| How would you say the Bible interprets the issue of health care? What does Jesus say about it, what do the disciples say, and are there any differences between the Old and New Testaments? The question about old versus new testament--I don't think there is a big difference. I think the strain that runs through both the Hebrew Scriptures--sometimes called the Old Testament--and the Christian New Testament, is that God calls us to create caring communities, where everyone in the community is cared for, where nobody is left out. God is often times speaking through the prophets, particularly in the Hebrew Scriptures, the seventh-eighth century prophets, angry at governments that create unjust laws that "grind the face of my people the poor," God will say. And what we are told to do, if we want for our communities to flourish, if we want to do well in life and create places that are safe and that are thriving-- what is sometimes called a beloved community, other times the kingdom of God -- -- is to create places where everyone is taken care of. Jesus is asked in the New Testament, what is the greatest commandment, the greatest law that there is? And Jesus says love God as you would yourself. Then he says that the second part of this law is to love your neighbor as yourself, and that's how you prove your love to God. How you treat your neighbor, or the stranger among you, is equivalent to how it isyou treat God -- -- how strong your relationship with the divine is. And so issues like healthcare, for example, are a great indicator of how we are doing in terms of people of faith--Christian, Jewish, I know there are similar rules in Islam as well about creating strong communities --all of those religions have something in common, and healthcare we can look at as an indicator of whether we are doing things right or wrong. And when 47 million Americans are going without basic health insurance, where tens of millions more Americans have inadequate health insurance, we know that there's something wrong. Now the question that I often get from people who are critical of the stance that I've taken on this issue, particularly the advocacy that I've taken on behalf of the public option, is aren't those 47 million Americans getting treated anyway? Well they're not, and I can tell you that from experience. Not only working at homeless shelters but also working as a pastor, I know many people who will not go to the hospital because they are too afraid to go because of the bills that they will incur, the impact that it's going to make on their lives, so they get sicker and sicker -- -- and if they do end up in the hospital, it's an emergency room visit, and those bills get put on to the taxpayers. Otherwise people walk out of hospital with enormous amounts of debt that make it even more difficult for them to get housing food and the other basic necessities of life. It's a very, very vicious circle. One of the things I read from your blog was a sermon you did on Paul's Theology of Wholeness. How would you apply his admonitions to a prescription for healthcare? Paul talked about creating whole communities, saying that we can never say of another person I have no need of you. He said it would be the same thing as looking at your own arm and saying I have no need of this arm anymore, or I have no need of his leg. The stupidity of saying I have no need of my brother or my sister in the community is equivalent to just throwing off your arm or your leg. He thought that it was silly, to act in such a fashion. And I think you could certainly apply that to healthcare or any number of social issues, where the health and well-being of the entire community is at stake. You know we've got tons of folks in our own communities, here in Portland and statewide, who don't have healthcare--who don't meet the guidelines for the Oregon Health Plan at this point, who need a national prescription for universal healthcare so that they get the kind of treatments they need. I think if Paul were to look around, like Jesus, were to look around at the community that we have today, he would say this is about as far from the kingdom of God as Jesus could have ever thought, in that we literally in our communities step over people who are homeless and sick and hungry, and walk past them every day. That doesn't mean we don't do a lot of good things. But the problem has become so immense, that in many ways we have allowed it to become invisible, and I think that Paul would look at that and say you need to do a better job. Do you think that's a justification for the principle of universal healthcare, that you can't leave... ... anybody behind, yeah absolutely! I think Jesus didn't -- -- when he was called to the bedside of somebody, he didn't stop ask where they were from, or ask to see a card to see whose provider they had...you know, he healed them! And there are more healing stories about Jesus in terms of his ministry than any other stories that are in the Bible, about any other activity he took part in. And so I think that yes the need for universal care -- -- I mean who are we going to cut out? People who are desperately poor? And that seems to be what people talk about most often, that it's okay if if we leave out a few folks. But those few folks that talk about our tens of millions of the poorest Americans in our country, who can't come up with those co-pays, or can't come up with the cash needed for those prescriptions for example. When you talk about individual populations there are a number of populations who critics of reform talk about as things we could address behaviorally is a way to change our system--people who smoke or drink too much or eat fatty foods or undocumented aliens, that may in some minds "deserve" health care less than others. How would you answer that in a religious context? I think the US Conference of Roman Catholic Bishops has come out with two objections to healthcare reform as it stands now. One is their concerns about abortion--which are not concerns that I share; like most Protestants I find myself in the pro-choice camp. But they also have said that they oppose the bills now going through Congress because they don't provide care for undocumented workers. And on that I'm with them 100%. I believe that we do need to treat undocumented workers. The good moral argument for that, the good theological Christian argument for that, is that we can't say to someone just because you're undocumented I have no need of you anymore. If they're here in the United States we ought to provide help for it, even if it's more expensive. It's not ever going to be more expensive than our military budget right now, let me tell you that, so you're not talking about big numbers in terms of dollars compared what we already expend on things like the military. But the other argument we can make in terms of making sure that we treat undocumented workers is that if we are ever attacked, for example, via a biological weapon launched by terrorists--or if the swine flu mutates into something more dangerous than it is today--the disease is not going to just infect undocumented workers. It will spread to everybody. And the more people that we have in our public health system, the more people who are getting vaccinated and treated preventively, the less of a public health crisis we'lll have in our country with these kind of diseases that spread so rapidly and have the potential of doing so much damage to the whole body of America. How does the principle of healing the sick translate into delivery of healthcare? Was there any contemplation in bibical times of government provision, or how was it expected that health care would be delivered? Who would be doing the healing? Healthcare wasn't the same then as it is now, obviously. There weren't medical practitioners in the same sense that we have them now, or healthcare systems in the sense that we have them now. What we do hear, particularly from the Hebrew Scriptures, from the prophets of the Hebrew Scriptures, is what I talked about earlier--this idea that God was angry at governments that didn't take care of all of its people. God says at one point in the book of Isaiah, near the beginning, that he created a vineyard when he created humanity and the world. And it was a beautiful vineyard, and was supposed to blossom and be full. And what we have done to it instead is to let it all die, and let weeds grow in its place. We've not taken care of what has been given to us. And I think that extends to the notion of what we should be providing to all of humanity, are the basic resources that we need to survive, and healthcare is one of those basic resources. It ought to be a human right that all countries supply to its people, and not a privilege as it is today. So there wouldn't have been an issue that health care should be a charity issue, undertaken primarily by private individuals? I think that God is very clear that governments that do exist need to exist to benefit the people, and that is their primary obligation-- not to benefit just the wealthy or just the taxpayers, but all the people. I think on the flipside of that, God wanted all of us to be involved individually as well with those who are sick and those who are needy. It's not just up to the government but it's also not just up to citizens. Somebody wrote me the other day and said, "well, why don't churches just take on the healthcare system -- -- why don't churches do it?" And people ask me that all the time about the issue of homelessness, something I've been involved in for a long time -- -- why don't the churches just do it? You know, when I was at First Methodist United Church as director of community outreach, one of my jobs was running the Goose Hollow family shelter, which is the largest winter family shelter in Portland. Every night we turned away on average more people than we could serve, and we're talking away about turning away kids;most nights about half of the people who stayed with us were under the age of 10. So we were sending kids back onto the streets. Now, we made a big difference there-- -- we got no government money, we got over 20 congregations from a variety of faith traditions involved in the program. When I left we had over 800 volunteers who literally stayed the night, brought in all the meals, provided the activities for the kids. But still, we turned away as many people as we served. We didn't have the resources, even with all those faith communities combined, to do more than we were doing. To build the kind of housing this country needs, it will take what the government has to offer--and healthcare, which is even more expensive than housing, is certainly something that will take the government--which is a vehicle of the people, you know it represents all of us -- -- to outlay the funds necessary to provide that kind of care. Is profit an allowable occurence in the delivery of care? That's an interesting question, and it depends on who you ask.... {watch for Part Two} |
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