Chapter 14
Politics and Healthcare
“And at that time many will fall away and will deliver up one another and hate one another. “And many false prophets will arise, and will mislead many. “And because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. “But the one who endures to the end, he shall be saved.” (Mt 24:10-13 NAS)
There is no doubt that the United States was established as a Christian nation. I briefly touched on the history of our nation that had its roots in the early settlements in the beginning of the 17th century. But there has been a great falling away from those Christian roots and the moral values they held. As we entered the 21st century the complete takeover of our educational system had been accomplished. God and His role in our national history had been cleansed from all but the vestiges of His once dominate role in providing wisdom and moral guidelines. It is now without that moral foundation that our population is easily led and manipulated by false prophets and false teachers. As those who remember God’s historic role in our past crises, age and pass away, the voice of reason is being pushed to the side by a generation that does not know God.
With the rejection of God’s central role in our identity as a people, our population is reverting to the paganism that stemmed from Man’s fall in the Garden of Eden. Religion’s role in a pagan culture becomes a means to control and manipulate the population. God is replaced with government. Government becomes the supplier of rights and blessings, or so people are deceived into believing. For all that government provides is first gleaned from the people. Is this not simply Man becoming God? Or is it a little deeper than that?
How is it possible to convince people that a government can take our rights and wealth from us and return it to us in a form that benefits us? The simple answer is that it can only do it through deception. Government is a very poor substitute for God. God has provided us with our abundant natural resources which provide everything we need for life. We can plant, till, and water but it is God who makes it grow and provides the blessings of rain in its season. Government is now insisting that we must allow it to control our resources so that it can control the weather and climate. God offers the blessing of good weather “if we live righteously”. Government offers a stable climate if we submit to their control. Of course, government does not have the knowledge or ability to control the climate, but they do have their false prophets and false teachers.
It is the same in every area that the government promises to provide for us. Simple math will tell you that someone cannot take a dollar from you and then provide you with two dollars worth of services. But a government that borrows large sums of money can make you think they can. You or your children will eventually pay, with interest. Books could be written revealing the truth of how the wealth of America is being used to destroy what was once good about America and the freedom we once had. It has been estimated that it takes six dollars for the government to supply a poor person with one dollar’s worth of food. Where is all the rest of the money going? It is supplying the fuel for the political agenda that promises to replace God.
Let me give you one more example of the false promises of government. Healthcare has become the number one issue at times. The false prophets claim that healthcare is a right. What does that mean? Who grants us that right? Government? Words have meaning, but as phrases become common rhetoric they take on new meaning.
Literally speaking, if healthcare is a right, then I have the right to take care of my health. If we compare healthcare to life (one of the unalienable rights proposed in our Declaration of Independence) we can put things into perspective. The right to life is a grant from God, only God can create life. Because it is a grant from God no man has the right to deprive us of that right. There are exceptions that are granted and explained in the Scripture, but they are based upon the judgment of God. We also need to note that the right to life comes with responsibility. The responsibility to maintaining that life falls first to the people who bring that life into the world (parents) and later to the individual. God has provided the natural resources and ability for us to provide the food, clothing, and shelter necessary for sustaining life, but it is our responsibility to maintain life. This is a very simplistic explanation, for the knowledge necessary for us to fulfill our responsibility has been passed down to us through the generations. We also have the Scriptures that give us the knowledge and wisdom necessary.
When people and politicians refer to “healthcare” as a right they have something entirely different in mind, even though they are using the language of our founding documents. The recognition of the rights referred to in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights is on a different level than their assertion of “healthcare” as a right. This is just one example of the expansion of government and the role it plays in the life of the citizens of the country. Healthcare can only become a right granted by government to its citizens if government provides healthcare. Remember, government can only provide for its citizens something that it first took from them.
The beginning issue really is the provision of the cost of healthcare. We live in an age in which knowledge and technology have provided us with the ability to understand and treat injury and disease on many different levels. It is often complicated and sometimes very costly. This has become a blessing and a curse. All of this marvelous diagnostic equipment, medicine, and costly operations have caused the cost of healthcare to rise astronomically. Even the most basic of things like treating cuts and bruises has become expensive as we try to support this enormous machine we label “healthcare”. So the issue politicians present as a government cure is for government to pay for your healthcare. But even if government had the money to pay for our healthcare it would not solve this problem. It is much more complicated than just money, and “healthcare” as a right gets to be “very” complicated.
First, government has to obtain the funds, and that means taxes. Then someone has to decide what treatments are going to be paid for and under which circumstances is each person eligible. Keep in mind that some treatments may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and there is no guarantee they will always work or how long they will extend a person’s life. And it all gets much more complicated when we consider that the nature of healthcare is very individualistic. Do we dare ask why a person has their particular injury or disease? Do we address prevention? Is there a cure for stupidity or prevention for neglect? There actually is a cure for stupidity and prevention for neglect, but politics is not even part of the answer for these maladies.
What we find in our age of politics and its Orwellian language is that nothing is actually what it says it is. Healthcare should be considered a “right”, we should be able to care for our health without the dictates of government. The responsibility for healthcare must rest with the individual, or in the case of children, with their parents. When advocates of government-controlled health care call healthcare a “right” they are talking about something entirely different. What they are actually calling for is making the treatment of health-related issues the responsibility of the government. For government to become responsible for our healthcare we must cede our “right” of healthcare to the government. Government then has the power to determine what and when we need care. Government must then extract the resources from the citizens to provide the services needed.
Many people have been persuaded that regardless of the cost, government healthcare can solve the problems and provide healthcare for all. But it simply does not work. One of the many reasons why it does not work is because those making important decisions about our health care are politicians and bureaucrats. Their main concerns are politics, money, power, and prestige, not necessarily in that order. Because their main concern is not your individual health they are easily influenced by corporate interests and political factions. Even if they become aware of the value of prevention and cause, they are unable to effectively address these most important aspects of healthcare. Because of the forces that drive politics, emphasis within healthcare is placed on a cure rather than a cause.
It is only when the responsibility for healthcare is left with the individual that prevention and cause can be adequately addressed. Only on the individual level can prevention be properly implemented. It is only dealing with people on the individual basis that caregivers can help identify potential causes. It is only in an atmosphere absent of politics that we can find and address the sometimes inconvenient truths that are uncovered through honest inquiry.
All of this brings us right back to the high moral ground. It is the ceding of the high moral ground that allows all the conversation about healthcare to go on without acknowledging that the root cause of most of our sickness is a departure from moral living. The best advice for prevention of sickness and disease is found in the Holy Scripture. The true cure for our ailments begins with our acknowledgement of sin. The best treatment for all our ailments begins with a meeting with the one and only Great Physician.
It is a fact that we cannot live forever in this world that has been affected by sin. But many of the ailments that people face have a direct cause from their sinful behavior. It is not politically correct to address our healthcare issues from the perspective of the high moral ground of God’s Word. So people continue to suffer and die prematurely because we replace morality with politics.