Half-truths about healthcare and U.S. founders

Two recent items about healthcare caught my eye. First, Paul Krugman in a New York Times op-ed column observed that the Republican Party has taken contradictory stands with respect to Medicare funding cuts, both opposing and advocating cuts (“Republicans and Medicare,” February 11, 2010). Krugman’s column prompted questions about how many groups obstruct progress toward meaningful healthcare reform in order to gain a tactical or strategic advantage for the group’s agenda unrelated to healthcare. I doubt that Democrats behave any better than Republicans. Yet, voters presumably elect members of Congress to enact legislation that if not in the best interest of the nation appears to be at least in the interest of the member’s constituency. Obstructionism of the type Krugman identified avoids addressing substantive issues by posturing for political gain.

Second, in the next few years as many as twenty new medical schools may open in the United States and some existing medical schools may expand enrollment. (Anemona Hartocollis, “After Years of Quiet, Expecting a Boom in U.S. Medical Schools,” New York Times, February 14, 2010.) In a free market economy, competition drives down prices. Increased supply results in increased competition. Perhaps part of the answer for controlling healthcare costs in the United States is to promote a free market among healthcare providers by increasing the supply of physicians. At some number of licensed physicians, excess supply will drive down the price of physician services. Heretofore, the American Medical Association, a de facto union, has aggressively advocated limiting medical school enrollment. The trend of U.S. students going abroad to attend medical school finally seems the catalyst for breaking that logjam.

Almost all biblical scholars agree that Jesus healed people. In other words, Jesus promoted good human health. The Congressional failure to enact healthcare reform in 2010 represents a sad commentary on the influence of special interest groups to prevail over the welfare of the broader community. I cannot construe debates driven by half-truths and narrow agendas as a genuine attempt to improve our dysfunctional healthcare system. Sadly, I no longer have much hope for significant improvement in the near term. The disparity between the healthcare of the nation’s affluent and its poor remains a scandalous indictment of how un-Christian the United States is.

In the meantime, some Christian fundamentalists in Texas, including a majority of the state school board, strive to rewrite U.S. history (Russell Shorto, “How Christian Were the Founders?” New York Times, February 11, 2010). Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and other significant voices during the nation’s founding years would bristle and object forcefully to efforts to characterize them as Christian. Nor did they want to found a Christian nation. For example, Jefferson rejected conventional understandings of Jesus as divine, a miracle worker, and resurrected. He constructed his own version of the New Testament by systematically removing every passage that he thought portrayed Jesus as divine, a miracle worker, or resurrected. Jefferson, like many of the key leaders during that formative period, was a deist rather than an orthodox Christians. To preserve their personal religious freedom and that of other dissenters, these founders supported the separation of religion from state control.

These same Texan Christian fundamentalists have prevailed in having Margaret Sanger removed from the curriculum for promoting eugenics (she actually was a birth-control pioneer) and in inserting Phyllis Schlafly as pivotal in the 1980s conservative resurgence in the United States. Both women played significant roles in American history. The reliance on falsehoods to promote a narrow agenda is deeply upsetting, paralleling what is happening in the healthcare debate. Margaret Sanger did not rise to prominence because of any stance she may or may not have taken with respect to eugenics. Those Texan Christian fundamentalists want the emphasis on abstinence rather than birth control; they also believe that abortion is murder. So they have twisted Sanger’s real views, labeling them eugenics, and rallying sufficient opposition to have Sanger removed from the textbooks from which the Texas public schools teach history. The positions on which they base those actions, which I find unsupportable, do not justify rewriting history to exclude divergent views. Similarly, I object strenuously to Schlafly’s understanding of gender differences and roles. However, even though I find her and her organization an embarrassing element of American history they remain part of that history as do slavery, child labor, and many other reprehensible events and practices. Failing to study the past honestly and critically greatly increases the likelihood of repeating sinful mistakes.