www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall health care system would cover abortions

I totally agree with Nathan !!! And I say that as someone who has no medical insurance and an unrepaired hernia (diagnosed last Oct) No one has an inalienable right to free medical treatment, but I'am proud of the history of the Roman Catholic Church in building hospitals around the world that were paid for by the private sector, where countless millions who couldn't pay were treated. Jesus said we would always have the poor, and the way to help them is through Christian charity and not State sponsored socialism.

Carson:

I agree that if we end private health insurance and replace it with national health care, we are replacing one middle man with another. However, I disagree that private health insurance is relatively benign. Based on my experience in the health care industry, I have come to believe that the private health insurance industry more than any other factor drives up the costs of health care, is indifferent to the negative impacts its policies has on its clients (unless and until such actions lead either to lawsuites are government sanctions), and is thoroughly profit-driven, rather than driven by the goal of providing an essential service (what once was the primary motivating force not only for most medical practitioners, but for the industry as a whole).

Ryan

Dear Friends, particular my fellow parishioner Nathan, and my new friend Lawrence:

I strongly disagree with some of my good friends who see no state role in securing the common good.

Education, healthcare, housing are human rights, not privileges. This is a fundamentally Christian notion, not necessarily a "liberal" or a "Marxist" one. Christians and other Americans do not understand even those most obvious moral values of the Gospel and Sacred Scripture that address our vocation to indeed be our brother's keeper.

Although there is nothing in the Bible or Holy Tradition to suggest the government must such is having a role in ensuring the general welfare and the common good, neither is there anything in the Bible and tradition to preclude it from doing so. Government cannot and should not do everything, and government's role does not preclude our own personal and private responses to human need and suffering. But for an ostensibly Christian nation, it is shameful and scandalous to have 47 million people uninsured, and of having 1 in 8 people live in poverty.

It is the teaching of the Catholic Church that one has a right to private property, but not an absolute right- the church also teaches the doctrine of the universal destination of goods, which in turn supports the common good.

Free Markets, capitalism and other economic mechanisms must be directed toward the common good. This teaching is ancient Christian doctrine, based squarely and firmly on the Gospel of Jesus, and the early Church fathers. Some of these Church fathers believe that anything surplus we have belongs by right to the poor, and to withold it from them is to steal.

Again, private charity is not here precluded; Christ our God taught that one cleanses the inside of their souls by giving alms (Luke 11:41).

My argument against Christian conservatives who do not believe in any state responsibility for the common good is that the kind of government we create reflects our values- and right now, our country is not reflecting as deep of a committment to Christian values in the socio-economic realm as some more ostensibly secular societies in Western Europe. I fail to see how some of us can compartementalize our brain into these separate secular and sacred; how we can be generous and caring in one arena of our lives, but support Social-Darwinism, greed, exploitation and selfishness in another realm, which is what happens when rapacious capitalism is not checked with fairness and a concern for the common good. It is philosophically inconsistent. We rank #37 in health care; the fact is, some other societies have better standards of living and health. We do not have to repeat their mistakes or adopt their poor morals in other arenas in order to establish the common good.

Nathan and Lawrence, I believe you do deserve assistance. I do not know your specific situations, but I assume you have worked hard and have paid taxes. Can't we help those who fall down? Lawrence, I think it is scandolous you do not have your condition treated. I repect your belief that your are not entitled to it, but I think it is a disgrace for a so called civil society.

My personal experience, since we are bringing those up-

Right now, I am without health care. I cannot get at the moment our MinnCare, because I had to exhaust my Cobra first, which I could not afford while I have been unemployed. I have diabetes and a heart condition. But I have believed what I lay out here for most of my life, including the 33 years I have worked hard (sometimes 2, and a couple of times even 3 jobs- even while full time in grad school- I am not a slacker) and have paid taxes. None of us three are free loaders, but hard working tax payers, who have taken care of our own families, supported the common good, and served in our churches.

My ex wife is literally dying because she did not have health insurance for two years. She contracted cancer, and now, she has only a few months to live. She is suffering terribly with chemo, leasions and sores, unable to eat well and keep anything down. Had she had health insurance, she would not have avoided cancer, but perhaps they could have caught it earlier, removed it, and she could have beat it or at least lived longer and healthier.

My commitment to Christ my God should be reflect in every area of my life, including the socio-economic-political realm. I say this as a Christian, a Byzantine Catholic, who owes his life and redemption to Jesus Christ, and seeks to pick up his cross every day and follow Jesus, and to base his life on God's revelation in Sacred Scripture and Holy Tradition.

Best regards,

Lance

may I add that at the same time, preventive care should be insisted on for those who would be on, say TennCare? responsibility should be emphasised. you can reduce the risk of cancer to a extent, bad teeth, whatever. if you cooperate with this,you should be kept on the program, if you refuse, then bye bye. a couple of years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of the local paper saying such, when TennCare was undergoing a huge purge. what sparked my letter was when a morbidly obese man who had diabetes, needed triple bypass, and on and on, blubbered about losing his TennCare on the local news. can't imagine how all those health problems came about, can you?meanwhile, I was doing my damndest to preserve what health I had left.
we need health care, we need responsibility, and we need ethics (to deal with abortions, euthanasia, etc.)
Much Love,
Jonn

I was just thinking about something. One obvious reason health care is so expensive (as others have pointed out) is that the technology and equipment to treat all of the various advanced diseases is so expensive. Now, back in the good old days, before all of this modern technology and medicine, if you had a heart attack or you got cancer or some rare disease, you simply died. As our capabilities for treating these diseases grew, so did the expense. Of course, if you were wealthy or you had really good insurance, you could get the treatment you needed. If you were poor, you didn't. So, if you were wealthy and you got cancer, you might be able to get the treatment needed to possibly survive. If you were poor, you died.

I believe that this is still the case for the poor in this country. Sure, if you get in a car accident or get shot or come down with some acute condition that requires immediate treatment, you can go to the emergency room and get treatment, even if you don't have insurance. But, if you don't have insurance, or if you only have catastrophic insurance, you will not get chemotherapy. You will not get advanced surgical treatments to cure diseases. In fact, you won't even get the mammograms and colonoscipies (sp?) in order to detect the disease. If you are so poor that you can't afford to go the the doctor, you simply don't find out that you have cancer. You just live with it and die. Now, this is precisely why Madicaid was created. Things were not good for most people in this country prior to the 1960s. Temporarily, things were good in the 1950s for a large number of middle class families, because of government involvement (GI bill, VA loans, building interstates). But, most poor people and the elderly who couldn't get government assistance simply died. Private charity could not take care of it all.

We could certainly go back to a world where the market place runs everything. Indeed, the marketplace, without government intervention, was so wonderful that most of us had 60-70 hour work weeks, both parents worked, children worked, all of them lost limbs and probably ate those limbs in the food that got processed in the factories. Most poor people who couldn't see well didn't get glasses (making it all the more likely they would lose limbs at work). People didn't get dental care. They simply let their teeth rot out of their mouth and many of them died. Yes, it is true that we have welfare, medicaid, and programs to help poor mothers and children today. Thank God we do. If we didn't, these people wouldn't go out and get good jobs. They would die. It really is that simple. That is indeed what happened in this country prior to the 1940s and 1960s. And without social security, most people would have no retirement. They wouldn't retire. Again, they would work and then they would die. Of course, if you don't have all of these expensive medical procedures, you don't really need to worry about people living a long time after retirement. Yes, those were good old days when life expectancy was below 60, when illiteracy was high, and when people generally had very bad teeth.

Joe