With Health Care & Justice for All

Image Credit: freeimages.com/Mark M. & aschaeffer

O Lord, by these things men live, And in all these is the life of my spirit; O restore me to health and let me live (Isaiah 38:16)!

It’s weird how we perceive our situations sometimes. We get immersed in the world and the world gets immersed in us to a point where we can hardly be separated. As Christians we are supposed to be deriving our morals from God’s Word. That idea is not new but it may seem genuinely novel to our generation, steeped in humanist socialism as we have been. No one now living grew up in a culture where biblical morals thoroughly ruled the culture. Bits of an older Christian order remained, holding together the crumbling structure our forefathers had built. There are still a few parts, some morals, and laws that have yet to be overturned. At the rate we are tumbling toward injustice and chaos though, we ought to be asking what it is, precisely, that will keep the entire structure of American liberty and justice standing. I am concerned because I believe that as justice flees so does liberty.

Who Has a Right to Health Care?

Discussing health care and justice, I discovered this quote on Facebook the other day:

CBO[Congressional Budget Office] estimates 14 million will lose health insurance with Republican plan in the next 2 years, 24 million in 10 years. While there will be savings of $34 billion yearly, this is less than the defense $54 billion defense increase, for the largest defense spending nation in the world. Someone is going to pay for this eventually—and it will be us. Creating a worse alternative is no alternative. Health care is a moral right in a great society and should not be governed by profits or budget cuts [Emphases added].

I picked this up because I believe there are vast swaths of Americans who would eagerly stand behind it. My readers (mostly conservative Christians) probably would disagree with the quote above. More than a few liberals would think it sounds like a helpful statement (just as they might also judge as helpful the resonance of a cow passing gas). They sincerely believe that “Health care is a moral right in a great society.”

That is quite an assertion especially since it seems to have no foundation in any larger moral code than its own bare declaration. I know that God never mentioned this moral right in His Law Book. Moses knew nothing of it nor did the prophets. Even the New Testament writers, all full of grace and mercy, never mentioned the right to health care for anyone. But Liberal Christians love to invent new categories of law that God never mentioned, and fob them off on society as if these liberal know-it-alls have a moral pinnacle to stand on. Progressive Christians tried it with anti-alcohol laws in the 1920s and 1930s. They thought that if they could stop demon liquor by government fiat the nation would become a better place. It was only logical you know. Or do we?

This idea that health care is a moral right is as foolish as it is unbiblical. Since we have now arrived at the mention of unbiblical, and its logical opposite biblical, let’s take a peek at a few Scriptures that discuss human health and where it comes from:

There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin (Psalm 38:3).

Here the author of Psalm 38 blames his broken health on his sin not on a lack of government health care.

Think about these two verses from the book of Acts:

And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all (Acts 3:16).

Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health (Acts 4:10).

These passages discuss healing as coming directly from the hand of God. No Red Cross is mentioned nor any VA hospitals, just God healing people. This is not to denigrate the many fine people practicing the healing arts but ultimately, it is God who heals. It is worth noting because with all our high-flying gadgetry and vaunted medical schools, it is still God who heals. The idea that health and healing are a moral right in a great society, or any society, is never found in Scripture. It is one thing to say that God uses means (i.e. doctors, hospitals, drugs), it is quite another to assert that these means are a moral right for anyone, and an even larger assertion to insist that the civil government is ordained by God to provide these means. The departure from actual biblical teaching is almost breathtaking in its sweep.

Scripture never once instructs us to give the civil government authority to manage or provide health care.

The LORD will sustain him upon his sickbed; in his illness, You restore him to health (Psalm 41:3).

Instead we find Scriptures like this one teaching that it is the Lord who sustains those who are sick and restores them to health. All throughout Scripture we see God healing people directly or through the hands of private individuals or churches—but never civil government.

I [The Lord] will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick (Ezekiel 34:16).

God often uses means but the means of healing He mentions is never, not once, not ever is it the civil government. His word and law make no allowance for this idea. By inserting the government into the health care equation we are inventing an entire area of work and responsibility for civil government that our Creator never intended. Some people may think that inviting the civil government into health care concerns is a means to discover social justice. We ought to be querying, “Where is your proof that health care is a moral right?” By what standard have you measured to make this determination? There is certainly nothing mentioned in Scripture that would point us to such a conclusion.

There is a second assertion put forth by that same author that health care, “should not be governed by profits or budget cuts.” Hence we might ask, “If health care is not to be governed by profits or budget cuts then by what ought it to be governed? Is it really possible to achieve justice for all in the area of health care without discussing the role of economics? Many people working in health care careers have a desire to help people. Hardly any of them want to do so for free. Money has to be a part of any considerations we make about our health care. Every business has to be thinking about profits and budget cuts. If they do not they will quickly fail in the market place. Does the author want to see all medical providers socialized? If that is so then under whose authority will medical suppliers be stripped of their business and financial rights? Where in Scripture would we find any law that installs socialism into any society? The question is rhetorical and the answer is nowhere. Stealing businesses and socializing them is unbiblical, unjust, and morally repugnant.

A Wiser Model

Prior to the Federal Government’s entry into the health care market almost every community had what they called Free Clinics. Across the nation it was generally understood that Christians had a duty to help their poorer neighbors. Hospitals normally required doctors to donate a certain number of hours at the local Free Clinic if that doctor was to have access to the operating rooms or other key resources within the hospital. Hospitals themselves were supported not by government largess but by donations. Local people supported their local hospital. It was a matter of conscience. Christians used to lead the culture in this area. This is why there are still so many hospitals and health care facilities with Christian names: Lutheran Hospital, St. Peter’s Hospital, Healing Hands, St. Jude’s, Sisters of the Poor, Presbyterian Homes—the list is endless. Humanists have no such history. They have little interest in donating their own money to build and support a health care facility. The humanist answer to help the sick is to tax everybody big sums and use the tax money to help those in need. The Christian idea has always been to take our own money and build facilities to assist poor people. Christians invented hospitals. For centuries it was Christians almost exclusively who assisted poor people with health care. It became a part of Christian civilization. It is an excellent model to which we should return.

Final Thoughts

Our proper work as Christians is to promote the means God ordains. We should be clamoring for massive reductions in health care regulation including regulation of hospitals, drugs, doctor licensing, and insurance. The medical community is swimming in a sea of rules and regulations. As regulations increase so do costs to obey them. The Bible never, not anywhere does it give the civil government the right to regulate any business. All licensing and inspections should be handed over to private companies. Private companies have to perform efficiently or go out of business. Business owners could choose the best path for them and their customers. This is the way to bring justice to health care. We need to put an end to our socialistic experiments in health care and return the entire field to individuals and businesses. Our costs would plummet like a boulder dropped into the sea. Quality of care would increase and justice for both patients and health care providers would be more surely established. When we, as a people, return justice to our land then the God of heaven will, again, begin to bless our nation. Justice and the blessings of God are what we seek.

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 1:2).