Health-care struggle is about freedom

In Health-care struggle is about freedom Star Parker brings up some worthwhile objections to the socialist leadership and their claims:

...Mr. Obama [has] reduced his opposition to liars.

And why, according to the president, are dissenters supposedly making all this stuff up? Because, he told his audience, they want to "discourage people from meeting … a core ethical and moral obligation ... that we look out for one another … that I am my brother's keeper. …"

So those whose fight for individual freedom are immoral and our moral champions are those who want to extend the heavy hand of government.

Forgive me if sermons about morality are a little hard to swallow from a man who supports partial-birth abortion, who just announced his intent to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.

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About 100,000 Americans participate in private, voluntary Christian communities, which take care of their own health care independent of government and insurance companies. They are called health-care sharing ministries.

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These ministries share pooled funds of around $80 million annually to take care of each other, driven only by guidelines of biblical principles to "Bear one another's burden, and thus fulfill the law of Christ."

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Health-care sharing ministries is one particularly beautiful example of how faithful Americans take care of themselves when allowed to be free. But there are many others.

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But, Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have slammed the door on all this. They only want to hear about more government. Not less.

The problem isn't that dissenting Americans are immoral. It's that Democrat leadership has a problem with individual freedom.

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It is also ironic that the ones that are often saying that the govt should not legislate morality are now saying that we need socialized medicine because it is the moral thing to do. On top of that, here they are involving religion. It is disgusting how they holler about separation of church and state when the church would interfere with their plans, but when they can use religion to advance their plans there they are. (Why do people let them get away with it?) This time, however, it is appropriate that religious leaders are involved, because this health-care issue involves the issue of freedom of religion.

How is this so? First, as others have mentioned, there is the issue of abortion. God abhors shedding innocent blood (Prov 6:16-19). He hates it so much that a nation that practices this will be judged harshly (Is 59 & Jer 22, for example). If an unborn human being is not an innocent human being, I don't know what is. The socialists claim that abortion will not be a part of there plan, but don't believe it. That claim flies in the face of their own statements in other venues, their reluctance to specifically prohibit it, and the record of their past actions. Anyone who believes that access abortion services should be a right is sooner or later going to make that part of nationalized medicine. Doing so forces on us all the blood-guilt of ending innocent life, and violates one of the core precepts of Christianity and Judaism, if not other religions.

This also violates the principles of our Founding Fathers who, I feel, made pretty clear the order of priority for such things. "Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," were not put in that order because it sounded best, but because they must come in that order. Without life there can not be liberty, nor can there be the pursuit of happiness. Without liberty there can not be the pursuit of happiness. So logic supports the order. But I digress.

Second, the Word of God says pure religion is taking care of those in need.

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. (1 Tim 5:4)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. (James 1:27)

Please pay attention to who is to look after those who are in need. The word "oneself" denotes that individuals are to do these things. While I will not deny that there is a societal onus in the Bible, it is an onus on the individuals of society to choose to act morally. If my ability to choose to act morally is taken away from me, then my ability to practice my religion is taken away from me. If the Federal govt takes my money from me for the purpose of caring for others, and then takes care of them so that they do not have need, then I no longer am able to choose to act in this way and my ability to practice my religion is limited.

Why is it important, though, for people to do this individually? Some reasons:

1. The ultimate purpose of Christianity is for people to be like Christ. Christ cared for others, and did so individually, as well as in groups.
2. Caring for others individually develops compassion, one of God's essential characteristics, and something that He desires to see in us.
3. People are better and more effectively served, cared for, and loved individually and by people who want to do so, rather than just for a paycheck or because they have to.
4. Freedom is an essential value of both Christianity and our Founding Fathers. Freedom is inherently individual. The Soviet Union may have been sovereign, and therefore "free," but no one ever truthfully described the Soviet Union as the "land of the free." The United States, however, where people were individually free could (at least at one time) accurately be described as the "land of the free."
5. Individually caring for others, even in such a way as the health-care sharing ministries, develops relationships, which in turn enriches people. The more connected, internally, any organization (including nations) is the stronger that organization is.

One further way nationalized health-care impinges on my religious liberty is that it reduces my ability to help others. It would do this because of the higher taxes. The more we pay in taxes, the less we have to use to help others. If it is not clear to you that taxes will go up in order to pay for this, then you are either not paying attention, are under-educated (try reading this book: Economics in One Lesson to start off with), or are blind. And this is not just going to individually decrease our ability to help others, it will also decrease our ability as a nation to help others. Because government run help to those in need are inherently less efficient than private organizations (see here for an explanation, or google it), there will be fewer of the same resources going to the people who actually need it.

I agree whole-heartedly with Star Parker that this is a struggle for freedom, and this includes freedom of religion, among others.

Btw, if you have not ever heard of health-care sharing ministries before, maybe you should check them out.