I’d like to push the figurative reset button on this topic as we have salamandered our way from the idea of immutable principles in direct contravention to a groups’s current political goals, to back packs bearing gold, frankincense, and myrrh, to Cardinal Hoffman questioning the questioner’s faith.
It seems most evangelicals overwhelmingly support the Republican Party. It seems the main talking point of the Republican Party is the destruction of “Obamacare.”
From its inception it appears Obamacare was an attempt to obtain healthcare for the 50 million people in our very wealthy country who currently live without healthcare.
I surmise that those who have no healthcare coverage have limited access to preventive care, leaving them more exposed to acquiring preventable illness.
And I suppose those same people are in much greater peril when they suffer life-threatening injuries or illness.
Being more prone to both preventable illness, and degraded care with serious illness or injury, indicates these same people are then put further at risk of being unable to work, which further ensures their degraded position.
And this in turn must result in fairly serious mental and physical suffering.
From my experience, and from my knowledge of such things, I believe it is a very Christian value to be concerned with relief of human suffering.
The Affordable Care Act which passed Congress and was signed into law was not what the Democrats wanted, but was the result of great compromise and in the end mostly mirrored the program endorsed by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the system put in place by Governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts.
So admitting that the system is not perfect and admitting there would be bumps in the road to implementation and eventual healthcare coverage for the dispossessed, my wonder remains why evangelical Christians had little to add to the debate when this law was winding through Congress, and have now made it their number one political goal to repeal.
The writers who replied to my admittedly inflammatory first letter in their temporizing replies have mentioned Caesar, their own generosity, the necessity of context when examining immutable values (they didn’t say that, I did), and have now moved on to indignation that the questioner might not be a strong enough Christian, or a Christian at all.
Mr. Strong asks, why not get rid of Obamacare and start over?
And the answer is, because nothing will ever be passed over the objections of the people and corporations who steal a pirate’s hall of treasure from our health system every year because they have the Republican Party in their pocket.
Here are a few facts easily obtained on the Internet: In 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the United States spent 17.4 percent of her GDP for healthcare, which averaged out to $7,960 per person.
The Netherlands, which is widely regarded as the best healthcare system in the world, spent 12 percent of her GDP or about $4,900 per person.
The Netherlands insured everyone. The U.S. insured about 83 percent of its population.
Why do Evangelicals support such a system and why do they, as a group, oppose any attempt to obtain healthcare for the 17 percent who don’t have it?
So the Editor wants context and Mr. Trapaga wants to donate backpacks and thinks Canadians are coming here for treatment (they’re not), and Mr. Strong wants the free market, and Mr. Hoffman wants to ignite the fagots and watch the apostate roast, and they’re all lovely Republicans who can be counted on to nod their heads and jump when Karl Rove tells them to jump.
And one more thing. One needn’t be a philosopher to discuss Kant; one needn’t be a lawyer to discuss the law; one needn’t be an ethicist to be ethical.
Christian values are immutable. They don’t need context, they don’t need artificial selection, and they can be discussed by priest, imam, and atheist.
“Frankly the idea that a person would not have one job, but have two jobs, or three jobs, and work all the light hours that are there, and still not be entitled to the protection of fundamental care is so outrageous. I think that even the poorest people in the great country that is the United States should be entitled to basic healthcare.” — Michael D. Higgins, President of the Republic of Ireland, speaking with a Tea Party DJ in Boston before he became President.
I agree.
Timothy J. Parker
Peachtree City, Ga.
