by Bishop Craig Anderson
From our founding, we as a nation have espoused the notion that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are inalienable rights. Today at least 45 million people in our country are without the most basic human right – life – which assumes a modicum of health. Health and health care is an individual and social responsibility. For Christians it is a moral responsibility. As such it is the prophetic task of the Church to call government, the health care profession and individuals to a reformation that will support the sacred gift of life.
Hypocrisy is the only word to describe how we as a nation have criticized other nations for “human rights violations” while denying the basic human right of health care to almost 20 percent of our population. It is an economic and moral outrage that we spend more money than any other nation on health care and are one of the most unhealthy nations given the ongoing rise of obesity, type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
Who bears the responsibility for the reform of health care in our nation? Government, the health care professions, insurance companies and individuals all share the responsibility. It is ironic that we elected a President with the clear expectation that he would reform health care and now are embroiled in partisan politics that threaten the needed reform that we mandated our President to deliver. Lies and fantasies about health care reform coupled with lies about our President have escalated to the point of being despicable. Lies – given a patina of legitimacy by a conservative media alliance built around talk radio and cable television, especially Fox News. Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage not reporting news but creating news through influence by way of lies, smears and hateful sound bites supported unfortunately by nominally respectable corporations and funded by national advertisers.
Health care reform as a human right and moral imperative transcends partisan politics. The character of a nation will be judged on how it cares for those who are sick and in need of healing, especially “the least of these…”
Greed, litigation, skyrocketing health care premiums and the self-interest of health care as a business are in need of reform and government regulation. Without it the current situation will only worsen. There is also another industry often unidentified that is a primary contributor to disease in our country: the food industry. In a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times (Sept. 10), Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and “In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto,” states that “The American way of eating has become the elephant in the room in the debate over health care.” We are spending $147 billion to treat obesity, $116 billion to treat diabetes and hundreds of billions more to treat cardiovascular disease and many types of cancer that have been linked to the so-called Western diet. “One recent study estimated that 30 percent of the increase in health care spending over the past 20 years could be attributed to the soaring rate of obesity.”
Pollan concludes by noting that passing a health care reform bill, no matter how ambitious, is only the first step in solving our health care crisis. To keep from bankrupting ourselves, we will then have to get to work on improving our actual health – which means going to work on “The American way of eating.”
Bishop Craig Anderson is the Rector for Emmanuel Episcopal Parish on Orcas.
