What bothers me about statistics is, that you can always find one, thats supports any issue. What I would really want to know is, who are these Americans? Do these stats include, drug addicts, homeless or illegals? Can they be young people who have yet to understand their vulnerability? Not that I am suggesting they shouldn’t have healthcare, but maybe in some of those numbers, are people who can afford to take responsiblity, but instead wont?

Ellie Dee,
Good question. Here are some excerpts from the Institute of Medicine:
“Uninsured cancer patients generally have poorer outcomes and die sooner than persons with insurance. Without timely preventive screenings, diagnosis is de-layed. As a result, when cancer is found, it is relatively advanced and more often fatal than it is in persons with health insurance coverage. For example, uninsured women with breast cancer have a 30 to 50 percent higher risk of dying than women with private health insurance. Furthermore, once diagnosed, treatment disparities persist. For example, uninsured women are less likely to receive breast-conserving surgery.”
“Diabetes: Uninsured adults with diabetes are less likely than those insured to receive the professionally recommended standard of care for monitoring blood glu-cose levels and other complications. Uncontrolled blood glucose levels puts per-sons with diabetes at increased risk of hospitalization and additional complica-tions (e.g., heart and kidney disease) and disability (e.g., amputations and blind-ness). It is hard to imagine, but 25 percent of persons with diabetes go without a checkup for two years if they have been without health insurance for a year or more.”
“Acute Cardiovascular Disease: Uninsured patients with acute cardiovascular disease are:
• less likely to receive angiography or revascularization procedures,
• less likely to be admitted to a hospital that performs these diagnostic and treatment procedures, and
• more likely to die in the short term.”
more here: http://www.iom.edu/Object.File/Master/4/160/Uninsured2FINAL.pdf

Steve:
What you’re saying, then, is that the people who are dying for
lack of health insurance in the USA are people that Ellie Dee would say have a “legitimate” right to health care (unlike drug addicts, the homeless, illegal immigrants, or young people who have yet to understand their vulnerability?)

Yes Douglas, I think that’s a fair conclusion
Of course health care reform is trying to do two very different things:
–enable people who want insurance but cant afford it, to get it
–force people who can afford it but dont want it, to get it (so the rest of us dont have to pay for them)
In any event, there’s a moral and practical logic to having both groups covered.

How many insured people die in countries that have universal health insurance because they were put in a queue?

Jim, interesting question. Let’s try to find some numbers on Switzerland which seems to be the country with the closest model to what’s being proposed here (a mostly private, highly regulated system).

It’s easy to ignore these stats when you write off those it covers as losers in life not worthy of our compassion.
Why help people who need it when you can help those who don’t and make you & yours wealthy at the same time?

Well Jim, if you use infant mortality rates, life expectancy, per capita medical tourists, etc to judge, a whole lots less than the numbers here in the USA.
According to CIA Factbook 2009:
Life Expectancy in years
(9) Switzerland – 80.86
(25) UK – 79.01
(35) USA – 78.11
Infant Mortality Rates per 1000 live births
(6) Switzerland – 4.18
(32) UK – 4.85
(46) USA – 6.26
And they do it spending much less per capita that the USA

I happen to support a socialized insurance system, because I think it is preposterous to spend any sizable percentage of total health-medical expenditures nationwide the logistics of obtaining reimbursement from countless insurance providers. Back in the 1990s, I believe the figure was around 30%.
However, the data on mortality and access to medical care tell only part of the story. Suppose that lifestyle factors are substantially healthier in one nation than in another (and they are). Then the difference in mortality rates may be more related to that than to access to medical care, and that might apply to longevity as well as to infant mortality (no, babies don’t smoke–but some parents do). The question, then, is how much of a role lifestyle plays in mortality rates. Quite a lot. About 30 years ago, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report on the 10 leading causes of death in America, and classified the causes as being related to lifestyle, environment (including workplace and home neighborhood), genetics, and medical care–overall, lifestyle accounted for about half of premature mortality. In short, improving access to medical care is a necessity, but at least as important is encouraging a healthier lifestyle, for there is a limit to what medicine can accomplish for an individual whose lifestyle is grossly unhealthy.

Steven writes:
>
I’d say there’s a third goal of HCR: enable people who can afford insurance but can’t get decent coverage due to pre-existing conditions, to get it. I happen to fall into that category. I’m not one of Ellie Dee’s “undeservables” – I’m middle class, pushing middle age (and fully aware of my mortality), a U.S. citizen. And I’m self-employed, which means I don’t have a nice big group policy available to me through my employment.

The good information in this blog is the reason I get very angry at Steven’s many other blogs about health insurance reform “might” indirectly fund abortions.
Wendy said, “I’d say there’s a third goal of HCR: enable people who can afford insurance but can’t get decent coverage due to pre-existing conditions, to get it.”
Wendy’s statement is one of several reasons we need a good public option or single payer system. The insurance companies have been making a fortune by not covering people with preexisting conditions or charging extremely high prices.
I know several people that are self-employed or work for a small business that have purchased what amounts to catastrophic insurance. They would fit into the categories listed in Steven’s comment with excerpts from the Institute of Medicine. Because of the very high deductibles, they have to be extremely ill before they will go to the doctor. They would likely get a late diagnosis for cancer and other treatable illness.
Sadly, health insurance reform is a political game with special interest fighting very hard to protect their own agendas rather than implement what is best for people needing quality and affordable health insurance. Republicans have been successful in instilling fear in people to the point of once again derailing health insurance reform. The money from lobbyist for both sides of Congress is a scandal that has not received enough media coverage, especially for individuals that get their information from Fox.

I think that this argument puts into sharp focus the difficulty of the pro-life movement.
Many of its adherents are unequivocally supportive of the right to life of the unborn and elderly, and support laws restricting abortion and euthanasia. However, when it comes to actually enabling people to enjoy the right to life through affordable healthcare, there is a hesitancy to provide a similar level of support.
I’ve made the accusation in the past that the pro-life community tends toward being cheap when it comes to actually putting its principles into law. Constitutional amendments and acts of Congress to restrict are generally inexpensive. Actually enabling people to benefit from the right to life can be quite costly.
The right has made a lot of mileage off the myth that single-payer healthcare will ration healthcare and put a maximum value on a life. But, in their opposition to ANY public option, are they not also putting a similar maximum value on human life? In essence are they not saying that humans have a right to life as long as it does not cost them, the taxpayer, any money?

Steven,
Several thoughts.
First, Ellie Dee raises excellent issues in her post with several classes of people whom you glossed over as such. Each of these classes of people is an epidemiology paper unto itself. Certainly illegals and drug addicts could easily account for a great percentage of those numbers. Illegals, too afraid of deportation are terrified of stepping forward when ill or injured. This creates a real public health hazard.
Drug addicts lose their employment, and consequently their health benefits, when they are in the midst of active and out of control abuse. IV drug users are particularly susceptible to fatal infections such as bacterial endocarditis, hepatitis, HIV, etc. How many of these contract their illnesses through abuse while unemployed and uninsured and then fall into the pre-existing conditions trap?
HIV patients suffer some of the worst effects of this whole pre-existing condition trap.
Then there is the chicken or the egg argument inherent in the following from one of the articles you link with:
“One national study found that, over a 17-year follow-up period,
lacked health insurance at the outset had a 25 percent greater
chance of dying than did those who had private health insurance. Health in-
surance is a key that provides access to high quality health care and conse-
quently to better health.”
The fundamental question is whether those who lacked insurance at the outset are those who through ill education, mental illness, or shear recklessness do not take care of themselves, and hence do not bother to purchase insurance, or do they develop illness during periods of being uninsured and suffer the accumulated physiologic deteriorations over time? I suspect a great deal of the former, which leads to the next issue…
How do these numbers break along ethnic and socio-economic strata? How do they break as a function of education? By geographic region? Religion? One could drive a truck through the lacunae in these articles. It’s no secret that what passes for education,in the inner city primarily, though not exclusively, has helped to create a sustained underclass. I often ponder the scene from Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, when the ghost of Christmas present reveals the twins hidden in his robes-rather animal-like in their savage visage:
“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
Certainly ignorance begets the want which is the topic of this discussion. But do we vaporize the health care system because of the depredations in the educational system and the integrity of marriage and family structures? The toll on the body and the lack of adequate employment are the wants that arise from ignorance, which arises from the chaos that is so many children’s domestic and educational realities.
Much of what Ellie Dee and I have cited give rise to the wants in question. We need to address these in an honest manner Steven, or these wants will continue into a single-payer system and help to bleed it dry.
Finally, the articles you cite all speak of the virtues and necessity of preventive health. This is new? This was used eighteen years ago to sell the managed care system that everyone despises. It doesn’t work. People don’t want to abandon their favorite foods or sedentary lifestyles. People work longer hours now than twenty years ago, getting even less time for physical activity. The tests that are supposed to be preventative get denied by insurance companies. The experience of Canada and England is orders of magnitude worse under a single-payer system.
Without detailed epidemiological analysis of who these 45,000/year are, this conversation is fruitless.
Without changing the educational achievements of our underclass-rural, suburban and urban, strengthening the stability of families, eradicating drug sales, tightening the borders while legalizing those who are already here, getting people more free time and less stress (which kills through a riot of diseases), we’re simply going to have the same 45,000/year dying just as young with unutilized healthcare.
If we go the route of socialized medicine, we’ll lose 10x that number per year through the inevitable rationing.

RJohnson,
Hey there. I see you posted while I was writing. I’d like to address your comments as:
1. One on the political right, and,
2. An ardent pro-life Catholic.
When you claim that those on the right want life for others, but do not wish to foot the bill, that is not at all an accurate assessment. The largest pro-life contingent is without a doubt the Roman Catholic Church.
We have a vast network of social and medical services agencies that beggar the imagination in their size, scope and function-from the cradle to the grave. We put our money where our mouth is, though we get no press for it (surprise!).
Allow me to describe a fraction of the services we provide in the Archdiocese of New York, alone.
For decades, we have run:
The New York foundling Hospital for orphaned children.
Covenant House, for homeless teens.
Turned St. Clare’s Hospital essentially into an AIDS hospice.
St. Rose’s Home for the incurable cancer patients (since the 1940′s before “hospice’ was coined)
The St. Vincent’s Network of Hospitals.
Hospice.
One of the largest Catholic school systems in the world where countless poor have received free educations.
Networks of nursing homes run by the Carmelites, Little Sisters of the Poor, etc.
Daytop Village, drug rehab, founded and run by a Catholic Priest. They’re all over the country.
Free prenatal and delivery services for any woman contemplating abortion.
Immigration and Refugee Services
Soup Kitchens.
Black Apostolates.
Hispanic Apostolates.
St. Vincent De Paul Society for the Poor.
Catholic Youth Organization Sports, Retreats, social programs, etc.
Knights of Columbus, who raise millions annually for charitable organizations and who fund and staff, in large part, The Special Olympics.
And this list is far from exhaustive.
These services are part of the very fabric of the institutional Church, and are funded in large measure through annual appeals to the laity. Pro-life work (in terms of abortion and euthanasia) is a very small part of what occupies us. We are busy doing the corporal works of Mercy for everyone from the pre-born to the oldest and sickest among us, with all needs in between.
We do care. And we give hundreds of millions of dollars annually, as well as hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours annually. Cardinal O’Connor used to don simple black clerical garb and clean AIDS patients and empty their bedpans at St. Clare’s. Under his strict orders, the staff only introduced him as Fr. John. He was far from alone among clergy, religious and laity in this work.
That’s why we have the right to stand up and roar at the indecency of the culture of death, because we who espouse the culture of life are forever busy trying to advance that culture and civilization. We’ve earned our stripes, and continue to do so daily.
God Bless.

Gerard: “We have a vast network of social and medical services agencies that beggar the imagination in their size, scope and function-from the cradle to the grave. We put our money where our mouth is, though we get no press for it (surprise!).”
And yet, Gerard, is it enough? Yes, the Catholic Church has poured billions upon billions into their healthcare ministry. My parents were well served by the hospital system run by the Catholic Church in west-central Illinois, and for that I am thankful.
And yet, people still lack healthcare. They lack basic health services. They lack life-saving treatment. We can make excuses as to why so many die from apparent lack of insurance. But does Jesus make those same distinctions? In the parable of the Good Samaritan, does the hero of the story inquire about the way in which the man came to be in such a sorry state? Did he ask if it was a drug deal gone bad? Did he ask if he was drunk? Did he ask if he had taken care of himself with good exercise and good food? No…the Samaritan offered assistance pretty much without concern for who the victim was, and he was called good for doing it.
Much has been done by the Church, both the Catholic Church and the greater Body of Christ as a whole, to address the problems of medical care in this nation, as well as throughout the world. But, as is evident from the situation we face now…all of this good work is not enough.
We are told that the churches are doing everything they can. Yet it is not enough. Do we simply let people die because of that? Or do we look to other avenues of caring for these people…”the least of these” as Jesus put it?

Gerard: “That’s why we have the right to stand up and roar at the indecency of the culture of death, because we who espouse the culture of life are forever busy trying to advance that culture and civilization. We’ve earned our stripes, and continue to do so daily.”
And yet, as you admire those stripes, realize that Jesus sets the bar rather high.
Matthew 25: 41-46
41Then he will say also to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry, and you didn’t give me food to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink; 43I was a stranger, and you didn’t take me in; naked, and you didn’t clothe me; sick, and in prison, and you didn’t visit me.’
44″Then they will also answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and didn’t help you?’
45″Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Most certainly I tell you, inasmuch as you didn’t do it to ONE (emphasis added) of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me.’ 46These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
This hearkens back to another parable, the parable of the lost sheep.
Matthew 18: 12-13
12How think ye? if a man have a hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? 13And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.
Is it enough that you take glory in saving so many, when so many still have so great a need? I do not mean this disrespectfully, for as I said in my earlier post, my family benefited greatly from the ministry of the Catholic Church through their hospital system. But, before you exercise pride in what your church has done, realize that Jesus calls us to go after ALL the sheep. We may not save them all, but we are to try.

RJohnson,
I take no offense in anything that you say, just as it is not a proud boast what the Catholic Church does for people. But, fair is fair. I will not sit silently by while people accuse the pro-life community of only caring for fetuses, after which they are on their own. No sir.
Your command of Sacred Scripture is admirable, but tells only one side of the equation. There are many uninsured who chose to be. There are many who get into drugs and alcohol because they choose those first uses that lead to dependence. There are those who refuse to avail themselves of the taxpayer-funded compulsory education afforded them, from head start to 12th grade. They leave themselves ill-prepared for life. There are far too many males who sire children out of wedlock and simply walk away. There are far too many who deal drugs to their own communities. The list is endless.
Jesus does not expect us to subsidize their sin and its consequences. Conversion? Yes. Subsidization? No. St. Paul admonishes that the man who refuses to work should not be permitted to eat (2 Thes. 3 :10). The scriptures are loaded with references to the wages of sin being death. Yes, I am making the case for the deserving poor and the undeserving poor. Scripture is loaded with those references too.
What has happened in the inner city in general, and among African Americans in particular has been ghastly. 80% illegitimacy rates. Literacy levels more than 25% behind their white counterparts. 25% of Black males will be dead or incarcerated before their 27th birthday. Why?
Juan Williams, of National Public Radio, a black man himself, wrote a stunner of a book two years ago titled, ENOUGH! The book takes the black community to task for its blame game. Among the many riveting facts presented is that at the turn of the twentieth century, over 100 years ago, the children and grandchildren of slaves had their highest literacy levels, highest marriage rates, lowest levels of illegitimacy and substance abuse since being freed from slavery.
Far too many guilty whites made far too many excuses for the disintegration of a once vital people. Even leading black politicians and cultural figures have begun to despair of teir community becoming a permanent underclass. This is a crime.
But this crime is all about personal decisions. If people want out of the mess, then yes, we are obligated to help. If they don’t want out and are telling us to shut up and pay their bills, then that’s a very different reality. Don’t forget, the father of the prodigal son knew what would befall him. He did not seek him out to save him from himself. He let the kid squander his half of the inheritance (before the father died!) and allowed the kid to hit rock bottom. He simply went to the road to welcome him home. There is a lesson in that.
You have done what so many in this debate do. You cite scripture as a means of leveraging political policy making for a liberal agenda. But then the left eschews that same morality when it comes to leveraging abortion policy and law. It’s a convenient inconsistency.
On top of all that the Church does through the generosity of the faithful, we also carry the highest tax burden in US history.
I’m with Juan Williams. ENOUGH! It’s the turn of the undeserving poor to clean up their act and contribute rather than siphon resources from those who find themselves in need through no fault of their own.

ATTENTION!! Congress Has The Votes Needed To Pass A Public Option – TODAY http://bit.ly/TCq7O
Why A Strong Public Option Is Essential – By jacksmith – Working Class
Robert Reich explains the pubic option: http://bit.ly/dDYSJ http://robertreich.blogspot.com/
Hollywood Supports The Public Option http://bit.ly/3XLwPi
It’s not just because more than two thirds of the American people want a single payer health care system. And if they cant have a single payer system 77% of all Americans want a strong government-run public option on day one (86% of democrats, 75% of independents, and 72% republicans). Basically everyone.
It’s not just because according to a new AARP POLL: 86 percent of seniors want universal healthcare security for All, including 93% of Democrats, 87% of Independents, and 78% of Republicans. With 79% of seniors supporting creating a new strong Government-run public option plan, available immediately. Including 89% of Democrats, 80% of Independents, and 61% of Republicans, STUNNING!!
It’s not just because it will lower cost. Because a strong public option will dramatically lower cost for everyone. And dramatically improved the quality of care everyone receives in America and around the World. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
It’s not just because it will save trillions of dollars and prevent the needless deaths of millions more of YOU, caused by a rush to profit by the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!
It’s not just because every expert in every field, including economist, and Nobel laureates all agree that free market based healthcare systems don’t work. Never have and never will. The US has the only truly free market based healthcare system in the World. And as you all know now, IT IS A DISASTER!
It’s not just because providing or denying medically necessary care for profit motivations is wrong. Because it is WRONG! It’s professionally, ethically, and morally REPUGNANT!, Animalistic, VILE and EVIL.
THE REASON THE PUBLIC OPTION IS ESSENTIAL:
The public option is ESSENTIAL because over 200 million of you are trapped in the forest of the wolves. Which is the forest of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! With no way out except through needless inhumane suffering, and DEATH. While the wolves tear at your flesh, and rip you limb from lib. Then feast on your lifeless bodies like a dead carcase for transplant parts.
At the most vulnerable times of your lives (when you were sick and hurting), millions of you have had to fight and loose cruel, but heroic battles. Fighting against the big guns of the DISGRACEFUL, GREED DRIVEN, PRIVATE FOR PROFIT MEDICAL INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX! in the forest of the wolves. All because you have no place else to go. You have no other CHOICE!
But the PUBLIC OPTION will give you someplace safe to go. And it will give us someplace safe to take you. The public option will be your refugium (your refuge). Where the wolves cannot get at you when your down, hurting, and vulnerable. Where everyone who needs it can find rest, security, comfort and the care they need. Protected by the BIG GUNS of We The People Of The United States. THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE AND COUNTRY ON EARTH.
This is why it is so critical that we do not lead another 50 million vulnerable, uninsured Americans into the forest of the wolves, without the protections of a Strong Government-run public option. We The People Of The United States MUST NOT LET THAT HAPPEN to any more of our fellow Americans. If healthcare reform does not contain a strong public option on day one. YOU MUST! KILL IT. Or you will do far more harm than good. And millions more will die needlessly. Rich, middle class, and poor a like.
To those who would continue to obstruct good and true healthcare reform for the American people, and who seek to trap millions more vulnerable Americans in the forest of the wolves. We will continue to fight you. We are prepared to wage all out war against you, and will eagerly DESTROY! you. Time…is…UP! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! No Co-op’s! No Triggers! NO INDIVIDUAL MANDATES! without a Strong public option on day one.
Healthcare reform can be the GREATEST! Accomplishment of our time and century. A time when future generations may say of us, that we were all, AMERICAS GREATEST GENERATIONS.
BUT WE MUST ACT!
I therefore call on all my fellow Americans and the peoples of the World. To join us in this fight so that we may finish becoming the better America that we aspire to be for everyone.
SPREAD THE WORD!
I have been privileged to be witness as many of you fought, and struggled to take your first breath, and your last breath on this earth. Rich, middle class, and poor a like. Life is precious.
Whatever the cost. WE! MUST SUCCEED.
God Bless You My Fellow Human Beings
jacksmith – Working Class
Things You Can Do To Help NOW! http://www.everydaycitizen.com/2009/09/tired_of_watching_people_die_n.html
No Triggers! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jason-rosenbaum/a-trigger-for-the-public_b_277910.html
Triggers http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/weve-seen-these-triggers_b_283583.html
Krugman on heathcare (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/25/why-markets-cant-cure-healthcare/)
Senator Bernie Sanders on healthcare (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSM8t_cLZgk&feature=player_embedded)
John Garamendi on the Public Option and the Grassroots: http://bit.ly/TJMty
Howard Dean on the Public Option http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SKfW2dUnow&feature=player_embedded
We’re Number 37! in quality of health care http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4&feature=player_embedded
Twitter search (#welovethenhs #NHS #hc09 #hcr #healthcar #obama #p2 #topprog #) Check it out.

Gerard,
Do we not help those that really need help because some/a few are not being responsible? How do we determine whether someone is idle on purpose?
Your rant about people purposely not working to have the money for health insurance makes me angry. I know far too many people that are not any of the things you described that do not have health insurance or the insurance quality is worthless. In 2005, I attempted to purchase health insurance, but no company would cover me. I suggest you do some research about “real” people that are suffering greatly due to inadequate or no health insurance through no fault of their own. I always put more emphasis on instructions from Jesus over the rest of the Bible, such as the verses quoted by RJohnson.
The health insurance reform is much larger than your rant about people purposely not working to have the money for health insurance. Fewer and fewer businesses are providing health insurance for their employees. The bottom line comes before employees.
On Wednesday, Michael Moore call out ABC on “Good Morning America” for employing “permalancers,” permanent freelancers who are effectively full-time employees but hired on a contract basis, and thus not extended any benefits. Moore said the same permalancers were at ABC during his last interview two years ago. The interviewer had made negative comments about unions before More called out ABC.
During the last 10 years, the health insurance companies have gone from making a few million per year to making several billion per year. During the same time, the average health insurance premium increased by about 150%. The majority of people have seen very little increase in salary during the last 10 years. It is expected that health insurance premium will increased about 110%.
The health insurance industry is contributing huge sums of money to Congress in an attempt to prevent reform. I get far more angry about “white collar” crime, especially when assisted by members of Congress. One of many examples of Congress lining their pockets from a medical related business:
Blue Dog Democrat Mike Ross Benefits From Real Estate Deal With Drug Company
The sale of the property and its assets, plus the negotiation of a noncompete agreement with Ross’ wife, Holly, yielded the couple at least $1 million and as much as $1.67 million — much more than a county assessment said the property was worth, according to the report.
Ross opposes a government-sponsored health care plan (unless a trigger is in place)
http://tinyurl.com/nbeu6b

I think it would be useful for those opposed to health care reform in the US to consider the way health care is managed in all the other advanced nations on this planet.
Americans are not the only Christians on this planet nor does the Church cease to do good works at the borders to the US.
Since all of the advanced countries – and a very large majority of the second tier countries – have better health care systems for their citizens than does the US, maybe we should set aside our bickering over those in the US whom we dislike and focus on just why, exactly, we are alone in our lack of competent care for all citizens?
Gerard, I am glad the church helps those who need help. My parents, who, as you know, are well-off, have spent well over 500,000 dollars every year since my husband and I have returned to the US on helping eleven members of our immediate family with their health care…none, not one, are able to get insurance because of pre-existing conditions. All earn too much money for any government insurance. This is reality. My husband and I will have our European insurance coverage at a maximum, for another four and one-half years if we have to stay in the US constantly.
Although we are both healthy and Hiv-, the least expensive good insurance we could find in the US would have cost us (pre-existing conditions due to having been attacked) over 40,000 dollars a year.
Apiece.
The entire rest of the developed countries on this planet have longer and healthier life-spans, lower first and fifth year mortality and more productive citizens by any measure of health. We must not allow ourselves to become sidetracked by the very valid concerns you have on abortion and the genuinely self-inflicted problems many in the inner cities have.
To spend between 16 and 20% of the GDP on something and get, demonstrably, so little in return does not make economic sense. Nor is such waste in line with Christ’s exhortations on husbanding our material goods.

Hi,
The article seriously takes concern over health insurance policies.The administration must do some action in this matter.

Gerard: “It’s the turn of the undeserving poor to clean up their act and contribute rather than siphon resources from those who find themselves in need through no fault of their own.”
Fine. But first tell me if the fellow found along the side of the road by the Samaritan was a deserving or undeserving poor person, and how the Samaritan knew the difference.
Then tell me if we sin by allowing the blessings of living in the USA to accrue to the undeserving wealthy as well as the deserving.

Gerard: “It’s the turn of the undeserving poor to clean up their act and contribute rather than siphon resources from those who find themselves in need through no fault of their own.”
Gerard, my prayer for today is that neither you nor I, nor anyone else, ever hear these words from God as they stand before Him. If I am to be judged worthy of God’s grace based on my actions and whether or not I deserve it, then I am doomed. The words of Romans 3:23 sound like a siren call in my head. “For ALL have sinned and come short of the Glory of God.”
All of us are undeserving before God, Gerard. Yet God is gracious in providing not only for our salvation but for our daily sustenance. None of it is deserved, Gerard.
I am also mindful of the parable of the talents, and how the owner will judge those he has set in watch-care over his estate. Sometimes we act as if the money we have in our bank account, in our retirement fund, in our certificate and stocks…as if that money is ours to do with as we please. You and I know different, Gerard. We know from where it comes, and to Whom it belongs.
May you be blessed in your walk with Him today, Gerard.

Julie,
I too know several people who have a hard time with health insurance through no fault of their own. But those paying the bills for others have a right to object when they are clearly being taken advantage of. I’m not “ranting” as you say. I’m laying out an argument for reform that sensibly forces the reckless and irresponsible to clean up their act and become contributors, rather than siphons. Hard Language for a very hard reality.
God Bless
RJohnson,
As always, there is much compassionate truth in what you say, to which I add the following.
Jesus gives us instructions on fraternal correction. We are to confront the wrongdoer in private first, then with a few witnesses if things have not changed, and finally before the elders. We are to throw the recalcitrant out of the community (excommunication) if they will not change. Even this, in hopes that it will bring them about. So we are expected to discern, which is also one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
If I find a man by the side of the road, I help him. Period. When I see a generation of young men impregnating girls and walking away, I tell the young woman, no help until the father’s identity is revealed and a plan is in place for the care and support of the child. We will then make up the difference in benefits. A misguided sense of non-discernment oriented compassion through Johnson’s Great Society has destroyed a once great society in the inner city. It is simply immoral to fund a lifestyle that destroys people. It is immoral for people to eschew an education, sire children out of wedlock, engage in criminal activity and expect others to pick up the tab.
Yes, I agree with you about the parable of the talents. What we have is given to us by God to build the Kingdom. The Great Society coupled with a ‘value-free’ approach (no discernment) has led to the squandering of hundreds of billions of dollars in a manner that has actually destroyed the African American community.
Some years ago the New York Times ran a story about the inner city and how Protestant Ministers coming out of the elite Theology Schools would fight for churches in the inner city, and how these folks got the pick of the best and brightest young ministers. The story went on to explain that the solidity of families and the faith of the people, the strength of the community pulling together to assist one another was the big attraction. Then the story went on to tell of how no one wants these churches any more because they are dying. The ministers credit the Great Society programs for having destroyed that community. It was remarkable reading it in The New York Times of all places.
It struck a chord with me, because I had come to the same conclusion after seven years of working with homeless teens in Times Square. And, lest good people such as Julie, think me a sour puss tight-wad with no right to speak about these issues, the ignorance and want, of which I spoke earlier in this thread, are largely self-inflicted. We have no moral obligation to subsidize that, and have every responsibility to ensure that we don’t.
The Great Society was instituted to ameliorate the depredations that arose from the toxic soil of racism. Education, welfare, medicaid, were all intended to eliminate ignorance and want by lifting up a people who had for so long ben kept down. Conservative that I am, I commend President Johnson. I’d gladly spend double that amount of money, If the programs could deliver on their promises.
But the utopian vision never took into account concupiscence. I saw it for years in my work in Times Square. When the money and resources are made available, many shrink from the challenge of doing the hard work. The same is true of a good percentage of the rest of the world. The problem comes in when the resources are made available on an open-ended basis, and there is no understanding that progress will be demanded. It comes down to diffusion of personal responsibility in a vast system.
What was attractive to Protestant Ministers in years gone by was the accountability to one another in a given church community, where one is known and held to account.
I do not fear going to my judgment, facing Jesus, and saying (a al Matt 25)” yes Lord when I saw you disintegrating, I refused to subsidize your destruction. Yes, I held you to account and I made my support conditional on your cooperation in becoming as functional as you could. Because you had become one who took, when you were capable of giving. In so taking, you were taking from those who could not help themselves.” I believe He wants us to employ the reason with which He endowed us, and to discern true charity from cooperation in evil.
God Bless.

Hi Panthera,
Well, I guess I said most of it in my posts with RJohnson. I do take issue with the lifespan issues. There are several unrelated factors here in the US that lower lifespan. The level of drug addiction, murder, and death from criminal activity are just a few. Add to that our longer work hours and sedentary lifestyle. We are a more violent society than in Europe. It’s all Steven Waldman’s fault for whipping up the passions of the masses! Move over Rush Limbaugh )
You raise a great issue in discussing preexisting conditions. How is that handled in Europe?
Peace.

Gerard, there is much wisdom in your words. I truly appreciate you sharing from your experiences in working among the needy in Times Square. And I wholeheartedly agree that discernment is necessary in dealing with the poor. We should not find ourselves in a position of intentionally supporting improper and self-destructive behavior.
I truly wish that we had an equal concern in our country for discernment when it came to subsidizing bad behavior among the corporations and the wealthy. I believe that an accurate accounting would show that for every dollar misspent in the efforts to help the poor there was ten dollars spent from the public coffers to pad the pockets of an already profitable corporation.
The Great Society program was indeed a mixed bag, Gerard. I have to wonder…had the Church as a whole been as attentive to the needs of the people as God seems to call them to be in His Word, would the Great Society program ever have been needed? Could the incredible waste in those programs have been avoided if the faith communities, both individually and corporately, were more involved in the mission God has called them to?
Ah, but all you and I can do is be accountable for our own actions, and be as positive an influence as we can be in our respective congregations. I for one am thankful that the parables of Jesus teach us that we are to TRY to rescue all the sheep, not that we MUST SUCCEED. I can always try harder…that much at least I can control.

Gerard,
We make a distinction between smokers and non-smokers in terms of private health care premiums. Private companies can and do charge higher rates for some pre-existing conditions, may not turn anyone away and there is always an affordable solution, always. One may simply not be left out in the cold.
At the same time, everyone MUST carry insurance. If one is truly destitute, the government picks up the tab, on a sliding scale.
Since doctors are not socialist robots (not even in the UK) it is common for a doctor who has too few organs available for too many potential recipients to base his or her choice on guidelines such as smoker or no. There is, however, no State run “Death Panel” or such, although, as usual, the UK has a system which is far inferior to the rest.
It says much about the US that even the UK system is a far better for Her subjects than the US system.
I think you address many genuine problems, especially in the inner cities and the Negroes’ self-inflicted violence, as well as the illegal Mexican immigrant populations. These problems do not, however, mean we can simply deny them or all the other Americans something the rest of the advanced world has. It doesn’t make economic sense, it isn’t Christian, moral or ethical.
Can it be that your desire to end abortion has somewhat colored your perspective here? I know that any time I have to deal with some Christianist who wants to dissolve my marriage, my fury at him colors my reception of anything he has to say on any topic.

Gerard, “I tell the young woman, no help until the father’s identity is revealed and a plan is in place for the care and support of the child.”
About 25 years ago, I worked for a state Aid to Families with Dependent Children program determining whether a woman continued to qualify for aid. The woman had to identify the father. I was required to ask very personal questions about how they became pregnant. While some of the women made stupid mistakes, the majority believed in the father of the child to do what was right. After watching the struggles of the women, I went back to college for different degree that would allow me to make enough money to support myself and my children.
While I agree with the need for more accountability, I also think many of the issues would be corrected in a more fair world. I do not want to go into detail about the cultural and psychological issue involved. A major issue that is relevant to health insurance has been demonstrated in several recent research studies. During the last 40 years the income gap between the wealthy and the middle/lower class has significantly widen. I think the following statement has harmed our pocketbooks and the overall quality of life far more than public assistance programs or lack of accountability that you describe. I would like to see the same amount of passion aimed at “white collar” crime, which includes too many members of Congress.
RJohnson, “I truly wish that we had an equal concern in our country for discernment when it came to subsidizing bad behavior among the corporations and the wealthy. I believe that an accurate accounting would show that for every dollar misspent in the efforts to help the poor there was ten dollars spent from the public coffers to pad the pockets of an already profitable corporation.”
The following article is one of many available with considerable supporting facts. The article uses three sources of data in an attempt to reduce the typical argument about using statistical data.
In Sickness and in Wealth
How America’s rising income inequality figures in to the debate over health care.
The debate about bank bailouts and health care is missing a critical piece of context: The American economy hasn’t been working for the working- and middle class for decades. It is impossible to determine who should pay for what or whether it is “fair” to ask the wealthy to contribute more to the health care of those who are uninsured, without better understanding the winners and losers in the U.S. economy over the past several decades.
…
The top 1 percent of all income earners garnered 21.8 percent of all income in 2005, up from 8.9 percent in 1976.
…
Before 1987, it might have been reasonable to argue that overall income growth was softening the effects of rising inequality. But since then, the rate of overall growth for all but the top quintile has slowed dramatically, with the lowest quintile seeing its income grow by only 7.8 percent in the last two decades, while income for the top quintile grew by 28 percent. And looking at after-tax income, which factors in the impact of favorable tax policy for the rich, the numbers are even starker: Between 1979 and 2004, the top 1 percent of all earners saw their income grow by an astounding 176 percent.
http://tinyurl.com/yafv6gh

FWIW, those of us who have health insurance – whether through our employment or via an individual policy – are ALREADY paying for health care for the “undeserving” poor and other people who lack health insurance… to the tune of $1100/year for a family policy and $410 for an individual policy.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/03/cost_shift.html

Hi Panthera,
“I think you address many genuine problems, especially in the inner cities and the Negroes’ self-inflicted violence, as well as the illegal Mexican immigrant populations. These problems do not, however, mean we can simply deny them or all the other Americans something the rest of the advanced world has. It doesn’t make economic sense, it I think you address many genuine problems, especially in the inner cities and the Negroes’ self-inflicted violence, as well as the illegal Mexican immigrant populations. These problems do not, however, mean we can simply deny them or all the other Americans something the rest of the advanced world has. It doesn’t make economic sense, it isn’t Christian, moral or ethical.
Can it be that your desire to end abortion has somewhat colored your perspective here? I know that any time I have to deal with some Christianist who wants to dissolve my marriage, my fury at him colors my reception of anything he has to say on any topic.
Man! Where do I start?!
First. The poor have medical coverage through Medicaid. Is it the same level of service that private policies have? No. But then, there is a gradation of coverage in private policies as well. Even in Europe, you indicate gradations of coverage. That will never change. We will never all be equal in our coverage. Not this side of eternity.
This whole thread took off like a rocket when I addressed the oft-claimed misrepresentation that pro-lifers only care about life until the umbilical cord is cut, and then one is on one’s own. I showed how the largest voice in the pro-life community, the Roman Catholic Church provides extensive coverage for people in need, every type of need, from the cradle to the grave. (Did you know that from the outset, we have been the largest single provider of medical services and hospital/nursing home/hospice beds for HIV/Aids patients in the US?)
I’d like to return to abortion in light of your above comment. When pro-lifers inveigh against abortion because “it isn’t Christian, moral or ethical,” to quote a friend, we are told that our Christianity has no place in law or public policy, nor do our Christian moral norms or ethics.
However, on this thread, and in the wider debate, I have heard many whose perspective resides left-of-center invoking Christian moral norms and ethics. We can not have it both ways. I can’t be my brother’s keeper by saving his or her life because of a radicalized autonomy on the part of the mother, but must roll over and surrender my money when it is decided that NOW I must be my brother’s keeper?
When it comes to Christian charity, it isn’t charitable or Christian when participation is compulsory through confiscatory policy and the individual has no say in how their money is spent. As discussed above, this has been the case with Johnson’s Great Society Programs. Confiscatory policy with zero accountability, and an outraged populace cowed into silence by charges of racism when they dared to speak up at the sight of hundreds of billions of dollars being squandered in the ruination of a once proud and noble people.
It’s beyond travesty. It’s criminal on a scale that beggars the imagination.
Now the party that gave us the great society comes demanding that we remake our health care system and economy in an image and likeness of their choosing. This after their successful forty-year experiment with the African-American community? Sorry Panthera, but they have no credibility.
Those who believe that their Christianity calls them to ensure increased levels of health care are free to adopt a family in need. Then their work is truly Christian. I’d also bet that they would demand a high level of accountability from the family. (We paid for your heart transplant and you still eat at McDonald’s five times a week and smoke three packs a day??!!) You don’t get that through the government, as the Great Society demonstrated. Nor should we.
We are free to chart our own destiny. The flip side of that coin is that we accept all personal responsibility for our decisions.
If Christian morality is to be the basis for this new healthcare that is funded through confiscatory taxes, then it ought to cut both ways with abortion being outlawed. Otherwise, let’s call it for what it really is: Socialism.
Now, I see you and others use the term “Christianist” Can you tell me exactly what a Christianist is relative to a Christian?

Julie,
You and RJohnson take big business to task. Stipulating your points, the proposed healthcare overhaul would crush the life out of the very middle class whom you complain as having been squeezed for decades. What gives?
Attacking business is always sporty. The reality is that businesses make profits, which are distributed among the shareholders, which is anyone with any kind of public or private retirement portfolio. In other words, we share those profits. Profits also fuel R&D which gives us not only new medicines and treatments, but entirely new technologies, which make possible unimagined therapies and treatments, abilities to increase crop yields, etc.
We all benefit from business profits in a thousand ways, which is why we enjoy an unparalleled standard of living, and why the wealthy of Europe come HERE to be treated.
The Europeans attacked the profits in their pharmaceutical industry forty years ago. When they went to socialized medicine and became the single-largest purchasers of pharmaceuticals, they dictated prices to the drug manufacturers. The result was the collapse of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe.
Hillary Clinton did that with vaccines here in America. The only part of her ‘Hillary Care’ that she got was the initiative to vaccinate every child in America. Our government set the price and collapsed the industry. There were over thirty-five makers of vaccines here before Hillary. After she was done, there were four. Now we are at the mercy of other countries.
That’s what attacking profit gets us. I don’t really mind it as boilerplate on the left. When it becomes law and policy, it has predictably disastrous results. And what of those who lose their jobs? Where is their social justice?
You and I both worked with the poor. The poor don’t want Trump, Gates, Bloomberg and crew to live in squalor. The poor want to live like Trump. They don’t get that through the systematic collapse of industries and socialized medicine. Europe, Russia and China are ample proof.
God Bless.

Gerard,
I’m in transit right now, so can’t address all your topics as I would like. Forgive me the abbreviated style, please.
1)Medicaid is determined by each state. Some do a good job of it, others do an appallingly poor job of it, all leave an enormously large group of people uninsured. The current system simply has no provision for those who are not literally out on the street and unemployed, yet earn too little to afford the horrendous private insurance premiums. We are punishing those who work yet earn little for working!
2)The emergency room approach to cover those who fall through these gaps doesn’t do anything for either preventative care nor provide assistance with such chronic illnesses as asthma or the related problems diabetics suffer from.
3)Private insurance needs regulation. The current and exclusively American approach fails in this regard utterly.
4)I am aware of the role the Church plays in helping many. I am also very well aware of the lag time between the discovery of Aids in homosexual men and the discovery that most sufferers are heterosexual and how many conservative Christians in this period saw it as an opportunity to rid the world of us. Sadly, I could list several Catholic priests and sisters who were disciplined most severely for helping Aids sufferers in the beginning. It speaks well for their belief and poorly for much of the Church administration under John Paul II.
It is, however, the role of society through her government to maintain infrastructure, not the Church. Health care is a key aspect of social and business infrastructure. Take a look at what all the capitalists outside of the insurance industry are saying on this topic in the US and what all capitalists outside the US say. We can’t all be making this up.
5) I firmly believe that we have to differentiate between the culture wars aspect of this discussion and the plain fact that permitting 45,000 unnecessary deaths a year and accepting that tens of millions of citizens suffer needlessly is not a Christian position. The money the conservative spent off the books on the Iraq war far exceeded the cost of even the most exaggerated estimate they present for a purely public option.
6) The entire rest of the developed world has solved this problem and, living in Europe and the US, I can and do and must take issue with your argument that the US system is better. It is not. Even for well-off people (moi), it is not. These swarms of Europeans flocking to the US are a myth. It is as useless a defense for the status quo as my saying that right now, where I sit, there are inumerable Rodin works and virtually the best of the Impressionists within one mile, therefore I am in the only city of true artistic expression on this planet.
7)Christianists: See the link. I hope it works.
My main argument for universal health insurance is based on the simple fact that it does work in every single other advanced country, even the UK, far better than the sorry mess we have here in the US.
Gerard, sorry for the brief form here. I don’t care what anybody says, jet lag is not curable with a sunlamp and no coffee. Nor is a Blackberry a replacement for a real keyboard.

Sorry, Gerard – this interface gets slower and nastier with each passing month. I wish the powers that be would seriously reconsider their approach to advertising…I now click away or use pop-up blockers for everything on this site, it slows down things so very much.
Should the URL have failed again, here the link. Add the usual stuff to the front, I know their filter strips the link out of the body if you put it in:
time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191826,00.html

Gerard, you make some interesting points regarding the profits of these businesses and how they drive research.
As someone much more familiar with the medical field than I am, I’m wondering if you know how much of the research into new medical treatments, procedures, and pharmaceuticals, is done by state-funded public institutions? By this I mean how much of the base research into new medicine is done in the teaching hospitals and publicly funded agencies in this nation? Is it 10%? 25%? More?
The University of Iowa, not to terribly far from where I live, has a rather large teaching hospital and medical research facility. Iowa State University also has a significant pharmaceutical research facility. I’m certain there are other institutions throughout the country that are involved in research like these two.

Focusing on the pharmaceutical companies…why is it that these companies sell drugs in Canada for so much less than here in the US? Are they selling inferior mixtures of the drug? Do they limit the amount sold in Canada? Do Canadian doctors face shortages of drugs due to the lower prices?

RJohnson,
There is a similarly pronounced price difference for the same medications between the US and EU and between the US and Canada. I have several former students who are, today, pharmacists as well as two close friends who are doctors.
I asked them and all answered, without exception, that American standards sank below ours in Europe during the Bush#43 administration. In short, we pay less for higher quality than do even the very wealthy and well insured in the US.
We also have teaching and researching hospitals here in Europe; this myth that only private industry in America does research is one of the most perfidious the anti-lobby there is spreading. In fact, our research in kidney, liver, heart and circulatory diseases leads the US and it is the Americans (who can afford it) who come to us.
America does do outstanding and, especially important, fundamental research. The real money, however, gets invested in products most likely to turn a profit, not in those areas of science which don’t turn a buck.
That is done by the UN, charitable foundations and, gasp, us horrid socialists over here. Or are we fascists this week? The dichotomy is beyond most of those yelling at us.
Gerard, I strongly agree with you about the perpetuation of poverty and violence in the US. The figures on those who die because of lack of insurance as well as infant mortality are, if not completely independent of the violence in America, fairly separate therefrom.
At this point, I think we have to ask ourselves the question: Are we willing to intercede now, knowing there are many other problems in our society, or do we want to lay our hands in our laps because some real jerks will benefit from the good universal health care would do for those who, through no fault of their own, currently suffer?
The fact that conservative Christians have previously and now continue to try their best to block health care for children under 18 shows me that, if not you, a very large number of conservative Christians really and truly don’t want to help even those who suffer innocently.

If we all believe in health care for the poor, then let’s form a charity. Let’s call it the Teddy Kennedy Health Charity if we have to. But let’s NOT turn our government into a charity and impoverish all of America for the sake of this and any other good cause. That’s not how our country works.

The issue of health care reforms is multifacteted; Higher prices and overuse of resources are probably the most responsible. I had a friend who went to New Zealand, and his son was delivered by a mid wife. Over ~ 80% of normal pregnancies in NZ are delivered by midwifes. Is that possible in the US??

Ed,
How do you get around without using public roads?
Who do you call when you need police or fire services?
Who guarantees you safe drinking water, safe air to breath?
Who protects your claim to your own property?
How do you use the internet?
Either our society is there to serve all the citizens and their general welfare or it is not. Every single other democracy on the earth does a better job of health care for its citizens than does the US.
Christ called upon us to aid the weakest among us. Government is there for us to provide that help through universal health care. Private Christian churches can’t even begin to fulfill this need, apart from the fact that they discriminate against homosexuals and Negroes all too often.

this is a good website.