Khalid, watch out, all the trolls will come after you. They’ll tell you that they will do their acts of charity without government interference, thank you. They’ll tell you that those who will not work don’t deserve charity…and cite Biblical passages to justify themselves. They’ll go on to say that health care isn’t a right, and that moral justifications are “Socialist” and “Liberal” political tendencies, and therefore of no importance.

Last, you’ll probably get lectured on the failings of Islamic Charities that support terrorism, and demand that you justify those organizations.

By the way….I happen to agree with you.

I would argue that a single payer system is the one that is immoral. Allow me to explain why. The major faith traditions you mention do encourage those who have the means to help those who do not. The key word here is “encourage.” Any such help would be voluntary. There’s nothing stopping people from helping others right now. But not everyone can or does help. A single payer system essentially says that those of means who do not wish to help those without should be made to. And that is immoral.

Dave,
I don’t see even in your argument how it becomes immoral. Are you saying it is immoral to force someone to do good? I hope you see where that line of argument will go.

But that is not the case with Single Payer. We are a nation. That means we are uniting for common good and it has led to a lot of common good. Our institutions are instruments of unified action. So we are making collective decisions all the time. Last time I checked we were spending 16% of our GDP on health care. That is 1 out of every 6 dollars. Number 2 on the list was Germany which was spending 10% of its GDP on health care (1 out of every 10 dollars). And to top it off we have some of the lowest numbers as a nation on many health statistics and when you learn what they are getting for health care it puts our system to shame. Ultimately as a nation we pay a price for not having all our citizens healthy and that effects all of us too.

I want us to lift our selves up. Lift all of us up. It is the right thing to do and it will also benefit all of us.

From a religious perspective this life is a trial. Whatever we have is a trial. Poverty is a trial and wealth is a trial. Wealth is a greater trial not because it is more difficult but because most of us look at it as a reward, forgetting that the reward is in the life to come. Two of the greatest present day Americans are Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. Not because they are wealthy but because both of them trully do understand that their wealth is their trial and though they don’t talk about it much, it is their moral upbringing which instilled this value in them.

hs (you always agree with Mr Shah BTW because you are suck-up, guilt-ridden liberal). Anyway, would you please site for me where in the Constitution it says that healthcare is a right since you brought it up?

Along with health care, we should include dental and vision care as well, and a good home and transportation, child care, home repairs, car repairs, home insurance, life insurance, electricity, clean water, good food, trash pick up, sewer, natural gas……

There’s a great movie called “Heavens Above” with Peter Sellers. It chronicles all too well what happens when “compassion” runs rampant on earth.

God doesn’t want anything from us unless we want to give it to Him.

Personally, I don’t want the government to run healthcare. They run everything else into the ground.

We can talk about the morality of health care, or we can talk about money. It may be that the moral choice is also the least cost choice, or it may not.

This being a “Civil Religion” space, where the space is to be used to wrestle with moral issues, I’ll take a run at the moral side for the moment.

In the years since WWII ended, the society, with the Church’s complicity and encouragement, has elevated the “individual” above the “group” in our collective moral universe. To those on the religious and political right, the idea of using law for social benefit of all borders on anathema. Or those on that side of the spectrum want to choose who and how they act towards those who are less fortunate than they are. Regardless, it’s fundamentally about a core belief in individual action and individual responsibility. Let me be clear, I have no problem with the idea of individual responsibility. I do have a problem with those who cloak their social irresponsibility with misinterpretation or ignorance of very clear text, and very clear Orthodoxy of belief and practice over centuries.

I’m not done yet. To those on the religious and political left, all too often they have insisted on political solutions to what are primarily spiritual problems. The left is good at pointing out the fundamental immorality of unbridled capitalism, but they frequently have no serious acceptance of what faith can accomplish in the lives of individuals or societies. Again, however, the Left has also elevated the individual above any concept of social norms.

It’s my understanding that every major religion makes a forceful point about submerging individualism into the group. The ideas of covenant, charity, “church family”, and so on are all GROUP ideas.

From a MORAL perspective then, if in fact there are children dying in this country of malnutrition and treatable illnesses, then we should be collectively ashamed of ourselves. By failing either through the compulsion of law or through moral blindness to take action to prevent this tragedy, we are all guilty. By proclaiming that it’s the parent’s fault, we pretend that we have no responsibility. I, as a Christian, do not think for a minute that God sees it that way.

To make a single “money” comment on the subject of health care: Those of the uninsured who are in that state voluntarily…those who amount to perhaps half of the uninsured who both have it available to them and could easily afford it….there is a word for them every time they use the system and expect the rest of us to pay….that word is THIEF.

By the way, the founders of this country understood clearly that laws expressed the collective morality of the citizenry, and that the only way that the Republic would survive would be if there was a fundamental morality and decency of the citizenry. Whenever someone protests that “I didn’t do anything WRONG, there isn’t a LAW forbidding it!”, that is conflating morality with law. It is not possible to create a law for every imaginable situation. And yet, the most common public protest to some obviously wrong actions is “I didn’t break any laws”.

Back to the health care debate that is the overriding subject here…

First, if people will not act responsibly (those who could obtain insurance but refuse in this example), then it is perfectly OK to craft laws to compel them to act responsibly. We do that all the time. Virtually every law on the books has that concept as it’s basis.

Second, following the same theme, we can see where employer mandates can come from. Personally, I think our system of employer provided insurance is one of the big problems and causes of the insanity we deal with daily, however, it is the system we have. From a moral perspective, if we accept that it is an employer’s responsibility to his employees to make sure that those employees have care available to them….then mandating it to force those who do not provide it can follow.

Last, to Khalid’s question: While I think single-payer might be the best solution, I don’t think we can get there in one step. The disruption to the economy and the overall system would be too great. From a utilitarian perspective, it’s not possible. Politics, as has been famously pointed out, is the art of the possible. Also, as I watch the debate fly in Congress, I’m reminded of Von Hindenberg’s observation that people should not witness the creation of either laws or sausages.

Mr. Shah,

To answer your question, “Is it a moral issue that in the richest nation in the history of mankind more than 1 out of 8 people have no health coverage?” I agree with you that it is a moral issue, although I’m not so sure about our richest nation status any longer.

I’m certainly for health care reform, not necessarily single payer although I’m not opposed to the concept either. Personally I’m for much lower cost coverage for everyone (that does not mean FREE) and legislation that would reduce the costs of health care.

As I see it, the biggest obstacle to any reform is with our elected legislators and the influence money they receive from health care lobbyists. You can read more about it here…

http://www.opensecrets.org/index.php

That is the sort of thing that got us into this mess, and what is stopping us from getting our of it. In addition to lobby money there are those who for political reasons will just be opposed to anything that happens during this Presidents administration, regardless of what it is. (For the record I did not vote for President Obama)

I’ve heard the argument “I dont want the government between me and my doctor”, as it is now I have a very expensive giant insurance company between me and my doctor.

My prediction is that no health care changes will ever pass congress, not single payer or any serious cost reduction reform. I believe that the current health care system will have to first collapse under its own weight before any health care system that is economical and just can be born.

Health care reform so that more Americans can have coverage for less cost is the morally correct thing to do, and I support it, regardless of my perception of it’s chance of happening.

why am I always deleted?

Mr. Shah, since you brought up immorality, I have a few questions for you.
Is it immoral to use and make meth, blow yourself up, and then expect others to pay for your burns? Is in immoral to continue time after time to have babies out of wedlock when you are unemployed and expect others to pay for their births and their care? Is it immoral to use illegals drugs, eat yourself into obesity, smoke cigarettes, or abuse alcohal, all the above are choices, and expect others to pick up the tab for your healthcare needs?
Just asking?

Two very thoughtful comments that I would like to say something about.
hs,
I can understand that we may not get there in one step but, as I say in the title, what is most disturbing is that single payer isn’t even shaping the debate. Unless it is not also debated along with the other proposals a fundamental attitude of compromise on principle is what we are starting with. I do not want to get into names (anyone can get them from the news) but the top most leadership on the debate is clearly on record for having been in favor of single payer. The mantra through the years was ‘when we have congress and the White House we will get single payer’. Well guess what they do have both and they have taken it off the table completely with arrests of advocates who tried to come to the hearings. It is morally reprehensible behavior.

Crashtest,
All you are saying is correct however unfortunately they are not the key factor. Unfortunately our personal selfish greed is. Analysis of polling data has indicated everyone is in favor of health care reform….as long as their piece of it doesn’t change. That is the problem. Politicians are motivated by self interest but they can only do the shenanigans if the public at large is not in favor of real reform.

The problem is we are getting very expensive health care that is not tailored to keeping us healthy but to maximize treatment cost for our illnesses. It is not a coincidence that insurance companies do not cover any preventive health care. It is a lot cheaper to avoid getting sick than to treat once we are sick but where is the profit in that. This has led to a medical system geared to specialized care and plenty of over medication. It is shocking to realize that Americans consume about 2/3rds of all anti-depressants prescribed in the world (Did anyone know that George W Bush was on anti depressants the last two years of his presidency?)!

Single payer is a moral decision but as with most moral decisions doing the right thing always helps us in the long run. With single payer preventive care will have to become the primary care offered. That means we are healthy more often than not and not only is that good for us it is also going to be a lot less costly for all of us.

We can even learn from those who are not our friends if there is benefit in it. Iran has instituted a number of medical reforms that have had a dramatic effect. We cannot do some of the things that they can, being a fairly totalitarian government, but one thing they have done is that no more than 10% of new medical graduates can become specialists. 90% have to be GPs/Internists. This has dramatically dropped the cost of health care and at the same time basic primary care is now available to everyone. Instituting Single Payer would have a similar impact here. Under Single Payer there would be a lot less referrals to specialists (remember preventive care will dominate) and so even without instituting the draconian measure of keeping individuals from choosing to become specialists, the number of specialists needed by society would dramtically decrease. As I said before doing the right thing in the end helps us. That is the whole power of morality.