From Examiner.com
Unless you have the good fortune to be on another planet you have no doubt heard nothing but news of the health care debate for the past several weeks. One side says that the Obama plan will bankrupt this country and send us all to the poor house, the other side says we must insure the millions of people who have no health care coverage and we can do this by increasing the tax burden on the wealthiest of our citizens and as of this date, Tim (Turbo Tax ) Geithner, the Treasury Secretary , has come out and said that we may have raise taxes to pay for this behemoth of a program. So much for the “95 percent of you will get a tax cut” pledge.
This should come as no surprise to anyone who has a rudimentary grasp of mathematics. This plan by the government’s own estimates will cost TRILLIONS of dollars. Had you ever heard of a “trillion” previous to the last four or five years? What comes after that, a gazillion? Any time you hear someone from the government start throwing out numbers, run them on your own. Two things will usually be obvious. First, the numbers are usually wrong. Second, if you analyze any government program that has been in place for a few years, look at what the initial estimated cost was going to be, and look at the actual cost. Most of the time it is grossly underestimated. Then we have politicians who stand up and say to us that we must spend or go bankrupt. Just how does that work? Not well for the average citizen who doesn’t have a few trillion laying around in a savings account.
In an article done for the Memphis Medical News, Holli W. Haynie states that according to 2005 data approximately 10% of the population of Shelby county is uninsured. This equates to about 90,000 people without health care coverage. These people often wind up going to emergency rooms to be treated for what is in essence a chronic condition. This ties up emergency centers and hinders them from treating real life threatening events
Putting aside the debate from a political perspective, how are people of faith expected to deal with this issue? Most faith traditions have admonitions about caring for the sick and elderly. Proverbs 29:7 (New International Version)7 The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern. Leviticus 23:22 (New International Version)
22 ” ‘When you reap the harvest of your land, do not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.’ ” The Holy Quran says: # 2:184 (Asad) [fasting] during a certain number of days. [155] But whoever of you is ill, or on a journey, [shall fast instead for the same] number of other days; and [in such cases] it is incumbent upon those who can afford it to make sacrifice by feeding a needy person. The Book of Mormon: Alma 34
1. [28] And now behold, my beloved brethren, I say unto you, do not suppose that this is all; for after ye have done all these things, if ye turn away the needy, and the naked, and visit not the sick and afflicted, and impart of your substance, if ye have, to those who stand in need — I say unto you, if ye do not any of these things, behold, your prayer is vain, and availeth you nothing, and ye are as hypocrites who do deny the faith.
As can be seen we as people of faith are expected to care for those who cannot care for themselves. Most of us don’t have a problem with this and would gladly help those who are genuinely in need, but how many of the millions that the government claims are uninsured are actually in that category? Once you extrapolate those who are uninsured for other reasons such as young people who feel like they are not in need of insurance right now, wealthy people who can afford to pay their medical bills themselves, people who have savings accounts set up for medical emergencies, and so forth, just how many people are not covered because they cannot afford to pay for it?
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