From every ethical perspective I can think of, there is no justification for a system that makes health care better for people who can pay for it than for people who cannot.
From the perspective of principle, each person’s well-being is of equal value. I think it goes deeper than this: each is of sacred worth. From the perspective of consequences and virtues, limiting peoples’ access to quality health care only makes a society sicker. The moral sickness sets in before the physical sicknesses do.
Most countries with whom ours compares itself understand this. And their health care systems are the better for it.
Now that “the individual mandate” has been upheld by the Supreme Court, the Affordable Care Act just might survive. We may even be on the verge of making real progress toward creating a health care system that includes universal access, more choices, and lower costs.
What will make the progress more difficult than it needs to be, though, are political and ideological declamations like the following:
(1) This country cannot afford further expansions of health care. There is a way to make this proposition a morally serious one: sound arguments that we cannot support health care for the chronically ill, the poor, and children of the poor without putting at risk causes of greater value. So far, however, I haven’t discovered any.
(2) That government is best which governs least. In today’s debates, this maxim decodes roughly into something like: I don’t want your benefits to cost me any of mine.
(3) President Obama is wrong about everything, all the time. There may be some truth to this proposition. By my calculation, however, it would be roughly equal to that of all the propositions to the contrary.
(4) The time has come for every American to acknowledge that we cannot do everything that we want to do. Every American I know already acknowledges this. Nevertheless, the moral question still remains: if our society cannot provide optimal health care for all its citizens, then what should we do instead?
In spite of the seeming unwillingness of many government leaders across the political spectrum to acknowledge it, health care is a moral, even if not easily affordable, imperative for any society at all times and everywhere. For our society, keeping people healthy is indispensable to ensuring their rights to life and the pursuit of happiness.
I agree with this post. Many people think it is always the “other” who needs health care assistance and do not realize that nearly anyone, with one devastating accident or illness can become that other. At Network I have looked in the eyes of people who have been financially devastated, who never thought they could be financially destroyed by health issues but have been. I am currently reading One Nation Uninsured: Why the U.S. Has No National Health Insurance by Jill Quadagno. So far, it is an interesting history of the many attempts and defeats of National Health Insurance and seems well researched and informative. Perhaps through the Grace of God, this will finally be an idea whose time has come.
Dear Leroy,
I agree with you. Many of my friends and family do not, and for much of my life I wouldn’t have either. All the arguments that taxation is theft, or that Jesus and/or the Apostles would have disapproved of using the government to do good works, don’t hold up in a democratic society. To me all of that seems more like a smokescreen for the second point you highlighted above, which is the fear that caring for my neighbor will somehow mean there will be less for me. Finally, serious questions should be asked about the soul of a nation that spends roughly 52% of its budget on the military, 5 times that of second-place China and 44% of the entire amount spent around the world.
Agape,
Chuck