I am a supporter of SB 810, the California Universal Health Care Act, and California OneCare, the grassroots campaign behind it. As a cancer survivor, the son of a cancer survivor, and the bereaved brother of a terminally ill person, I’ve witnessed, firsthand, the difference in care between what a person with first-rate insurance coverage enjoys in this country and the care the uninsured or inadequately insured are able to receive. I think it is wrong that the quality of care a person receives in this country depends on accidents of fortune and birth.
However, I am also a Lutheran and recognize that the Christian faith and the dialogues it forces us to engage in are often difficult. I recognize that good, responsible, sane, and caring people can walk away from those struggles with radically different conclusions, and that the role of the state in our lives is the source of such dialogues. When we come to these sorts of disagreements, I like to draw attention to what our religious text actually says and engage in a constructive dialogue.
Those who fall on the other side of the issue of health care reform may agree with the opinions of figures like the Minnesota Family Council’s Tom Pritchard when he writes:
In Obama’s worldview, our trust is in government not in God. A denial of how God designed and created our economic and social systems to actually work in the real world. The result? The abysmal failure of government control of health care in socialist models. From the USSR which takeover [sic] everything, including health care, to our neighbors to the north, Canada and European countries such as the UK where rationing and massive waiting periods are the order of the day.
Let us deal with the religious aspects of this argument first. What does Christ say about how a social system works? The author of the Gospel According to St. Matthew offers us a particularly stirring teaching of Christ's on this matter in Matthew 25:37-40:
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?
The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
That is, according to the writer of Matthew and every other formative influence on Christian social doctrine, a Christian’s duty is to love and serve one’s neighbors unconditionally. This is one of the great boons of the Incarnation — it allows us to see the kind face of God in the humanity of another. When we see an injured or sick person and fail to see our suffering Lord, we have failed the most basic test of our faith.
However, if you find that tradition speaks to life equally or even more powerfully than the Bible, please consider this health-related selection from my tradition, Luther's published letter Whether One May Flee From a Deadly Plague:
For this I well know, if it were Christ or his mother who were laid low by illness everyone would be so solicitous and would gladly become a servant or a helper. … If you wish to serve Christ and wait on him, very well, you have your sick neighbor close at hand. Go to him and serve him and you will surely find Christ in him…
Now, what kind of economic system did Christ endorse? It may come as a shock that the early Church or "Jesus movement" was communitarian in nature, i.e. a form of organization that Pritchard derides as "socialism." Acts 4:32-35 clearly depicts this.
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
We might ask the question of whether this approach to goods was preferable to the early Church and God, but not mandatory, like celibacy. On this point, Acts answers us with an emphatic 'no.' Let's look at the account of God's response to Ananias and Sapphira, a couple who thought it was better to keep their earning rather than give them to the community. (Acts 5:1-11)
Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”
When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.
On the policy aspect of the argument, Pritchard’s assertions about rationing and wait times in Canada and Europe and how those systems compare to the US are misleading in a few different ways.
The rest of the developed world rations health care according to need. However, everyone receives a basic and decent standard of care.
In Switzerland, rich or poor, they all buy the same health insurance," said Regina Herzlinger, chairwoman of business administration at Harvard University and a leading advocate of the Swiss system. "The government gives the poor as much money as the average Swiss has to buy health insurance."
The United States also rations health care but based on ability to pay, i.e. to those who are able to pay for an individual plan and don't have 'pre-existing conditions' or those who have jobs with group plans. The results of the for profit system are dire.
'We've got something worse than socialized medicine in this country,' said Alain Enthoven, a Stanford University economist known as the father of the Dutch system.
'We have doctors causing hospital infections by not washing their hands because the incentives don't punish them for hospital infections, and we've got something that is financially destroying our economy. It's a disaster.'
The Europeans also manage to have universal health care with an investment of 10% of national income. In 2009, America spent 18% of its national income on health care and still had 47 million uninsured persons and countless others receiving low quality care.
As for wait times, in the United Kingdom--the system that health care reform enemies love to use as a straw man--41 per cent of UK patients reported being able to get a same day appointment with their GP, with only 13 per cent reporting having to wait 6 days or more.
In France and Germany, however, wait times are relatively short regardless of the type of appointment. But for Americans with no insurance, basic care may never arrive for millions.
Having covered how right-wing Christian arguments against health care reform in general--and single payer in particular--fail on both religious and policy grounds, allow me to end with a reminder that a government is simply the public space in which we come together and address the needs and problems of our communities. The basic questions of government are what kind of community do we want to live in and what kind of role do we want to play in the community. Do we want to be Peter or Ananias?
The government of California is an uniquely good venue for solving the needs of the community because, more often than not, it refuses to limit the scope of that community. Publicly provided health care in this state thus provides faithful Christian Californians a wonderful opportunity. When we reflect and hold ourselves to account for how we have served our community and Lord, in anticipation for the day when we are held to such an account by Christ himself, support for SB 810 will have afforded us the opportunity to serve the afflicted in our state as selflessly and equitably as Christ serves us through his Grace.