Obamacare & The Good Samaritan

The giant news all week was the hearings before the Supreme Court over the Obamacare health plan. Twenty-seven states sued to have the mandated insurance program overturned. It was the government’s contention that everyone must somehow have health insurance and that the government should be the entity deciding the nature and limits of that care. The states pushed back, asserting the feds had no such power to make people buy health insurance, and that the proposed government system is in fact unconstitutional.

 Amidst all the articles, arguments, and buzzing buzz this week I rarely heard any discussion about Christian or Biblical ideals and how those ideas might apply to the discussion at hand. It is true that the liberals, and liberal Christians, sometimes give a wave of the hand past that Book, asserting that since it commands us to care for the poor and down-trodden, that therefore it must be Christian to have the central government bind up our wounds, place us on a donkey, and take us to the inn. It never seems to occur to them that all of those wonderful commands in Scripture to help the helpless are given to individuals and to the church, but never once to the central government. Civil authorities find no examples or commands in God’s word to be the suppliers of anything relating to health care.

 In fact, the Biblical perspective on the subject is skewed in a very different direction than that of the tendentious bureaucrats who promote only one answer to the host of all needs medical. To them, the answer to everything is more money. Of course it is manifestly obvious that individuals cannot afford all the care they might need or want. That has been true since before the woman touched the hem of Jesus’ garment in hope of being healed. That text (Luke8:43-48) informs us that she had spent all of her money on physicians and yet her condition grew worse. In that regard, we understand that there are still multitudes who spend all their money on physicians and yet are not healed. We all agree that intractable health problems exist. However, the question before us as a nation concerns the rightful source for the desired care.

 Scripture pushes us to view these issues from what seem obtuse angles. For instance, when Solomon writes about health issues he always approaches the topic from the perspective of lifestyle.

“Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body, and refreshment to your bones” (Proverbs 3:7-8). “My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; keep them in the midst of your heart, for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their bones (Proverbs 4:20-22).

 If his words are true, then our health might be helped more by obeying God’s laws of right than through a more even distribution of cash. Maybe a poorer righteous man could be healthier than a wealthy kleptocrat who grabs for every dollar to, he assures us, help the poor get health care.

 When Jesus was approached by ten lepers (Luke 17) crying out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us” He commanded them, “Go show yourselves to the priests.” It is worth noting that Jesus, when giving this command, was working within the system of law God had given His people. It was Old Testament law that specified that a person with suspected leprosy was to be inspected by a priest and a diagnosis given. The priests’ decision decided the fate of the purported leper. If diagnosed with leprosy a person could no longer dwell within the normal society. Lepers were to separate themselves from everyone except other lepers. It was the religious authority who made the diagnosis. There was no involvement of the civil government. The health question was handled by the priest not the judge, not the king, and not the legislator in Washington. When Christian culture reigns we can expect to see people of religious station acting as caregivers for their fellows. This is in fact what has occurred in Christian nations for centuries. It was Christians who invented hospitals in the first place. There is a reason that all those old hospitals were named St. Luke’s, and St. Mary’s.  It was a Christian woman who started the Red Cross. These were not mistakes in history. Rather, these are examples of the church formulating answers to problems never solved by the non-Christian world in six-thousand years of recorded history.

 Now, we are being told that our government in Washington will heal our bodies with its ginned up project of government health insurance. This is nothing less than the power grab it looks like. No one in the bureaucracy gives a rat’s behind about our personal health needs. If you go and show yourself to the high priests of government doctoring, you will be commanded to get in line like everybody else. And, if you can not pay the cost of that insurance? Well, then the IRS will torture and destroy you until you pay up or die. It is kind of like the military that has to destroy a town in order to save it. The government is going to save us alright. Why would we want to return to a system of caring Christian doctors, nuns or priests when we can haveIRSagents with bullet proof vests ready to kick our doors down to get the money instead?   

 I am thinking that when the good Samaritan helped that wounded man by binding up his wounds, placing him on his donkey, transporting him to the inn, and paying for his care, that the Samaritan was a single payer health provider. That, in fact is what made him good. The hero of the story was not a bureaucrat under Caesar. Rather it was a private individual who cared enough to do something even when the people who were supposed to (the Levite and the priest who walked by on the other side) failed to act. Our civil government is already involved in health care up to its eyeballs. They have regulated every speck of the industry, driven costs to unaffordable heights, and slowed the system almost to a stand-still. Now they want to throttle what is left to death and restart everything in their own image.

 My advice—Let’s return to our former principles that built the greatest system of health care on earth. Get the government out of health care and give it back to the people who can make it work. Righteous people, informed by Biblical principle, can rebuild the whole system if the government will just get out of the way.

 For Christian Culture,

 Don Schanzenbach 3-31-12