Interesting question in the blogosphere today. Why are many Christians against universal healthcare?
"There are many things I don't understand in the world,but one that really perplexes me is Christians against universal health care for all, at least in their own country.
These same Christians usually support their taxes going to the military, yet are horrified by those same taxes going towards health care...it seems to be a total oxymoron.
Jesus healed the sick, and loved his enemy, yet so many Christians today don't care about the sick (if they have to pay for it) and hate their enemy (and are happy to pay for their military to kill them)...how can this be?????"
The Mississippi Atheists blog has their take on why this should be so:
Providing health care to all Americans, regardless of their ability to pay, is immoral (to many Christians) for at least two reasons. First, it undermines the work ethic of those who receive the health care without paying for it.
When they are given something without having to work for it, you are essentially removing an important motivator for them to work, promoting laziness and making them more dependent on big government.
Second, any universal health care system we can imagine is going to take from the wealthy to cover the cost of the poor. The wealthy are wealthy because they are favored by the Christian god, and the poor are poor because they are lazy and have not applied themselves. While the Christian god still loves the poor, it would be wrong to punish the wealthy in this way. The poor must earn their own favor.
What do you all think?
Addendum:
I saw this from Paul Krugman in the NYT. I thought this was very funny.
"At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to "keep your government hands off my Medicare." The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, "wasn’t having any of it."
It’s a funny story — but it illustrates the extent to which health reform must climb a wall of misinformation. It’s not just that many Americans don’t understand what President Obama is proposing; many people don’t understand the way American health care works right now."
4 comments:
I find it surprising that Christians willingly participate in a capitalist, money oriented culture at all? aren't they supposed to give up all their worldly goods and follow Christ?
And what about all that coveting your neighbours wife and their "stuff", isn't greed and sex what really fuels the American economy? ;-)
As for scrapping with other people, I think there are plenty of warrants for that in the Bible so that surprises me less.
Americans don't understand what Obama is proposing because there are so many versions of the bill and it is so long none of the congressm (or Obama) have read it all and explained all the pertinent details. One congressman has gone so far as to publically say it's not necessary to read it before making it law (John Conyers, whose wife Monica is Detroit City Council President and will shortly be going to jail for her involvement in multiple money-for-favor scandals she engaged in to in part provide her children with Ivy League educations).
Conservative Christians, Steve, have become corrupted in the same way liberal atheists have in their understanding of what money is. Money is only what is used in the exhange of one good for another, the promotion of good is wholly Christian and even atheists sometimes promote good insofar as they understand it.
Finance capitalism is something completley different than volunatry free marketing, because finance capitalism is based on government protected monopoly, the only way in which money can be obtained for programs like Universal Health Care which are too costly to be paid for with money on hand; the amount of money needed for these programs, and military programs as well, can only be obtained through borrowing from government sponsored monopoly capitalists. I'm speaking here of entities like the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the IBS, IMF, and World Bank. Of course, since the money is borrowed, collateral must be offered and interest paid; the people are entered into involuntary contracts they don't know the details of and would not be responsible for fulfilling under common law.
The Bible advises against paying or earning interest, so the last vestiges of monetary understanding erupt in the Christians when it comes to paying interest on the snowballing national debt.
Atheist are as guilty, even more so, as the Christians in supporting a capitalist, money oriented system. Here too is a lack of understanding exposed. Socialism doesn't do away with capitalism, it only removes ownership of capital away from individuals to the government; I've never met an atheist who didn't whole-heartedly support this scheme because atheists feel that groups of people who call themselves government are somehow superior to groups of people who call themselves churches, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of government failure at every turn.
While atheist are good at point out the illusions of religious systems they are totally incapable of pointing out the illusions of current financial systems. I think this is because somehow atheism is inextricably linked to leftist politics which must have imaginary money under centralized government/corporate control to pursue its aims.
Here is why people are objecting to this plan, and these people don't include only Christians. Pay attention to the lines marked in read, if you doubt they are in the bill page numbers are referenced and you can check for yourself:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2300451/posts
There has been no discussion of details of the bill from its promoters, because when the Clintons tried it before they revealed too many details and the people wouldn't go along with it.
I mean, why wouldn't we want the government to have real time access to all individual bank accounts? Why wouldn't we want non-resident aliens to be covered without having to pay anything? Why wouldn't we government mandated end of life treatments (page 427) or being able to order end of life plans (page 429)? Why wouldn't we want the government to be able to mandate instruction and consultation of living wills and power of attorney? Shouldn't the government be able to assume control of our estates when it wants to? What the Hell is wrong with that?
(50) Freedom of religion. Second amendment (Gun rights). I have spoken with many Christians that will never own a gun, will never shoot a gun, but consider it a right, so they support the second amendment because it is freedom. Christians understand that freedom comes with a responsibility. Freedom of speach, without it there is no freedom to practice their chosen religion. Many of the people that colonized this country came for freedom of prosecution for their religion. Royalty dictated the religion.
Why? FREEDOM.
Freedom is not free.
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