Life Together: Health Care Crisis Growing

A small item in this week's Christian Century, [May 17, 2005, p. 6] notes that many cars and light trucks are now made in Canada because of the far lower costs of providing workers with health insurance in Canada than in the U.S. The difference is substantial: $800 to provide health care in Canada; $6500 to provide health care in the U.S.

This morning, while in my car, I listened to Sue Wylie bemoaning the intrusiveness of a growing number of businesses into the private lives of their employees, seeking to prohibit them from smoking not only on the job, but in their own cars, at home, or at play. The reason, of course, is that smoking correlates to ill health and thus results in higher health insurance costs, as well as lost productivity. One caller noted that at a time when some families are paying as much as $1600 per month for health insurance, she didn't find the nosiness of an employer unfair.

Similarly, I ran into a friend in the grocery store the other day whom I hadn't seen in a while. She and her husband work so that they can pay health insurance for two young adult daughters with chronic illnesses that have nothing to do with life-style choices. They simply developed health problems in late adolescence that make insurance a necessity but impossibly expensive for them as student or as a person with a chronic disabling health condition.

America has the best health care system in the world; the problem is that fewer and fewer people can take advantage of it. The inequities of the health insurance system seem only to grow exponentially, creating greater and greater injustices.

Hospitals began as ministries of churches and religious orders. Yet, even these supposedly "faith-based" institutions operate unjustly, charging far more to the individual who has no health insurance to use the emergency room, for example, than the individual who does have insurance.

When will we in American churches begin to stand up for health care as a moral right, not something you get if you can afford it? I've seen comments by some of our fellow citizens that individuals who are in the U.S. as illegal aliens should not be allowed to receive health care. What? Shall we just let them collapse and die in our gutters?

Moreover, even self-interest ought to be able to see that when the federal budget cuts appropriations for Medicaid, and for Medicare, that it simply drives the prices up for everyone else. We also lose the productivity of those who can't afford to be treated for their diseases. We lose the educational potential of children who can't be seen by doctors because their parents make just a few dollars too much to qualify for Medicaid, and so they miss days at school, falling even further behind.

Finally, the cost of clergy health insurance continues to sky-rocket. Because most denominations are self-insured groups, the rates depend upon the health of the participants. Most clergy don't engage in behaviors like smoking or drinking, but I have to say, looking at my own set of scales, and at the girth of most of my colleagues, those ugly words morbid obesity apply to many of us, and surely has a great deal to do with our health insurance costs. But that's a subject for a future blog.

The cost of health insurance for church employees is forcing difficult decisions and impacting our capacity to provide ministries to our world.

As Pentecost arrives, it is time to allow the Spirit to come and knock us off our complacent duffs. We are called to preach and teach the good news of God's intention for all human beings to live lives of integrity and wholeness, and to heal the sick and mend the broken places in our world. It's time to resurrect the idea of national universal health care as a moral and spiritual right of all people.

In hope of unity, justice, and peace, Nancy Jo