Do you mean universal health care? It’s a good idea in theory, but probably won’t work in practice. The same thing will happen to the health care funds that happened to social security: the government will get its greedy fingers into it and take it all.
I don’t think so. Christians should want what’s best for the whole society it’s voting for. Social health care is not best for anyone at all. I have Canadian friends that would rather they change their health care to be more like ours. They say social health care kills people.
Jesus said Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.
So in that regard I would say, yes Christians should advocate for health care for the poor but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t work for it if they are physically able to. If they have a full time job that doesn’t offer sufficient health care, perhaps social health care could supplement what an employer offers.
That shouldn’t take the place of free choice in health care for everybody else however, but America should be able to care for all of it’s citizens health care.
*blinks* Honey, in the United States, its a growing epidemic where people can’t afford health care so they have none. So, you prefer people to die because they can’t afford to spend $200 a month to blow on health care when food, shelter, and clothing are more important?
Gee, what a loving Christian you are.
Denying people health care is equivelent to passive murder. Last I saw, one of the commandments is “thou shalt not murder”.
Canadian Health Care is actually better than American Health Care at this point. We are third in the first world despite the waiting lines, because EVERYONE gets health care, and we all pay the same premiums. Those that can’t afford it are covered. If you never use it, you never use it, but its there so that YOU don’t have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars if you get seriously hurt. $44 a month for a single and $80 a month a family is a small price to pay in exchange for the surety that you’ll be cared for regardless.
I think that Christians should continue to support health care through church outreach and hospital programs.
Matthew 25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Should Christians advocate for the government to provide social health care? That’s up to each individual to study the matter and pray about. There are good reasons for the government to provide health care benefits to the needy and there are reasons why the government may be a poor choice to be the supplier of those benefits.
Then you have the issue about whether private individuals whose consciences move them to help people in neeed of health care should be the ones to do so while other people who don’t want their tax dollars spent that way shouldn’t have to be forced into it along with everyone else.
1 Timothy 6:17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
One thing is for sure though. The main job of the church and the people in it is to spread the gospel and make disciples of Christ. Advocating for government programs should be way down the list and left up to individual believers as their own consciences dicatate.
Christians should advocate for
Quality, Accessibility, and Affordability of health care.
Why? Because that is the compassionate and frankly, productive, thing to do.
Using those standards, we automatically rule out “social health care.” UHC ALWAYS results in RATIONED care and BANKRUPTCY.
The free market, the little bit we have in the US (most is under domination of big insurers and the government) does work and delivers the three goals.
Read:
A doctor owned and run hospital that sees everyone gets care, no matter what happens to the bottom line.
a doctor-driven group where reasonable rates are charged.
Note you can go to a walk-in clinic at Wal-Mart or CVS or the like in many cities and get many of the most typical reasons for seeing a doc addressed for under $100.
The price of LASIK has DROPPED dramatically over a decade. Plastic surgery is CHEAP. Compare a major procedure like a tummy tuck with the bill an uninsured patient will get for a medically necessary appendectomy WITHOUT complications.
Christians are also called upon to provide CHARITY. By definition, that means we give of OUR money and OUR time and OUR talents–not hold a gun to our neighbor’s head and tell him what he MUST do. This is why in a Christian-founded country such as the US we have ALWAYS been the leader of the world in charity and why we created hospitals that provide charity care and have many medical charities to boot.
Look at things like St. Jude’s hospital which also provides medical RESEARCH used throughout the world. That is 100% private and NO children are turned away because of an inability to pay and we serve children from DOZENS of countries there. THAT is charity. THAT is Christian. THAT is something no reasonable or decent man can object to.
Here are a couple of FACTS about UHC:
The NHS, the oldest system, is in Britain:
““Staff are being laid off, and deficits are at an all time high (£1.07bn for 2005-2006)” (Hazel Blears, Labour Party Chair and Minister Without Portfolio, labourachievements.blogspot.com/2006/08/23-investment-in-nhs.html).
In the National Review Online article, Coburn & Herzlinger state “more than 20,000 Brits would not have died from cancer in the U.S.” Just recently Alex Smallwood of the BMA (British Medical Association) was quoted in the Scotsman as saying: “’Rationing is reduction in choice. Rationing has become a necessary evil. We need to formalise rationing to prevent an unregulated, widening, postcode-lottery of care. Government no longer has a choice.’” (Moss, “NHS rationing is ‘necessary evil,’ says doctors,” 26 June 2007).
Please notice the doctors are telling you they HAVE to ration care. NO CHOICE.
In the US we think our tax dollars are at work saving the poorest among us. Ha!
Oregon’s at least honest about the FACT that ALL government health care IS RATIONED care:
“But the real-life story of 18-year-old Brandy Stroeder may come to embody a harsher truth: namely, that even as we perfect more and more advanced medical procedures, not everyone is going to have access to them. And, as Americans struggle to come up with an equitable health care system, that even the best-intentioned system can seem heartless when forced to balance the good of thousands against an individual’s suffering.
The story began last fall when doctors told Brandy, who lives with her single mother in a weather-beaten farmhouse about an hour south of Portland, Ore., that she was likely to die within a year unless she got a simultaneous lung-liver transplant, an operation that has been performed fewer than a dozen times in the United States.
Under Oregon’s unique Medicaid system, which openly rations healthcare in order to provide basic care to as broad a population as possible, Brandy was eligible for a liver transplant or a lung transplant, but not both. In January, and again after a review in May, the state-run health plan said no. There wasn’t enough data to show the $250,000 procedure was worthwhile, the health plan’s administrators said, and the plan didn’t cover experiments.
But Brandy wouldn’t take no for an answer. A tough, determined young woman who had managed to work part-time at a photo studio, baby-sit her boss’s children, coach the high school football team and maintain a 3.2 grade point average between numerous and prolonged bouts in the hospital, Brandy wasn’t about to give up her life without a fight. She sued the state of Oregon, charging that it was making a flawed moral choice in refusing to save her life. Since then her caustic, articulate criticisms of the Oregon system have given a vivid sense of the obstacles any universal healthcare plan for the nation would face.
“They’ll pay for an alcoholic to get a liver transplant because they’ve been drinking all their life,” she says, sitting with her mother at a rickety picnic table under a cherry tree by her front door. “They’ll pay for a heroin addict to get cured, to help someone kick the cigarette habit. Those are things people do to themselves. If you put it to a vote the people would say pay for some girl’s operation instead of some alcoholic’s liver transplant or some ***** head’s needles. I just think it isn’t very fair.’”
Texas has also been the boldest in supporting the growing-in-popularity “futile care theory”:
“Texas, however, has become ground zero for futile-care theory thanks to a draconian state law passed in 1999 — of dubious constitutionality, some believe — that explicitly permits a hospital ethics committee to refuse wanted life-sustaining care. Under the Texas Health and Safety Code, if the physician disagrees with a patient’s decision to receive treatment, he or she can take it to the hospital ethics committee. A committee hearing is then scheduled, all interested parties explain their positions, and the members deliberate in private.
If the committee decides to refuse treatment, the patient and family receive a written notice. At that point, the patient/family has a mere ten days to find another hospital willing to provide the care, after which, according to the statute, “the physician and health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment.”
Since the patients threatened with death by ethics committee are often the most expensive to care for, it will often be difficult for families to find other institutions willing to accept a transfer. But the futility deck may be especially stacked against Houston patients. Many city hospitals participate in the “Houston City-Wide Guidelines on Medical Futility,” raising the suspicion that participating hospitals will not contradict each other’s futility decrees.
If so, this would mean that patients seeking refuge from forced treatment termination will have to be transported to distant cities, as has already occurred in a few futile-care cases, perhaps even out of state. Illustrating the level of hardball some hospitals play against patients and families, the Clarke family’s lawyer Jerri Ward told me that St. Luke’s agreed to pay the $14,806 transportation costs to transfer Clarke to a hospital in Illinois — more than 1,000 miles away — if the decision to transfer is made on Thursday (4/27). If the family doesn’t decide until Friday, the hospital will pay only one-half of the cost of transportation. Thereafter, it would pay nothing.”
So if you want a Christian, compassionate system, one that delivers
Quality, Accessibility, and Affordability
you need to work with the free market AND consider appropriate charitable donations and/or going into the medical field to see that care is delivered. You’d also look at the plan HERE and evaluate it:
There IS a sensible plan that does NOT force patients on it with fear of fines; does NOT impose the costs on employers; does NOT raise our taxes; and DOES resolve another abuse of the taxpayer in its funding, provides for preventative care (moral and economical), and would prevent bankruptcies (more than half are caused by medical bills and most of those folks have insurance). Check it out:
{ 14 comments }
The Bible doesn’t discuss
the topic of social healthcare.
I am Canadian, and trust-me,
you don’t want social anything!
i think not.
Why not? what is the problem with it?
Do you mean universal health care? It’s a good idea in theory, but probably won’t work in practice. The same thing will happen to the health care funds that happened to social security: the government will get its greedy fingers into it and take it all.
I don’t think anyone should advocate for socialized health care.
Other people are not your property.
I think Christians should stand up for the poor, period. They should follow the golden rule and put themselves in other people’s shoes.
I don’t think so. Christians should want what’s best for the whole society it’s voting for. Social health care is not best for anyone at all. I have Canadian friends that would rather they change their health care to be more like ours. They say social health care kills people.
Jesus said Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.
So in that regard I would say, yes Christians should advocate for health care for the poor but that doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t work for it if they are physically able to. If they have a full time job that doesn’t offer sufficient health care, perhaps social health care could supplement what an employer offers.
That shouldn’t take the place of free choice in health care for everybody else however, but America should be able to care for all of it’s citizens health care.
IRiSh
*blinks* Honey, in the United States, its a growing epidemic where people can’t afford health care so they have none. So, you prefer people to die because they can’t afford to spend $200 a month to blow on health care when food, shelter, and clothing are more important?
Gee, what a loving Christian you are.
Denying people health care is equivelent to passive murder. Last I saw, one of the commandments is “thou shalt not murder”.
Canadian Health Care is actually better than American Health Care at this point. We are third in the first world despite the waiting lines, because EVERYONE gets health care, and we all pay the same premiums. Those that can’t afford it are covered. If you never use it, you never use it, but its there so that YOU don’t have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars if you get seriously hurt. $44 a month for a single and $80 a month a family is a small price to pay in exchange for the surety that you’ll be cared for regardless.
Think about it.
how about just availability of health care!!
why would God want people to suffer, just because they cannot afford health insurance?
Yes
The Beatitudes
” When did we see you hungry and *****…? When i was hungry you fed me.”
I think that Christians should continue to support health care through church outreach and hospital programs.
Matthew 25:31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Should Christians advocate for the government to provide social health care? That’s up to each individual to study the matter and pray about. There are good reasons for the government to provide health care benefits to the needy and there are reasons why the government may be a poor choice to be the supplier of those benefits.
Then you have the issue about whether private individuals whose consciences move them to help people in neeed of health care should be the ones to do so while other people who don’t want their tax dollars spent that way shouldn’t have to be forced into it along with everyone else.
1 Timothy 6:17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. 19 In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.
One thing is for sure though. The main job of the church and the people in it is to spread the gospel and make disciples of Christ. Advocating for government programs should be way down the list and left up to individual believers as their own consciences dicatate.
Christians should advocate for
Quality, Accessibility, and Affordability of health care.
Why? Because that is the compassionate and frankly, productive, thing to do.
Using those standards, we automatically rule out “social health care.” UHC ALWAYS results in RATIONED care and BANKRUPTCY.
The free market, the little bit we have in the US (most is under domination of big insurers and the government) does work and delivers the three goals.
Read:
A doctor owned and run hospital that sees everyone gets care, no matter what happens to the bottom line.
a doctor-driven group where reasonable rates are charged.
Note you can go to a walk-in clinic at Wal-Mart or CVS or the like in many cities and get many of the most typical reasons for seeing a doc addressed for under $100.
The price of LASIK has DROPPED dramatically over a decade. Plastic surgery is CHEAP. Compare a major procedure like a tummy tuck with the bill an uninsured patient will get for a medically necessary appendectomy WITHOUT complications.
Christians are also called upon to provide CHARITY. By definition, that means we give of OUR money and OUR time and OUR talents–not hold a gun to our neighbor’s head and tell him what he MUST do. This is why in a Christian-founded country such as the US we have ALWAYS been the leader of the world in charity and why we created hospitals that provide charity care and have many medical charities to boot.
Look at things like St. Jude’s hospital which also provides medical RESEARCH used throughout the world. That is 100% private and NO children are turned away because of an inability to pay and we serve children from DOZENS of countries there. THAT is charity. THAT is Christian. THAT is something no reasonable or decent man can object to.
Here are a couple of FACTS about UHC:
The NHS, the oldest system, is in Britain:
““Staff are being laid off, and deficits are at an all time high (£1.07bn for 2005-2006)” (Hazel Blears, Labour Party Chair and Minister Without Portfolio, labourachievements.blogspot.com/2006/08/23-investment-in-nhs.html).
In the National Review Online article, Coburn & Herzlinger state “more than 20,000 Brits would not have died from cancer in the U.S.” Just recently Alex Smallwood of the BMA (British Medical Association) was quoted in the Scotsman as saying: “’Rationing is reduction in choice. Rationing has become a necessary evil. We need to formalise rationing to prevent an unregulated, widening, postcode-lottery of care. Government no longer has a choice.’” (Moss, “NHS rationing is ‘necessary evil,’ says doctors,” 26 June 2007).
Please notice the doctors are telling you they HAVE to ration care. NO CHOICE.
In the US we think our tax dollars are at work saving the poorest among us. Ha!
Oregon’s at least honest about the FACT that ALL government health care IS RATIONED care:
“But the real-life story of 18-year-old Brandy Stroeder may come to embody a harsher truth: namely, that even as we perfect more and more advanced medical procedures, not everyone is going to have access to them. And, as Americans struggle to come up with an equitable health care system, that even the best-intentioned system can seem heartless when forced to balance the good of thousands against an individual’s suffering.
The story began last fall when doctors told Brandy, who lives with her single mother in a weather-beaten farmhouse about an hour south of Portland, Ore., that she was likely to die within a year unless she got a simultaneous lung-liver transplant, an operation that has been performed fewer than a dozen times in the United States.
Under Oregon’s unique Medicaid system, which openly rations healthcare in order to provide basic care to as broad a population as possible, Brandy was eligible for a liver transplant or a lung transplant, but not both. In January, and again after a review in May, the state-run health plan said no. There wasn’t enough data to show the $250,000 procedure was worthwhile, the health plan’s administrators said, and the plan didn’t cover experiments.
But Brandy wouldn’t take no for an answer. A tough, determined young woman who had managed to work part-time at a photo studio, baby-sit her boss’s children, coach the high school football team and maintain a 3.2 grade point average between numerous and prolonged bouts in the hospital, Brandy wasn’t about to give up her life without a fight. She sued the state of Oregon, charging that it was making a flawed moral choice in refusing to save her life. Since then her caustic, articulate criticisms of the Oregon system have given a vivid sense of the obstacles any universal healthcare plan for the nation would face.
“They’ll pay for an alcoholic to get a liver transplant because they’ve been drinking all their life,” she says, sitting with her mother at a rickety picnic table under a cherry tree by her front door. “They’ll pay for a heroin addict to get cured, to help someone kick the cigarette habit. Those are things people do to themselves. If you put it to a vote the people would say pay for some girl’s operation instead of some alcoholic’s liver transplant or some ***** head’s needles. I just think it isn’t very fair.’”
Texas has also been the boldest in supporting the growing-in-popularity “futile care theory”:
“Texas, however, has become ground zero for futile-care theory thanks to a draconian state law passed in 1999 — of dubious constitutionality, some believe — that explicitly permits a hospital ethics committee to refuse wanted life-sustaining care. Under the Texas Health and Safety Code, if the physician disagrees with a patient’s decision to receive treatment, he or she can take it to the hospital ethics committee. A committee hearing is then scheduled, all interested parties explain their positions, and the members deliberate in private.
If the committee decides to refuse treatment, the patient and family receive a written notice. At that point, the patient/family has a mere ten days to find another hospital willing to provide the care, after which, according to the statute, “the physician and health care facility are not obligated to provide life-sustaining treatment.”
Since the patients threatened with death by ethics committee are often the most expensive to care for, it will often be difficult for families to find other institutions willing to accept a transfer. But the futility deck may be especially stacked against Houston patients. Many city hospitals participate in the “Houston City-Wide Guidelines on Medical Futility,” raising the suspicion that participating hospitals will not contradict each other’s futility decrees.
If so, this would mean that patients seeking refuge from forced treatment termination will have to be transported to distant cities, as has already occurred in a few futile-care cases, perhaps even out of state. Illustrating the level of hardball some hospitals play against patients and families, the Clarke family’s lawyer Jerri Ward told me that St. Luke’s agreed to pay the $14,806 transportation costs to transfer Clarke to a hospital in Illinois — more than 1,000 miles away — if the decision to transfer is made on Thursday (4/27). If the family doesn’t decide until Friday, the hospital will pay only one-half of the cost of transportation. Thereafter, it would pay nothing.”
So if you want a Christian, compassionate system, one that delivers
Quality, Accessibility, and Affordability
you need to work with the free market AND consider appropriate charitable donations and/or going into the medical field to see that care is delivered. You’d also look at the plan HERE and evaluate it:
There IS a sensible plan that does NOT force patients on it with fear of fines; does NOT impose the costs on employers; does NOT raise our taxes; and DOES resolve another abuse of the taxpayer in its funding, provides for preventative care (moral and economical), and would prevent bankruptcies (more than half are caused by medical bills and most of those folks have insurance). Check it out:
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