In the health care debate, I keep wondering who or what will be the decider. The resistance and protests all seem to be coming from people who already have health insurance or Medicare and don’t want it threatened. The overwhelming majority of this resistance is from white, middle-class Americans. These facts alone should give people of faith pause to consider just why this is.
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, the Cathedral of Hope buried hundreds of young men who died of HIV/AIDS. Countless times I returned to the church screaming after one of them was refused medical help because he did not have insurance or because the insurance company refused to pay for “experimental” care. Money was the decider time and again for who lived and who died. If you do not believe this is true you are probably one of those white, middle-class people who has, and has always had, health insurance. You also have never had to fight an insurance company to approve procedures that might keep a loved one alive. Why is it okay for money to decide who lives and who dies? Why is health care a commodity for those who can afford it and not a human right?
Many critics of health care reform warn of the loss of our premier care in the United States. I wonder if they ever have actually had to deal with getting insurance companies to pay for their care. More significantly, though, I wonder if they ever bother to check their facts, or if they just parrot talking points:
These are the FACTS, but they do not seem to be the decider in this debate.
Like many people who have health insurance, I am anxious about what these proposed changes may mean for me and my family. As a person of faith, though, I am haunted by the words of the greatest man I have ever known. For me, that person MUST be the Decider. Jesus said, “What you do unto the least you do unto me.”
As an American, I have every right to argue for me and mine, I just have no right to call myself a Christian. As a Christian, I am obligated to argue for a system that cares for the least, the poorest, the youngest, the unemployed, the mentally ill, the ones health profiteers think are too expensive to care for. If I don’t speak for them, work for them, fight for them then my prayers for the sick are blasphemy. Remember that next time your child or parent is ill and you are tempted to pray. Hear Jesus say, “What you did to the least, you did to me.” Fortunately, Jesus is a better person than we are, but that doesn’t excuse our failing to try.
Blessings,
Michael Piazza
President, Hope for Peace & Justice
