hard in America ever since the 20’s for the same goals. I would highly suggest reading Liberal Facism by Jonah Goldberg for a brief primer on the influencers of the political left.

- Know your citizenship. God did not charge us to change hearts with politics. God’s kingdom is not of this world. The gospel changes man to make him better, not the law. Changed hearts do change politics though. How about that? How about we return to the great commission? Just a side-note: I’m fairly sure God may want to vomit when goons dance around in His sanctuary singing songs to “The Motherland” wearing sequined outfits befitting a jester every July 4th. What are we worshipping again?

- Provide for your neighbors. Would we need universal healthcare and welfare if the church took its charge seriously about caring for the poor, orphans, and widows?