That the House of Representatives managed not to fund abortions while passing the new health-care bill is the good news. That it managed to pass the health-care bill without funding abortion is the bad news, too. In an odd way, it’s maybe even worse news than if the leading Democrats in the House had succeeded at including abortion funding, which is clearly what they wanted to do.
Planned Parenthood and NARAL both screamed at the passing of the Democratic pro-life Congressman Bart Stupak’s amendment, insisting that it would strip women of health care—though, in fact, federal funding of abortions was something the health-care bill would have created. How, in the Age of Obama, could there exist a pro-life majority in the Congress of the United States? The nefarious Catholics must be behind the sixty-four Democrats who joined the Republicans in passing the amendment. “One thing is clear,” fumed an abortion group, “The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) apparently is running the US government.”
Back on less insane ground, the Republicans faced a problem with the Stupak Amendment: Support it, and thereby give cover for pro-life Democrats to vote for the final bill? Or oppose it, and thereby chance federal funding for abortion in the final bill—while giving the Democrats a talking-point about Republican hypocrisy? In the end, only one Republican voted “Present,” with the rest voting for the amendment, and it passed.
The question, of course, is why it passed. Why did Pelosi allow Stupak’s amendment to come to the floor? She had streams of representatives through her office on Friday and Saturday demanding that she not allow it a vote, but she added up her chances, and she decided that she needed the pro-life Democrats to support the final bill.
Of course, what kind of Democratic bill is it, if it doesn’t include funding for abortion?
The answer is the reason this bill should never have been passed—the reason that all of us must urge our senators to stop this kind of health-care reform in the Senate. For if the sheer passage of the bill was all that was needed, even without abortion coverage, then the bill was never a serious bill to begin with. Or, at least, it was never serious about its actual content. The desire was, rather, to pass something—to create the Federal bureaucracy that would eventually create all the rest of the pieces of a socialized medical system.
There has been some backlash against Stupak’s amendment already. The Washington Post reported this morning that “Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) said she has collected more than 40 signatures from House Democrats vowing to oppose any final bill that includes the amendment—enough to block passage.” The Democrats in the Senate are, generally, less pro-life than the Democrats in the House, but the entire bill is going to prove harder to move through the Senate, which operates under more constraints. If, however, the Senate manages to pass something, it may well include abortion funding—which would allow the reconciliation process to strip out the Stupak Amendment. Either way Pelosi may have a problem, getting a reconciled bill through a second House vote.
Except that she won’t. The point was never to get everything they wanted in the bill. The point was to pass a bill that would grow in time to include everything they want.
Why is the United States doing this? Why are we trying to create a bureaucracy with a $3 trillion price tag, at a time of deep financial trouble? Why are we aiming at governmental management of a huge sector of the American economy at a time when the government is proving itself incompetent to manage the American economy? And why are we giving the culture of Washington new powers of life and death—making ourselves “God’s Partners,” in President Obama’s language—at a time when that culture has proved itself so vague and so deluded about all the issues of life and death that have come before it: war, and embryos, and the unborn, and the weak, and the vulnerable?
That the health-care system in the United States is inequitable seems undeniable. That it is amazingly innovative and robust is also undeniable. The great goal of competent government would be to cure the one and preserve the other. The bill the House of Representatives passed this weekend will do neither.
Tell your senator to stop this now.
Joseph Bottum is editor of First Things.
Comments:
The letter went on to say that everyone has a "Right" to healthcare. This is liberation theology in a North American cloak. There is no "Right" to healthcare in the gospels, or to any other government program. Rather, there is a moral obligation upon all of us to provide for the neediest members of society. There is a world of difference, both moral and in a secular sense between charity freely given and government taxes extracted by force. Once we have accepted that the government can require that everyone should pay for universal healthcare, there can be no argument to justify refusing to pay for abortions, euthanasia, and "death panels".
We are "rendering unto Caesar" that which is God's.
Not a nice perk, to be provided at our convenience, or a dispensable bargaining chit in political negotiations, but a forcefull commandment from Christ, to provide care for those who are sick.
having said that, the question for people of faith is the means to that end- Is a government program preferable, or a system of private markets?
I would prefer a dual track system, where people who can afford it aere allowed a insurer or provider of their choice, and those who cannot are given health care paid for by our taxes, similar to the dual track school system we have- private and public alongside each other.
I think what critics of the bill are missing is the urgent moral imperative- tens of thousands of people die or go bankrupt each ear, and millions more are forced into misery and heartbreak over the lack of access to healthcare.
This misery canot be ignored amidst carping about the budget deficit or wait times.
As a christian, I can see no honest complaint about health reform, particularly with a "public option", as long as the Stupak amendment remains. Assuming that abortions are not funded, there is no serious reason to believe a single-payer health care system would in any way be detrimental to our health, our liberty, or our country's fiscal situation in the long run.
Insurance of this sort is a natural monopoly, since the biggest player spreads the risk most broadly, and since no one can claim to not have a need for this insurance. The biggest insurer will necessarily have the lowest costs, the lowest risk of financial default, and be able to provide the broadest array of services and "in-network" providers. If one puts aside the prejudicial instinct to dismiss government programs out of hand, you'd have to concede that a single-payer health care system where the government is the payer would have all these features.
On the other hand, a two track system as Bottum suggests would be the worst of all worlds. Private insurance companies would simply deny coverage (or charge prohibitively high premiums) to people with genetic history of poor health or any sort of chronic malady. They would then maximize their profits by insuring only the healthiest. This leaves the sickest (and the poorest) for the taxpayer. The government gets to fund all the large and chronic claims, while the insurance companies get to collect the premiums. Simultaneously the taxpayer is hung out to dry while his health insurance premiums continue to climb at the discretion of the insurance industry.
We should keep our powder dry and invest all our energy in keeping abortion out of all government subsidies, and eventually it *will* push abortion out of private plans, just as the pro-choicers fear. We need to focus on this, rather than use abortion as an excuse to poison the whole enterprise (as some apparently are considering), which would result in the needless continued misery of the uninsured.
Your commentary on the dual track system is correct, in that the private market would reserve for itself the most profitable (read healthiest) people while the taxpayers would be stuck covering the unprofitable.
This is, in fact what has happened in the dual track education system; private schools attract the students with the most committed families and support structure, while the public schools are left with the rest.
I am also not opposed per se to a single payer system like Canada's;
However, I do see even a dual track as being better than the status quo; the status quo leaves 45,000 people to perish in misery and injustice each year, whereas the dual track would be merely inefficient.
I think it is disheartening to read long scholarly explanations of why the bill is terrible, yet not offering any realistic alternatives; as if the true purpose was to defend the status quo, rather than vigorously search for a solution.
But I’m not so certain healing is that important anymore. When our daughter graduated from NYU, part of the ceremony included the administration of the Hippocratic Oath to the graduates of NYU’s medical school by the school’s dean. The dean chuckled through it. The future doctors twittered along with him. Thank goodness the Oath didn’t mention what was most on all their minds: what kind of fees they were going to have to get to pay back the huge debt they were graduating with.
Yes, physicians have many more machines than my uncle had in 1955, and wonderful concoctions cooked up by the pharmaceutical companies (oh, the wonders of Viagra), and they are, once those pesky student loans are paid off, much richer now than they were then, but I’m not at all convinced that medical care now is significantly better. I suspect that in rural places like Jamestown it’s significantly worse.
And I think that the more the government has called the tune between us and our doctors the more clumsy the dance has become. (and this isn’t just a case with medicine; look at the curse the Department of Education has become for learning). So I have no confidence that this bill is going to make health care better. But I might be wrong. Maybe I’ve missed the clause where physicians like Dr. Murray will now be doing house calls (but of course now with two clerks in tow to fill out the forms).
Oh, and about the “Christian moral imperative. . .” It’s a Christian moral imperative not to steal, and the taxes imposed by this bill are legislative robbery. My suggestion to Mr/Mrs/Dr/Ms/RtRev/ Reason60 is tithe, and include your local charity hospital on you list. Then get the rest of your church, or synagogue, or mosque, or bridge club to tithe. Then, when that’s all in line, start requiring folks to pay up to the government or face jail time.
"I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that that language won't be there,” Wasserman Schultz said during an appearance on MSNBC. “And I think we're all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that's the case.”
If the government cannot provide adequate care for the veterans of this country presently, how on earth can we expect it to provide adequate care after adding millions more to it's responsibilities?
Fix the current government health care system before you talk about expanding it and multiplying its injustices.
Handing responsibility over to the government isn't an act of Christian charity, it's an act of cowardice. When the 5,000 needed to be fed, Christ did not tell the disciples to go to the nearest town and get government to help, he told them to feed the people themselves.
While I was in graduate school, the brother of one of my professors underwent expensive medical treatment. He did not have insurance at the time. The school community and parish hosted a trivia night to raise funds to cover his expenses. It was a great success, with a packed house of over 400 people (at $10 entry each). That is "subsidiarity" and charity in action.
Government is a scapegoat (or a false idol) that allows people to ignore the problems of their neighbors and remain apathetic and selfish.
"It's the government's job to help them," becomes the excuse.
Reason60, you've claimed that 45,000 people perish unjustly because of inadequate health care. Why don't you find one of them, and help provide care for them? No one is stopping you.
It seems a straw man here is that anyone opposed to this certain bill is anti-reform. No, not at all. We want reform, but not this one.
The USCCB or its staff need to come clean with the faithful about what their real objectives have been all along.