Last night I caught part of a newscast in which someone from Congress was being interviewed about the health care reform bill. I don't remember who the Congressional representative was, whether they were Republican or Democrat—that's not relevant here. The interviewer wanted to know how many people this particular representative's preferred health care proposal would "leave behind" or "leave out" (I forget the exact wording). I expected the representative to sidestep the suggestion that he was leaving anyone behind by couching his response carefully in terms of how many people his preferred proposal would cover. So I was thrown when he responded by matter-of-factly throwing out various numbers of people who might be left without insurance depending on the final configuration of the bill: 30 million, 17 million, 8 million.
Judgment: Watering down what was originally intended to be a universal health care plan into something that unashamedly leaves out some number of people is a case of turning your back on the poor (Alma 5:55) or turning the beggar out to perish (Mosiah 4:16). As someone who has accepted a divine charge to "plead the cause of the poor and the needy" (D&C 124:75), I feel moved to say: We will be judged by God and found wanting as a nation if we turn our backs on the uninsured at this juncture in history. We are happy to watch our nation's leaders shovel billions of dollars at the task of making war; it's time to reevaluate our priorities.
Predictably, the conservative fearmongers (I'm looking at you especially, Brother Beck) have raised the specter of "rationing" medical care; I'm sure it's a fear that resonates with a lot of politically conservative American LDS. Since what's being proposed at this point is a public option that would exist alongside of, rather than replace, private health insurance, this fear seems unjustifiably paranoid (or calculatingly propagandistic). But what if it were true? From a Latter-day Saint perspective, why would that be a problem? Here would be a chance for us to step up and live out the principles of the law of consecration, to which in theory we have committed ourselves. "Rationing" health care, if such a thing were to occur, would mean that those of us who have ready access to health care on demand because we have the luxury of being able to pay for it would be asked to sacrifice that privilege—that wealth—so that everyone could have equal access to services they need. That's the basic distributive principle of the law of consecration, the law which we are told we must learn to live in order to receive God's fulness (D&C 78:6-7; 105:3-5).
So to any American LDS who may be within the reach of my virtual voice: I beg you, step up to the challenge! Say yes to the call God is issuing to us at this historical moment! Instead of retreating from the specter of socialized medicine, let's seize this moment to call for even more than our timid leaders in Washington are willing to contemplate.
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God of justice and equity,
God of power and might—
You know the prayer of my heart.
If I try to put it into words here, it will just get all cerebral and careful and technical.
So I simply lift to you the desires of my heart.
In Christ's name, amen.
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1 comment:
John-Charles,
The silly arguments against "rationing" care become even more ridiculous in the face of the fact that in America, care is already rationed. For example, if you do not have health insurance, you will likely not be able to get the level of health care that you want or need. Even those with insurance (except for those with the best (read most expensive) policies) will be told that they cannot receive certain types of care based on their policies' coverage rules. Peter Singer had an excellent article in the NYT a couple of weeks back about this issue, including the fact that in some sense, we must ration care, because not all care is beneficial or cost-effective.
I understand that from an individual standpoint, it is hard to accept that I or one of my loved ones may be denied a certain kind of needed treatment because someone else has determined that it would not be helpful or justified in light of its cost. I would always want my wife, my parents, or my child to receive any and all kinds of care that had even the slightest chance of working. But part of the price of living in democracy is that my private choices cannot dictate the use of public resources without reference to larger social needs. It is part of the social contract that mature adults understand that they must buy into.
Don't count on hearing anything like that from our President or Congressional leaders. "Sacrifice" talk like this is a suicide mission for politicians.
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