Healthcare Reform

Yesterday the U.S. House voted narrowly (220-215) to pass healthcare reform. While this vote is indeed historic (it is the first time since Medicare a healthcare bill has passed either chamber), it's future is uncertain. The Senate must pass its own bill and the two must then be reconciled before the changes become law.

This summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) passed a resolution saying that “each person should have ready access to basic health care services that include preventative, acute and chronic physical and mental health care at affordable cost.”

Last week, Catholic bishops threatened to pull their support unless federal funding for abortions was explicitly forbidden (this provision was cited by the sole Republican, a former Jesuit seminarian, as allowing him to cross the aisle to vote for the bill).

Jim Wallis of Sojourners writes:

For decades now, the physical health and well-being of our country has been a proxy battle for partisan politics. When Truman tried to pass a national health insurance plan, the American Medical Association spent $200 million (in today’s dollars) and was accused of violating ethics rules by having doctors lobby their patients to oppose the legislation. In the 1970’s when Nixon tried to pass a national health insurance plan, strikingly similar to what many democrats are proposing today, the plan was defeated by liberal democrats and unions who thought that they would be able to pass something themselves after the mid-term elections and claim political credit for the plan. In the 1990’s the “Harry and Louise” ads misrepresented the Clinton health care plan but was successful enough PR to shut down that movement for reform.

Walis encourages the faith community to "step in and speak for the interests of the common good and those who would not otherwise have a voice."

Certainly there have been many doing just that, as well as many others who use their voices to shout down others, or spread misinformation.

It seems everyone who has an opinion, regardless of their religion or lack thereof, feels there is a moral component to healthcare. How about you? What are your thoughts?

(Please, no anonymous comments, and mind your manners. Let's debate like adults.)

Where is the Country?

Above, retired army colonel and conservative historian Andrew Bacevich, whose son was killed in Iraq. See the whole interview or read the transcripts here. Highly recommended.

There are many people who say they support the troops, and they really mean it. But when it comes, really, down to understanding what does it mean to support the troops? It needs to mean more than putting a sticker on the back of your car.

I don't think we actually support the troops. We the people. What we the people do is we contract out the business of national security to approximately 0.5 percent of the population. About a million and a half people that are on active duty.

And then we really turn away. We don't want to look when they go back for two or three or four or five combat tours. That's not supporting the troops. That's an abdication of civic responsibility. And I do think it - there's something fundamentally immoral about that.

Again, as I tried to say, I think the global war on terror, as a framework of thinking about policy, is deeply defective. But if one believes in the global war on terror, then why isn't the country actually supporting it? In a meaningful substantive sense?

Where is the country?