HungerNetOhio #6.11: Medical Debate over Healing the Nation

What's all the craziness over health care these days?  Proponents and opponents of changing the current system are going for the jugular. In town hall meetings across the country, the debate has become a screaming match.

Much of the anger has been directed toward members of the House of Representatives who, after gaining some consensus about resuscitating health care policy, got an early jump on their summer “vacations.”  Home this week with more a tenuous prognosis for rejuvenating medical coverage, senator are experiencing their version of an August “recess.” As is the usual pattern in August, the weather (and predictably the rhetoric) are bound to heat up before any relief.

On one side is the commitment to change the way medical services are delivered:

• Inclusive: encompass the over 40 million mostly indigent Americans without coverage currently

• Protection: insure that those with satisfactory insurance remain safe, even after catastrophic illness and, if they need to change insurers, with preexisting conditions

• Economize: reign in astronomical costs which threaten to eat up family budgets and devour the economy

• Efficiency: Make it work for everyone--more simply with less arbitrary decision-making by bureaucrats, readily available when you need it, farsighted by rewarding the ounces of prevention over pounds of cures, and fair of all

On the other side is a mixture of intransigent attitudes toward both the “disease” and this particular “remedy”: Some bask in satisfaction over what is good for them and fear losing it; a few see the overall effort as a form of greater government control and move toward a “socialism”; others are concerned that the costs of change is not worth the investment; and still other otherwise potential advocates want to slow down, work harder, and further refine the process to insure a better end-product.

So where's the truth? Who's right, what's wrong, and how do I stand on the issue?  What can I do to help change a sick argument into a healthy debate?

SHORT CUT:
For those who insist, "JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO!"

LONG SUIT:
For those who plead, "GIVE ME MORE DETAILS"

Some may wonder why the Hunger Network in Ohio and antipoverty advocates are sticking our noses into health care.  It raises the question: what is the relationship between people without food and those lacking medical coverage?  The answer is the two are directly tied to the challenge of how we as a society choose to treat desperate people, whether those unable to get help with physical and emotional infirmities or underfed and malnourished.  Conversations with regular clients at food panties will often reveal a high percentage started on a slippery slope into severe poverty which led to hunger by way of a sudden illness, lack of proper treatment, and exorbitant costs of recovery.

Major Questions

Here are the three raging questions that you, I, the American public in general, and eventually congress to our combined satisfaction must answer in order to proceed with health care reform:

Should medical coverage be available for everyone?  If not, for whom only and how do those who aren't covered receive treatment? These are fundamental questions about justifying or continuing to tolerate a system that discriminates against “the least of these…”  

If yes, in what form--single payer, the current use of managed insurance companies, adding a “public option,” piloting “health care cooperatives”?  Let's get beyond the prejudicial, politically/economically motivated, and often just plain false defense against providing the best care to the most people for the least amount of money.
  
To achieve “universal coverage,” should we just “bite the bullet” (a previous medical procedure) and pay the extra costs, reduce the quality and availability of services for all, “cut out the middle man” (reducing managed care companies), remunerate the medical establishment as salaried employees and not as contract workers receiving sliding fee-for-service, further tax the wealthy (over $250,000 annual income), etc? This is obviously a monumental struggle to move beyond a society that favors the “haves” at the expense of the “have-nots.”

"Love thy Neighbor..."

For people and community of faith, beyond strategies and semantics, this debate begins with a “come to Jesus” moment: How do we tolerate an inadequate, unfair, and inhumane system of negligence of essential services to (if not us or our families) many of our neighbors in need?

Truth-Telling

These excerpts from Jim Wallis of Sojourners best summarize the current situation and our opportunity as Christians (and other faith expressions) to make a difference:

(The) one important moral principle for the health-care debate is truth-telling. For decades, the physical health and well-being of our country has been a proxy battle for partisan politics. Industry interests and partisan fighting are once again threatening the current opportunity for a public dialogue about what is best for our health-care system. What we need is an honest and fair debate with good information, not sabotage of reform with half-truths and misinformation.

Yet in recent weeks, conservative radio ads have claimed that health-care reform will kill the elderly (it won't), that it will include federal funding for abortion (it doesn't), and that it is a socialist takeover of the health-care system (it isn't). The organizations promoting these claims, including some Religious Right groups, are either badly misinformed, or they are deliberately distorting reality.

These kinds of ads should be stopped. They do not contribute to the debate that is needed to ensure that all Americans have access to quality, affordable health care. It is rather exactly the kind of misinformation campaign that could destroy needed reform. We should all denounce these ads and urge that the debate be about the real issues.

Even worse than advertising, since Congress has gone into its summer recess, organized protests are being mounted at local town hall meetings… taunts, jeers, and, in one case, an effigy.  (One) issued by the Connecticut-based group Right Principles, which calls on conservatives to 'pack the hall' and 'yell out and challenge' lawmakers.”

We must all say loudly and strongly that misinformation and angry mobs are not how democracy functions. While freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are certainly our rights, those rights must always be exercised with responsibility and accountability.

Health-care reform that will provide quality, affordable health care for all Americans is essential. It is a moral imperative that in a nation as prosperous as ours, no American should go without health care, especially the poorest and most vulnerable among us. Reasonable people may differ on how best to accomplish this goal…but in the final analysis, it should be a moral priority for all of us.


A Christian Creed on Health-Care Reform

In the face of negative ads, partisan rhetoric, and a news cycle filled with fear and half-truths about health-care reform, Christians must affirm that we believe in: quality, affordable access to life-giving services for all people.

Sign “A Christian Creed on Health-Care Reform” and a copy of it will be sent to your members of Congress. In addition, after you sign you will be given a link to Sojourners' free discussion guide about health-care reform, to help guide discussions in your congregation or small group.
Send this petition to:

    * Your Congressperson
    * Your Senators

As one of God's children, I believe that protecting the health of each human being is a profoundly important personal and communal responsibility for people of faith.

I believe God created each person in the divine image to be spiritually and physically healthy. I feel the pain of sickness and disease in our broken world (Genesis 1:27, Romans 8:22).

I believe life and healing are core tenets of the Christian life. Christ's ministry included physical healing, and we are called to participate in God's new creation as instruments of healing and redemption (Matthew 4:23, Luke 9:1-6; Mark 7:32-35, Acts 10:38). Our nation should strive to ensure all people have access to life-giving treatments and care.

I believe, as taught by the Hebrew prophets and Jesus, that the measure of a society is seen in how it treats the most vulnerable. The current discussion about health-care reform is important for the United States to move toward a more just system of providing care to all people (Isaiah 1:16-17, Jeremiah 7:5-7, Matthew 25:31-45).

I believe that all people have a moral obligation to tell the truth. To serve the common good of our entire nation, all parties debating reform should tell the truth and refrain from distorting facts or using fear-based messaging (Leviticus 19:11; Ephesians 4:14-15, 25; Proverbs 6:16-19).

I believe that Christians should seek to bring health and well-being (shalom) to the society into which God has placed us, for a healthy society benefits all members (Jeremiah 29:7).

I believe in a time when all will live long and healthy lives, from infancy to old age (Isaiah 65:20), and "mourning and crying and pain will be no more" (Revelation 21:4). My heart breaks for my brothers and sisters who watch their loved ones suffer, or who suffer themselves, because they cannot afford a trip to the doctor. I stand with them in their suffering.

I believe health-care reform must rest on a foundation of values that affirm each and every life as a sacred gift from the Creator (Genesis 2:7).

Amen.
Signed by:
[Your name]
[Your address]

PRIMARY REFERENCES AND LINKS

Some Recent and Diverse Commentators

FAIR. (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting);fair@fair.org

Freedom Works (“Lower Taxes, Less Government. More Freedom”) http://www.freedomworks.org/

Physicians for a National Health Program. http://www.pnhp.org/

Right Principles (“unapologetically American”).http://rightprinciples.com/

(3) Sojourners: The mission is to articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.SojoMail@sojo.net

UHCAN Ohio. (Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio: Working for Health Care for all); http://www.uhcanohio.org/


Articles

(1) A Christian Creed on Health-Care Reform. http://go.sojo.net/campaign/health_care/ingx5e7r1jxb7mix?source=act_0907_healthcare

Where Have You Gone, Joe the Citizen?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/weekinreview/09stolberg.html?ref=us

Truth-telling and Responsibility in Health Care - SojoMail 08.06.09;SojoMail@sojo.net

Media's Ties with Health Industry.fair@fair.org

(2) A Primer on the Details of Health Care Reform
by ROBERT PEAR and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
It can be difficult to sort fact from fiction in the debate
over health care reform. Here's a guide to the main issues.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/10/health/policy/10facts.html?th&emc=th

The Massachusetts Model (editorial)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09sun1.html?ref=todayspaper

The House Version of the Health-Care Legislation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/08/AR2009080802368.html

Health care at home: Washington alone won't repair the system. Local communities must act (editorial).
http://www.ohio.com/editorial/opinions/52816617.html

The prognosis: Health-care overhauls on the table are likely to boost costs, reduce choice (editorial)
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2009/08/09/hellcare.ART_ART_08-09-09_G4_JEEMT0E.html?sid=101

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