Universal Health Care: Let's Be Honest, Shall We?

Yesterday's mail edition of Newsweek featured this cover article by Sen. Edward Kennedy. If you're not a subscriber, it's worth a look anyway.

Our elected officials are engaged in a very acrimonious debate on health care, health insurance and the future of American medicine at the moment. President Obama wants something on the table prior to the August recess, while some are suggesting we shouldn't rush things.

For me, one troubling aspect of the entire debate is the way terms get thrown around with little care for how they are defined. The words "medical," "care," "health" and "insurance" seem to be interchangeable, while they actually describe very different things depending on how they are paired and how they are used. "Health Care" and "Health Insurance" are two very different things: the first describes an actual interaction with a medical professional, while the second describes a company or government program whereby the professional is guaranteed compensation for services provided, and the patient generally bears a portion of the cost in addition to a base premium surrendered monthly, quarterly or annually. You can see the problem when the two start getting tossed around as if they are the same thing.

In a professional sense, I'm fairly un-qualified to weigh in on this issue. I'm certainly not a businessman, nor am I a health care professional. What little mental health care I'm qualified to provide falls under the umbrella of spiritual care: the nano-second I sense that we might be drifting into illness, I refer to a qualified professional, as I am NOT a mental health counselor. In an ethical sense, however, we are all qualified to weigh in, as we, the American people, are the ones who are and will be affected by the ongoing discussion of medicine in America. And I dare say that those of us who serve in the pastoral office are called to be advocates when we feel ethically driven toward a certain point of view.

So, it seems to me that as a country we have one basic choice in front of us. The time has come for a decision about medicine in America: is it primarily a for-profit business or a social service? We are rapidly approaching the point when we will no longer be allowed to waffle between the two extremes, and for me, at least, the decision is obvious: medical care is a social service that must be guaranteed to all Americans. Period.

I'm not saying this is going to be easy. But when an estimated 47 million people can't get medical care for real illness and medical problems, easy has long since left the barn. To my mind, we have an ethical imperative to guarantee reasonable access to affordable medical services, and I, for one, am willing to do my part to see that it happens.

Taxes will need to be raised. That's a given. Medical profits will be cut. Also a given. Insurance companies may find themselves competing against the government. Some insurance companies might go bankrupt. We'll need to transition out of employer-based insurance, which was a bad idea from the start and has only become worse with time. All of these are real repercussions of shifting the model from profit-bearing to service-providing, and it might be bad before it gets better.

But the alternative is worse, in my opinion. Some estimate that 55 million Americans will be without health insurance in the very near future if we do nothing. That, to me, is an unconscionably high percentage of the American population with no hope of cure when illness strikes. That's 55 million Americans who can't get their infant daughters to the doctor when they have an ear infection, like our Alanna had last month. That's 55 million Americans who can't find respite from back pain, as I have this summer. That's 55 million Americans who can't escape the clutches of depression, as I have over the past three years. Can we really think this is the better solution?

The total cost of the medical care required for the births of our daughters, Ainsley and Alanna, was in the neighborhood of $32,000. That's approximately 90% of my yearly cash salary. Health insurance covered most of the cost for us - what are the options for mothers who don't have insurance?

The time has come for a renovation of American medicine. No renovation comes without sacrifice, struggle, and moments when the damage done seems to outweigh the possible end result. But the present situation is a house of cards teetering on the verge of collapse. We have an ethical and moral imperative to do better for our society - let's speak the truth and get it done.

Grace & peace,
Scott

The Good Side of the NFL

Tired of hearing about Michael Vick, Pac-Man Jones and other NFL players who can't seem to keep their names & faces out of the police blotter? Try this article on for size.

Thanks for the good work, guys, and can we publicize this stuff more and the criminal behavior less?

Teaching Moments

I've been catching up on the blogroll this morning and found something truly cool. My friend Ross is an adjunct faculty member at Augsburg College in St. Paul, MN. He recently encountered an episode of cheating in his class and handled it beautifully. I can't seem to link to the posts directly, so go to In Lay Terms and scroll down to the Academic Integrity posts.

Broken Glass and Thorns

"God spoke to me. I seen a window open in my life...I see a clear path [where] before it was broken glass and thorns."

I received a letter from an organization which helps prisoners avoid re-offending and acclimate to freedom after their time of incarceration is complete. One of the participants in the program said the sentence above when describing a prison chaplain’s sermon.

“Broken glass and thorns.” I don't know if anyone could be more poetic in describing the hopelessness under which some of us suffer. What must it feel like, I wonder, to have lived in such a way that you would describe your life in these terms? What was the history behind that description of misery and despair? Obviously, time in prison means a history of crime; where and when did this person cross the line, and to what purpose? Was it drugs? Money? Alcohol? Violence revenged or simply uncontrolled? Where were the parents, the loving family God intended to surround this person and guide them in good ways of life for the sake of God’s name? Where was the community called to clothe him when he was naked, feed her when she was hungry, visit him while he was in prison? Most importantly, if this person could sense the presence of God in the chaplain’s words, where was God during all that came before?

The image that leapt to my mind was a neglected acreage here in Barrett. Weeds have choked the life out of anything else that tried to grow. Junked out appliances and automobiles of unknown origin or purpose sit rusting inside stands of tall, ugly weeds that do little to hide the ugliness they surround. A house sits crumbling at the end of the driveway, as uninviting as it is unappealing. Plastic sheets from a half-hearted winterization project years ago flap in the breeze, drawing attention to the peeling paint and the sagging roofline.

This kind of choked, trash-strewn ugliness doesn’t just happen. The word “neglect” might imply inaction, but the owner, and our town, has actively taken a course of not caring about what happens there, or at the very least not doing anything to alleviate that neglect. I wonder: does the same hold true for the neglected person? When life has become broken glass and thorns, can the community be held culpable for its neglect of those in need of help?

I wonder if we have perfected the art of semi-conscious neglect in the church, both here in the congregation I serve and in the body of Christ throughout the world. I hate to say this: I love the people to whom I minister, and I know that I myself fall under the same sentence of condemnation. But I also know there are lives all around us that are slowly becoming glass-strewn and weed-choked, and we do little to stop it for those who are not members of our congregations (indeed, one could even draw the circle more tightly and observe that some members of our congregations are suffering from neglect as well). For many Christians, avoiding the “wrong” sort of people is part and parcel of the practice of their faith. I know that I myself have questioned whether we should provide emergency assistance to a family where both parents are heavy smokers, as though the brief respite from despair that nicotine offers should be grounds for immediate denial of aid due to some perceived weakness or moral failing. Every decision like this involves a discernment of worth that God has never intended to be part of the life of faith, yet it happens time and time again in faith communities of every denomination.

Yet I also know that, in spite of our unwillingness, God is indeed at work through some of God’s people who do provide “a clear path [where] before it was broken glass and thorns.” During college in Lincoln, Nebraska I had the opportunity to worship several times with a Lutheran congregation inside the walls of the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Those worship experiences remain some of the most Spirit-filled moments in my life of faith. I was humbled by the deep joy that I sensed in the men who warmly welcomed us and humbly shared how their lives were being transformed by the grace of God; never before and rarely since have I felt such a deep appreciation of forgiveness (offered to those who understood it least) and repentance (the practice of daily turning away from sin, not merely expressing regret for sins past). I know that the same is happening in the church I serve and in other places where God’s transforming word is remaking lives, one piece of broken glass at a time.

The lot in question in our town will take much work to reclaim, work that will not likely happen soon in a rural community with more attractive properties nearby that will require a much less arduous process of reclamation. I hope the same will not be true about this unknown former inmate who has so provoked my thinking and my conscience today. I don’t know the history that led to that description, but I do know the hope that now springs forth from what was once despair. I am a brother to this thought-provoking unknown poet; I also follow of the One who provides the clear path, the narrow way.

I also know that even with that hope, reclamation will be a long process, full of advances and setbacks, and those who observe that reclamation will not always be kind, nor will they understand. Broken glass is notoriously hard to remove without injury, and thorns can require hours of hard labor to dig out, only to have the roots regenerate and the thorns to reappear. I know that as a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, I come into contact with such reclamation projects on a daily business; may God give me the grace to end my own course of neglect and to cheerfully join in the process of reclamation.

“Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Luke 15.10

Wise as Serpents

The Wittenburg Door newsletter sent links to a couple of stories about people who watch and challenge television "ministries" like Paul & Jan Crouch and Benny Hinn. Thank heaven there are people who want to expose the truth about most TV preachers. Here are the links:

ABC News story on MinistryWatch
Virginia Pilot story on Pat Robertson (YOU SUCK, PAT!)

What if?

This is a powerful article by a German pastor on the state of affairs with America and the world. Disagree if you wish, but it's worthy of a read nonetheless. I especially appreciated these concluding paragraphs:

The point is that due to their many ground-zero experiences, European nations have learned the lesson that the functioning integrity of societies is as much dependent on social stability and just labor relations as it is on their military establishments. For the U.S., on the other hand, the experience of being the global winner has become a trap. President Eisenhower's prophetic warning about the danger of the "military-industrial complex" tending to become the all-encompassing economic factor has become all too true...

It will not suffice to put the blame on President Bush and his administration alone. The temptation is there, and it will increase as the Iraqi quagmire continues to get worse. But this would be a sort of scapegoating, and it would prevent us from looking at the underlying issues.

Let me also suggest the movie "Why We Fight" as a means of investigating some of the underlying causes of the American predilection for military combat.