The Kansas City Bishops wrote an important statement concerning universal health care that bucks the conventional wisdom concerning the USCCB and ObamaCare:
The right of every individual to access health care does not necessarily suppose an obligation on the part of the government to provide it. Yet in our American culture, Catholic teaching about the “right” to healthcare is sometimes confused with the structures of “entitlement.” The teaching of the Universal Church has never been to suggest a government socialization of medical services. Rather, the Church has asserted the rights of every individual to have access to those things most necessary for sustaining and caring for human life, while at the same time insisting on the personal responsibility of each individual to care properly for his or her own health.
Check out Catholic Key for the entire letter. It’s worth the read.
I think this is a brave and important statement from Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann and Bishop Robert W. Finn. The Church, of course, is for access to healthcare for all. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that socialized medicine is necessary. In fact, there’s much argument that while socialized medicine might bring about equality in some areas, it would almost certainly bring about worse healthcare for all.
Many, however, seem to believe that abortion should be the only issue that should make Catholics pause. And while that is the biggest reason to oppose Obamacare it is hardly the only one.
If the White House declared food a right would the USCCB support that? I fear I know the answer to that question. But putting government as the gateway to all things has been tried and we know that typically ends with starvation and poverty.
As Christians we should work to feed the poor. As Christians we should work to limit the suffering of others. That doesn’t mean that government should by the source of these things.
Isn’t it possible that as Catholics we believe that the best way to ensure access to food, shelter and health care among other things is a properly regulated free market? I get a little tired of hearing that we don’t care about giving the poor access to healthcare because I believe that government is the biggest threat to freedom there is.
And in societies with large centralized governments I think people see other less fortunate people and rather than actually helping them they tsk tsk the government for not having a program to help those people.
September 3, 2009 at 10:43 pm
As Christians we should work to feed the poor. As Christians we should work to limit the suffering of others. That doesn't mean that government should by the source of these things.
So, wait. You're saying it's NOT the government's responsibility to make sure none of its citizens is starving? Only Christian charity should be responsible for feeding the poor?
I think 99.9% of Americans would disagree with you on this one.
September 3, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Firstly, you're wrong about that.
Secondly, I didn't say that.
September 4, 2009 at 1:57 am
We already have government ensuring access to emergency medical services (note I didn't say "health care") for those who can not pay.
The current medical services system costs too much because of tort abuse, which also reduces the supply of doctors to further increase the cost. Of course, tort abuse is wrecking many more industries than medical services — it has practically killed manufacturers of small, general aviation aircraft, for example.
There are also regulations passed at the behest of the insurance companies that prevent private medical services from setting up payment schemes that would make it more profitable for doctors to keep their patients healthy, a laudable goal (and what could become true "health care" as opposed to mere medical services). A doctor in NY has 5 clinics where he wanted to charge a flat $80 per month for all services on an "unlimited" basis, but had to go to court because the insurance companies charged him with running an "unlicensed insurance operation." This would be my kind of "single payer system"!
He is financially motivated to practice prevention, leading to better health for his patients. Real "health care"!
September 4, 2009 at 2:13 am
I forgot to add to my previous post: when a physician is financially motivated to improve the health of her patients, several good things happen.
The patients are healthier – a moral good.
The most expensive treatments are late stage treatments. These are avoided by prevention, saving huge costs, which increases affordability and thus access – another moral good.
This is all done in the free market, leading to competition that leads to innovation, further improving health and reducing costs, and giving more choices.
September 4, 2009 at 2:52 am
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September 4, 2009 at 1:55 pm
If government started to provide bread to its citizens I would hear the echoes of "let them have cake" while sitting down to enjoy said bread to watch the circuses. Yikes!
September 4, 2009 at 2:19 pm
And in societies with large centralized governments I think people see other less fortunate people and rather than actually helping them they tsk tsk the government for not having a program to help those people.
I think here is one of the best points of the piece. If we provide for this group of people (or "all" people) this or that service, we will soon discover there is another service not being provided, another need not being fulfilled. There will always be groups of people that need help and, as you said, we are starting to formulate (or emulate) a system that takes out the personal responsibility of every person and replaces it with huge government that will, in the end, not be able to handle all the different "programs" it has to run to "fill the needs of the people."
To respond to Anon 5:43, Christian charity and personal responsibility must remain the foundation of America. That's one of the reasons we are the strongest country in the world.
September 4, 2009 at 3:39 pm
In my experience, most liberals are concerned about "mankind." They don't want specifics, and they want Big Government to handle it.
Most conservatives are concerned about "[Bob], my neighbor down the block who lost his job and can't afford groceries." Or even a specific child or charitable program for overseas needs. We don't send checks to the presidents or treasuries of foreign countries to handle our charity, why should our own government be responsible for it in our home country?
September 4, 2009 at 5:36 pm
No, Anonymous 9/03/09 5:43 pm, not everyone believes that it is the government's responsibility to make sure no one in the country is starving.
It is basically the responsibility of each adult person to work to feed himself, and the responsibility of fathers and mothers to make sure their children are fed. It is the responsibility of sons and daughters to make sure their elderly parents are fed.
It is the responsibility of government to make sure that no one comes and kills a citizen and that no one steals what he has earned through his labor. It is the responsiblity of government to make sure organized groups of other people, such as foreign armies, don't come and kill citizens and steal from them. It is the responsibility of government to make sure no one enslaves its citizens, so that they are free to work on their own behalf. Thus the classic rights to life, liberty, and property, which can be ensured by preventing someone else from taking something away from the citizen.
The other so called rights..to food, to health care, and so on, all involve someone giving something to the citizen. And the government only has something to give by taking it away from other citizens. It is not wrong if we agree to such confiscation through our elected representatives when this is deemed prudent or compassionate. But this is not the basic purpose of government, government is not required to do it, and it is not anyone's right to receive it!
Susan F. Peterson
September 4, 2009 at 10:26 pm
It is the responsibility of government to make sure that no one comes and kills a citizen and that no one steals what he has earned through his labor.
Excellent point. One need only look at countries with famines. It ain't lack of food. It ain't global war…err…global climate change. It isn't lack of contraceptives that countries made up mostly of people of pinker hues want to drop by the bombload on the darker-skinned countries. It's simply corrupt governments that can't or won't uphold the rule of law. When progressives and their Government-solves-everything approach run unchecked, you get Detroit. Fortunately, most of the country doesn't want to be Detroit.
September 5, 2009 at 5:30 am
The principle of subsidiarity would state that the government should not run the healthcare system if some non government body(s) is/are able to carry out the task. But can a non goverment body carry out what is truly a monumental and expensive task. If not, then, based on the principle of subsidiarity it falls to government.
I am a Canadian. In Canada we have had "socialized" medicine since (in it's present form) 1984. Not only have we not been crushed under the oppressive heel of big government but in all those years I can't remember any Canadian bishop complaining that our system was socialistic or that it violated the principle of subsidiarity.
Perhaps the opinion of the Canadian bishops regarding OUR healthcare system might be useful. I doubt they would choose to comment on the situation in another country but one could extrapolate from their view and apply it to the present debate.
September 6, 2009 at 2:30 pm
David – Any common human activity, looked at in aggregate, is a “monumental and expensive task” – think of how much time, effort, and money is expended in such things as feeding, clothing, and housing ourselves, which are arguably more essential than even health care. Yet we – well, most of us – are content to leave these to be organized not as unified national tasks to be carried out by a single body, but as natural and organic functions of society, not government, and they are performed as well as any human activity. Which is not to say that they work perfectly – this is a fallen world – and so those of us who can are commanded by our Lord to help our neighbors who for whatever reason cannot feed, cloth, or house themselves. And so it is with health care. Since most of the health care needs of a people can be, and are, provided for themselves through the natural functioning of society, and since much of the remainder can be provided for through the efforts of the people themselves (private catastrophic health insurance, Catholic hospitals, free clinics, etc.), there is no need for the whole to be taken over and run on a national basis by the national government, and to do so is a violation of subsidiarity.
September 6, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Amen brother!
September 7, 2009 at 5:41 am
"They don't want specifics, and they want Big Government to handle it."
Hmm. I'd be happy to just get the multinational corporations off our backs and onto the straight and narrow.
Two problems with "small-gov" conservatives. It's a very selective meme, especially when they want to buy military stuff and bail out banks. Second, citizens have no real hope of bucking the power of corporations. It's all very convenient when the lobby money flows.
As for the bishops' letter, it really lacks depth. No referrals to Catholic teaching from the pre-JPII social encyclicals or Vatican II, or even, really, Scripture.
September 7, 2009 at 6:26 am
Christian charity declines when it is easy to fob off our responsibilities– such as to a government program. But even if we had the best welfare system in the world, no program can replace genuine Christian charity. "Systems" may help, but they are not the answer. God, on the other hand, is.
Check out Mary Mother of God Mission in Vladivostok, Russia. The local government simply can't take care of all the people who need it– people who have been raised to depend on a government (which even at its height didn't do so well). Now, a small Catholic parish has reemerged. They don't have lots of parishioners (though they have grown a lot). They don't have lots of money. What they have is a desire to live out their faith.
So what do they do? They run crisis pregnancy centers, feed street children, visit shut-ins, run soup kitchens, and even have a sponsor-a-grandparent program in which they give a pensioner a stipend which helps them meet their needs and in turn ask them to spend time with children in orphanages– all these things out of a great love for God.
The bishops of Kansas City are right- government is not an answer to human issues. God's love, communicated through his faithful, is- and no taxes can fund that.
September 7, 2009 at 6:26 am
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