I am just wondering, for all those that do not support Obama’s healthcare plan…do you think that countries such as France, Canada, England, etc should be fighting to privatize health care? Should they be against their universal healthcare systems? If you don’t think so, then why are you so against America’s government healthcare?
First of all, I am an opponent of Obamacare.
I do not, however, think that our method of financing health care is good. I also think that this lack of goodness in how it’s paid for has pushed the method of providing the health care is less good than it should be.
I always attempt to formulate my ideas about how society should exist based upon the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine. Those principles are:
- Affirming the dignity of the human person in all that we do
- Promotion of the common good
- Recognizing the universal destination of goods and affirming the preferential option for the poor.
- Realizing the importance of programs that promote subsidiarity
- Realizing the importance of us *all *having **solidarity **one with another
- Understanding that the above is only possible with the active participationof all members of the society
I believe that a health care system that is centrally administered (along with
any social program that is centrally administered) violate each and every one of those principles. I believe that our health care system, which is formulated around large insurance plans, violates the above. I believe that Obamacare, which increases the centralized control of the system, will take the system farther away from where it should be, rather than taking it in the right direction.
Do you realize that it is impossible for a health care provider to
donate his services on a tax-deductible basis to use his skills to care for the poor? If you take a look at
IRS publication 526, you will find that the value of your time and/or services are not deductible…and even if they were, donations to individuals, no matter how needy, are not deductible as charitable donations.
I personally know both doctors and dentists who care for the indigent as they are able, even though it is basically discouraged by the above government taxation policy. What I’m told is that they basically have to write off those services. What would happen if those providers were able to deduct their expenses for those who could not pay as charitable donations? (Naturally, no doctor would be able to do an excessive amount, as the bills would still need to be paid…but some could be done)
Just think about that one little change in terms of the principles of
solidarity and
participation. To say nothing of
subsidiarity.
Most doctors are in their business because they want to be healers, not because they want to be the super-rich (the super-rich become lawyers or CEOs…not doctors). Why not encourage that to support the
common good and the
preferential option for the poor through tax policy…rather than to implement a system that will actually discourage volunteerism?
As far as how other countries do it…well, I lived in Europe for 9 years. The German system would probably not be all that bad. But you’ve got to keep in mind that our culture is not the German culture. And I’m not sure it would work over here. As for the Italian and Turkish systems: one thing to keep in mind is that those countries have basically two different systems: one for the rich and one for everybody else. That will likely be how ours turns out after all is said and done. While both were technically competent, let us say that the second one (the system for everybody else) did not exactly support the
dignity of the human person.
I think we can do a lot better and have a system that supports all of the principles of Catholic Social Doctrine. But we need to reverse the course taken, not just to repeal Obamacare but to dismantling the existing over-centralized system that we have in place in favor of one that is truly distributionist in nature.
