Category: Social Justice

A Christmas Carol’s Social Justice Lessons…

Social Justice – Loyola Press:

Since Jim Carey’s new “Christmas Carol” is number one at the box office, and we need to talk more about the moral case for health care reform in particular and with governing ourselves in general, I’m reposting this, from the Jesuits…

“In Charles Dickens’s classic A Christmas Carol, Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the spirit of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who has come to alert Scrooge to the three spirits who will visit him in an attempt to save his soul. When Scrooge asks Marley why he is laden down with chains and irons, Marley explains that he is wearing the chains he “forged in life” as a punishment for not making better use of his time on earth. Scrooge protests, “But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.” To which Marley laments, “Business! . . . Mankind was my business! The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

There’s more, and I thought it is still a nice Christmas message…

Southern Baptist Convention: Politics trump morality

Unbelievably (or not), considering Richard Land’s history, this position on health reform:

In his August 18, 209 press release, Dr. Land states that he opposes the current House bill, H.R. 3200, but does believe that health care reform is needed.
According to Land, he “recognize[s] the need to rework certain elements of the health care equation in America. While the health care industry in the U.S. is relatively robust, it is not without flaws. And there is a segment of the American population, either because of their income level or their medical condition, that needs responsible and well-regulated government assistance.”
Dr. Land doesn’t believe that greater government involvement is the answer. Dr. Land believes that tort reform is one of the biggest avenues of savings in the health care industry. He states, “If we had tort reform, just tort reform, getting the stinking, rotten lawyers out of the business of ambulance chasing, we would eliminate about $50 billion of medical costs every year that doctors have to pay for malpractice insurance which is then passed on to you in the form of bills.”
Dr. Land does believe that in a country as prosperous as the United States, every one should have guaranteed access to some level of health care, though he rejects government involvement. According to Land, the “answer is to provide alternatives and incentives for most people to be in health care that they provide for themselves, and then the government can focus like a laser on those who aren’t able to provide it for themselves and you give them a basic level of health care. If I could use the car analogy, everybody should have a Chevrolet. Those who can afford it can get Cadillacs or even Mercedes.”

It is amazing that Mr. Land’s SBC seems to have more in common philisophically with Ayn Rand than Jesus Christ. Or the Pope.

The Ayn Randers and HC Reform

I was on a couple web sites today, the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center’s and Ezra Klein’s, and looking at the comments is so disheartening. That people who consider themselves good people (Christians, secular humanists, whatever) can swallow the Ayn Rand crap and not have their heads explode from the cognitive dissonance is amazing.

One particular line of attack that disgusted me was this smug argument that food is necessary for life, why don’t we have national food insurance or some similar drivel.

My response on Ezra’s blog:

The difference between food and health care is several orders of magnitude.

I don’t see patients in my ICU beds due to lack of food, but due to lack of access to care. People rarely lose their homes, their cars, or file for bankruptcy due to food costs.

We have, as a nation, decided to help those in hunger with food stamps, WIC and other programs, we decided in 1965 that allowing the elderly to die and suffer without access to health care was no longer acceptable, and in 1935, we decided allowing the elderly to really suffer in poverty and hunger was not acceptable.

We are the only modern nation that still seems to believe, based upon our lack of action, that our poor do not deserve access to good quality health care on at least a comparable footing with the rest of us.
Go find a physician or a nurse and have a laugh with them with your comparison. Nearly all will be aghast at your callousness. You will find some who support you, but their numbers are thankfully dwindling. Those in the leadership of medicine KNOW that we must advocate for high quality health care for all Americans, not just those who can afford it.

I’ve compiled a list of physicians organizations advocating for health care, to give you an idea of how cold your statements are to those of us in the front lines actually taking care of those “undeserving sick.”

And some anecdotes for you and your friends to have a laugh about.

The pope’s social encyclical — Part 2 | National Catholic Reporter

The pope’s social encyclical — Part 2 National Catholic Reporter:

Pope Benedict also chastises those who think that a ‘market economy has an inbuilt need for a quota of poverty and underdevelopment in order to function at its best.’ On the contrary, the market is not merely ‘an engine for wealth creation.’ It must also function ‘as a means of pursuing justice through redistribution’ (n. 35).

In the most recent presidential campaign in the United States, the concept of redistribution was hung around the neck of one of the major-party candidates as if he were a Socialist. If so, that term of opprobrium would apply to Pope Benedict XVI as well.

If it weren’t for the sex stuff, the Pope and Catholic tradition would be out there with Michael Moore and ralph Nader…

“Common Sense” Health Care Reform Principles

Uwe Reinhardt Economix Blog

The All-American Wish List for Health Reform

  1. Only patients and their own doctors should decide what clinical response is appropriate for a given medical condition, even if that response involves
    unproven clinical procedures or technology.
  2. Neither government bureaucrats nor private insurance bureaucrats should ever refuse to pay for whatever patients and their doctors have decided to do in response to a given medical condition. An insurer’s refusal to pay for a medical procedure is tantamount to rationing health care.
  3. Rationing health care is un-American.
  4. Cost-effectiveness analysis should never be the basis of any coverage decision by public or private third-party payers in health care, for to do so would put a price on human life — which, in America, unlike everywhere else, is priceless.
  5. Government should not require individuals to purchase health insurance. Such a mandate would violate the constitutional rights of freedom-loving Americans.
  6. Americans have a moral right to life-saving and potentially highly expensive medical care, should they fall critically ill, even if they are uninsured and could not possibly pay for that care with their own financial resources. (Why else would God have created hospitals and their emergency rooms?)
  7. Government should stay out of health care. Specifically, government should not control health care prices, nor should it increase its spending on health care, which is out of control.
  8. Even small reductions to the future growth of Medicare spending — called “cuts” in Washington parlance — unfairly burden the elderly, along with the
    doctors and hospitals that serve them and the manufacturers of health products, lest the pace of technical innovation be impaired.

And so on, and so forth. Any health policy analyst over the age of 40 could easily double the list. It might make for a good parlor game at a bar.

Readers may believe I am jesting. But follow the editorial pages or punditry, especially of the conservative news media, over some time.

George Lakoff: Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy: The Conservative Stealth Strategy

George Lakoff: Empathy, Sotomayor, and Democracy: The Conservative Stealth Strategy:

“Let’s start with the attack on empathy. Why empathy? Isn’t empathy a good thing?
Empathy is at the heart of progressive thought. It is the capacity to put oneself in the shoes of others — not just individuals, but whole categories of people: one’s countrymen, those in other countries, other living beings, especially those who are in some way oppressed, threatened, or harmed. Empathy is the capacity to care, to feel what others feel, to understand what others are facing and what their lives are like. Empathy extends well beyond feeling to understanding, and it extends beyond individuals to groups, communities, peoples, even species. Empathy is at the heart of real rationality, because it goes to the heart of our values, which are the basis of our sense of justice.

“Progressives care about others as well as themselves. They have a moral obligation to act on their empathy — a social responsibility in addition to personal responsibility, a responsibility to make the world better by making themselves better. This leads to a view of a government that cares about its citizens and has a moral obligation to protect and empower them. Protection includes worker, consumer, and environmental protection as well as safety nets and health care. Empowerment includes what is in the president’s stimulus plan: infrastructure, education, communication, energy, the availability of credit from banks, a stock market that works. No one can earn anything at all in this country without protection and empowerment by the government. All progressive legislation is made on this basis. “

Very well written post in defense of empathy. It is amazing to have to defend empathy to people who claim to be moral Christians.

Health Reform Without a Public Plan: The German Model – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com

Health Reform Without a Public Plan: The German Model – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com:

“What if that [public option] plan were sacrificed on the altar of bipartisanship? Would it be the end of meaningful health reform?

“Not necessarily, if the health systems of the Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland are any guide.

“None of these countries uses a government-run, Medicare-like health insurance plan. They all rely on purely private, nonprofit or for-profit insurers that are goaded by tight regulation to work toward socially desired ends. And they do so at average per-capita health-care costs far below those of the United States — costs in Germany and the Netherlands are less than half of those here.”

When I get in discussions of HC reform with my friends who are more committed to a single payer solution than I, I point out that most countries we look to as exemplars of excellent universal health care do not, in fact, use the single payer model, but use some hybridized form of the Bismarckian, or Social Health Insurance model, such as Germany. This may explain why the American College of Physicians made its policy recommendations in 2007: though single payer was recommended first, a hybrid system was neck and neck and felt to be more achievable.

Dr. Reinhardt explains the overview beautifully here, and I cannot improve upon it. He, as always, provides great framing to his points that can be appropriated for the discussions you have on the topic. For more details on the German system, go here.

Why is single-payer health care off the table? — themorningcall.com

Why is single-payer health care off the table? — themorningcall.com:

“As an advocate for the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, I am charged to advocate on behalf of a single-payer system — a system I support personally, as well. The council has taken this position because it is the only system that meets all the criteria outlined in our health-care position statement: health care that is universal, continuous, affordable to individuals, families, and for society, and able to enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care. Despite polling data that consistently shows more than 50 percent support for a national plan or at least coverage for emergencies, we continue to see this option shunned.

“Now, even the prospect of a public option is disappearing before our eyes. How many more people must die, suffer permanent damage because a system has failed them, lose their homes or be driven into bankruptcy before our elected officials will reject complicity in a system that lines the pockets of the few to the pain and detriment of the many? “

[The Rev. Sandra L. Strauss is director of public advocacy for the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, with offices in Harrisburg.]

And the PA Council of Churhes weighs in via an op-ed in the Allentown Morning Call.

Letters – Going Dutch – NYTimes.com

Letters – Going Dutch – NYTimes.com:

I didn’t post about the original article, it’s in my stack of reading material, but i liked the letters, especially the first one here:

“To me as a religious-studies professor and Lutheran minister, the most telling line in Russell Shorto’s article (May 3) was, “This system developed not after Karl Marx, but after Martin Luther and Francis of Assisi.” The last time I taught in the Semester at Sea program, I found it necessary to interpret for our students the rich “social capital” that runs through the Northern European societies we were visiting. What they knew and had read in their guide books was that not many people are in church on Sunday morning, especially compared to the florid religiosity of the United States. So their working assumption was that Americans take religion seriously and Europeans don’t. The new thought that amazed them was that the unchurched Europeans live in social democracies deeply saturated with historic Christian values, while the much-churched Americans celebrate a society characterized by a ruthless social Darwinism that the God of the Bible, Old and New Testament alike, denounces.
DONALD HEINZ
Gig Harbor, Wash.”

As to the rest of the letters, particularly the critical ones, I simply say, “OMG, you mean there are trade-offs required? We can’t have everything for nothing? Then count me out!”