Individual Episcopalians may indeed think the Democratic proposals on health insurance are desirable, and others may not.  The church office’s pushing this on all members highlights the church’s position as an extension of the Democratic Party.

I just looked at a head line with the words “Save Health Care.”  The health care that it was referred to was not “health care,” but the proposed health care bills now in Congress.  So the headline really meant ‘Save the Health Care Bill Now in Congress.’

And this is he whole problem.  Just what are we talking about when we talk about health care?

A first step would be to clearly specify who has access to health care services in our country.  And, just about everybody does who shows up at the emergency rooms of hospitals receiving federal funds.  And they pay only for what can be extracted from them through a billing process.  Many pay nothing and many have their fees significantly reduced and the their medical care costs are recovered by upcharging those who have health care plans.  That is, we all pay for the health care of these persons.

Then, there are those who refuse to take out health care plans even though, with responsible budgeting, they can afford to pay for their health care.  There are those people, poor and not poor, who just refuse health care just like there are those who are poor who refuse the warmth and food of shelters during freezing weather or those who are not poor who live out disorganized and irresponsible life styles.  Does “health care” mean that we should become a Progressive nanny state and push health care down their throats?

So when we discuss health care we should describe with demographic precision exactly where we are in our country.  And so far this has not been in the fore front of our public debate.

And secondly, we should discuss the ‘appropriate role of the state’ in our ‘personal matters’ including health care choices.  Do we want the ‘state’ intruding into every corner of our lives?  Think about it? 

And by the way, just ‘who’ is the ‘state?’  The ‘state’ is nothing but a group of human beings.  What particular group of human beings has the right to presume that it has the ‘right’ to pry into the health related personal affairs of other human beings in the United States of America?

Very perceptive analysis, AnglicanFirst.  Basically, we (those of us who pay taxes and/or have insurance) are already paying for health care for “all.”  The government proposal really has nothing in it (as far as I can see) that improves the health care delivery system.

And how is it that the church got into the lobbying business anyway?

Well, the problem is not that people can’t get health care in this country.  They can.  The problem is that the costs of the current system are said to be growing so fast that to maintain the sytem as it is will bankrupt everyone.  But watching Congress and the White House try to fix the problem is an object lesson in the shortcomings of democracy.  All the interest groups—the hospitals, the nursing homes, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies, the chiropractors, the ambulance companies, the medical equipment companies, the insurance companies, among many others, are busy lobbying for bigger pieces of whatever funding will be cobbled together, nearly of of which will be coming out of your pockets and mine.  I don’t know many of the details of the current plan, and I doubt that very many do, including those who will be voting it up or down.  And, in any event, the details seem to change daily. 

The fact that 815 openly supports the current bills is, in my book, a powerful reason to be against them.

There are five bills. Do we support them all?

http://energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/20090714/aahca.pdf

Contains the entire bill (all 1000+ pages) that Episcopalians are being “urged to support.”

What I understand from Focus on the Family is that the current bill (bills?) include funding for “reproductive health care” and “family planning” that would include abortions.  Our tax money would be going toward abortions.  So far, all proposed amendments to this portion of the bill have been shot down.

The point is that the health care system is broken for all of those whose economic means fall below the middle middle class.  Moreover, the economic boundary for currently satisfactory health care is moving and will soon become upper middle class if changes are not made.  In pondering this, bear in mind that more than half the population is on the wrong side of the boundary.

stabill, even assuming for the sake of argument your diagnosis of “broken” for more than half of the population, the administration is not demonstrating that its solutions will fix this for anybody.  It will balloon costs, ration care, and create a monstrous public bureaucracy—while providing public funding of abortion, another major ethical problem.

I guess I’d like to go back to comments 1 and 2 and consider more deeply the relation between religion and politics in this matter. “The Episcopal Public Policy Network issued a Policy Alert July 29 asking Episcopalians to contact their elected officials and urge them to pass legislation that would provide affordable health care to all Americans.”

Because virtually everyone is behind that goal, I don’t see what good it would do for anyone to contact his or her elected officials—members of Congress, ENS means—to state the obvious. I already assume, based on what I’ve read, that members of Congress are at this very moment working toward that goal, although they have different paths to it.

I also trust that many in Congress are working hard to accomplish this goal in the most efficient and productive manner—by not breaking the bank (further) and by not making things even worse than they are now.

That problem—of my not being able to see how following the Episcopal Church’s moral exhortation in this matter would do any good—is soon rectified as we learn that TEC is really backing one specific bill. Ah.

At this point one would expect to find a clear and specific argument for this bill over other bills, and for now rather than later, after more discussion—I mean dialogue—has occurred and representatives have heard from their constituents. But from here on I find partisan platitudes and atmospherics, not hard analysis, specific data, and reasoned comparisons.

Does TEC headquarters get a tax exemption of any kind? Why don’t they just cut to the chase and urge everyone to “Re-elect Obama”? And if they do get a tax exemption, do they deserve it? Wouldn’t they be contributing to universal health care by paying more in taxes, especially on their grand edifices in Manhattan and San Francisco? If they’re not paying taxes, then I would urge them to stay out of politics.

And I for one would just like to register a gut instinct—but based on thinking and writing about religion and politics for 30 years—that I find this kind of officially sponsored ecclesiastical tripe incredibly offensive, for various reasons that should be obvious to any thinking man or woman.

Thanks for the link to the bill. I will bet no one at 815 has read this bill or can explain what is in it. I dare anyone here to try to read it.

Here’s one analysis of about half the bill:

http://www.theospark.net/2009/07/obamacare-reading-of-bill-so-far-just.html

While we’re at it, can we vote to get buck-a-gallon gas, five-cent cigars and affordable T-bone steak dinners, too?  I’d really like all of those, and a Congressional vote is just about as likely to provide them as it will “affordable” healthcare.

If you want heathcare costs to drop, get government out of it, pure and simple.  From mandated coverages and third-party insurance preferences to cross-state purchasing proscriptions, government at all levels has absolutely ruined the market for healthcare.  It needs to shove off, not elbow its way further into the field.

As I understood it there were two sets of resolutions.  One called for Universal Health Care, which seems to be the only one the article is referencing.  The other was an attempt to address the moral and personal questions that drive high costs, including recognizing (1) end-of-life issues and (2) personal responsibility for our own health.  So far as I can tell, the article does not reference the second set at all, but only calls for letters in support of current legislation—problematic at best, even if anyone understands what current legislation actually says (I don’t).  Yet the church can, as the church, appropriately address the moral and personal decisions that are built into health-care “costs”.  And here, silence.

I see four (4) resolutions listed under “healthcare,” with C071 not getting off to a good start:

That, The Episcopal Church urge its members to contact elected federal, state and territorial officials encouraging them to:

a) create, with the assistance of experts in related fields, a comprehensive definition of “basic healthcare” to which our nation’s citizens have a right,

b) establish a system to provide basic healthcare to all,

c) create an oversight mechanism, separate from the immediate political arena, to audit the delivery of that “basic healthcare,”

d) educate our citizens in the need for limitations on what each person can be expected to receive in the way of medical care under a universal coverage program in order to make the program sustainable financially,

e) educate our citizens in the role of personal responsibility in promoting good health;

There are so many problems with this it’s hard to know where to start.  First and foremost is that the government doesn’t have any healthcare, so it needs to take it from someone if it’s going to give it to you.  This is more commonly known as “theft,” or, if it’s done on an industrial scale, “slavery.”  Second, if there’s a “responsibility” component, then it’s really not a right, is it?  I mean, what responsibility do I have to show for my right to worship as I please or speak openly?  If there’s a responsibility, then someone is going to define that for me, and it’s going to be intrusive…the antithesis of liberty.

Have no illusions about this exortation, people: Pass national healthcare and nothing will be off-limits to legislation again.  Nothing.

How about if the Episcopal Church sets up a fund to support medical clinics and pharmacies in poor areas, so that instead of sitting idly back on their laurels, and letting the government go boldly where they should not go, they actually put their ‘money’ to work where Christ has called us to put it?  Christ called the Church to visit the sick and clothe/feed the poor.

And over the centuries, it has done just that: The first hospitals were run by Christian orders, monks AND nuns; orphanages were established by the Church; etc.  The Catholic Church is still doing this, as are some Baptist groups. But what about the Episcopal Church? They call on Government to unconstitutionally take over this ministry.

Oh goody! We can use that money for other things: going to conferences; funding political parties; building million dollar residences for our Bishops and, most importantly, legal battles against those who choose to stand for the Gospel!

end rant.

Jim Elliott
North Georgia

The separation of Church and State gets dicey, Jim, when the State is your Church.

I hope and pray your new address means you’ve found gainful employment, my friend.