GOP drops Christian values when it comes to health care reform

In 2009, death counts as a pre-existing condition

If the biblical story of Lazarus took place in the United States in 2009, it would go a bit differently. For starters, Jesus would need to run some tests and make sure the boy’s really dead. Lazarus and his family will receive a separate bill for each test, all of which confirm what they already knew — he was, in fact, dead.

Next, Jesus asks the boy’s family how they intend to pay for the necessary procedures. Lazarus’ father gets insurance through his job, but the Son of God is out of network. So Jesus writes a strongly worded letter to the insurer. They refuse again. Death counts as a pre-existing condition. Lazarus’ family will have to pay out of pocket. To prove their good faith, our Lord and Savior asks them to pay some cash up front.

At great cost, Jesus performs the procedure and Lazarus awakens, only to feel guilty for being alive at all – his family is saddled with debt and routinely harassed by a collection agency.

Now, if you can understand what makes this story particularly blasphemous, you get the point. Republicans, typically over-eager to invoke the name of Christ and declare a mission in His name, on issues ranging from marriage rights and family planning to declaring a candidate fit for public office have been giving Him a curious silent treatment. Anyone familiar with the shouting match over health care reform might have noticed that the halls of Congress no longer echo with the righteousness of His cause.

When it comes to universal, guaranteed health coverage for all Americans, the self-styled party of Judeo-Christian moral correctness has no Judeo-Christian moral argument for upholding the status quo, roughly 50 million Americans uninsured and countless others denied services they thought they were paying for.

The Republican party has turned away from its Christian-based moral messages because any half-way intelligent American knows Jesus wouldn’t approve of an insurer-based system that places profitability ahead of the people in need. Instead Americans are told by Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, “We want to give them [the uninsured] the dignity of private health insurance that everybody else in America is enjoying.”

The Republican moral argument is based on providing a Americans with a sense of “dignity.” Rep. Ryan says it comes from the ability to purchase a product “everyone else” has. He left out the dignity we all feel when entering an emergency room and being immediately asked financial questions, or the great dignity that comes with being denied a claim. More interestingly, Rep. Ryan’s statement suggests a belief that American moral values are based on keeping up with the Joneses. These strong moral values come from a man who voted for Christian Coalition-supported items 90 percent of the time in 2007-2008 – that’s down from 100 percent in 2002.

In abandoning Christian-values talking points, Republicans instead tell us it’s too expensive and will lead to more government debt. Why weren’t these same lawmakers — and protesters — worried about fiscal responsibility when the United States rushed headlong into invading Afghanistan and Iraq? Four thousand dead soldiers and, according to the Washington Post, more than $3 trillion dollars later, one should wonder what our humble Lord and Savior must think of a government that commits so many public funds to the bombing of Afghani wedding parties while denying basic health care to a significant portion of the population?

Even if we found a way to pay for a universal, government-provided system of coverage, Americans were told by Republican party chair Michael Steele that it would smack of “socialism.” (Whatever that even means in 2009.) If publicly funded services equate to socialism then Mr. Steele no doubt intends to stop driving on the Interstate and let his home burn down should it ever catch fire. Based on his statements, dialing 9-1-1 for police and fire protection sounds like a scheme masterminded by Hugo Chavez himself! Of course, Mr. Steele has not sought to end farm subsidies or close national parks, public schools or libraries, so I guess he’s a socialist too!

This whole Republican concept of “big government” is selective, to say the least. Where was the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth over President Bush? He oversaw the largest government expansion of my lifetime, creating the curiously named Department of Homeland Security. And where is Mr. Steele, or his opponent for the hearts and minds of conservative Americans, Rush Limbaugh, in decrying the approximately 800 US military facilities located around the globe? It’s tough to see how government can get much bigger than that.

While there are valid arguments against universal, single-payer health care, those put forth by the GOP seem disingenuous in light of the party’s stances on other issues. What should be most appalling, however, is the way it casually drops all pretexts of being the party of Christian values. In doing so, the party displays arrogance and callous disregard for the deeply held beliefs of its most loyal constituents, somehow convincing many of them to support a cause antithetical to the teachings of Christ himself. Perhaps more puzzling, they see political capital in denying Americans the right of access to quality medicine.

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