Bomber Pilots Among the Sheep

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Karl Marx famously said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Although his taunt misses true religion, there are many forms of religion in the world that his arrow hits dead center. One of them would be the Pharisaism of Jesus’ day.

We often miss the import of the Lord’s teaching, his cryptic sayings, and His parables, because we do not understand the running story of conflict between Him and the Pharisees. The Pharisees disregarded the poor, and had devised workarounds so that they did not have to obey passages like Dt. 15:7-8. They did not open their hand wide to their poor brothers, but instead had all kinds of rationalizations in place, for themselves and for the poor. To keep the poor from becoming restive, the Pharisees taught that poverty in this life would be compensated for in the next, almost exactly what Marx (himself a hypocrite and liar) was complaining about. But if that is true, as the Lord argued in His famous satire, the places must switch in the other direction too, and the rich will be in torments. Well, no, not exactly, the Pharisee muttered, trying to get off the hook.

The rich man in that parable was the Pharisaical caste, who had usurped privileges not theirs—they were dressed in purple (kings) and linen (priests). Lazarus, an abbreviation of Eleazar (whom God helps) was a fitting name—the Pharisees loved to fob responsibility for the poor off onto God directly. And the plight of men like Lazarus—sinners, rejected, cast off—was addressed more by men like Cornelius, a Roman centurion (Acts 10:2) than it was by the hyper-pious leaders of the people. The dogs would lick his sores. But would the guardians of Dt. 15 do anything? Not on your life.

The divine calculus always messes with our categories. The radical teaching of Jesus is very unlike what many would like to call being radical—there will be, after all, scrupulous Bible teachers among the goats and bomber pilots among the sheep.

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MeMe
6 years ago

“Karl Marx famously said that religion was the opiate of the masses.”

How ironic that our modern pharisees seem to have delighted in just dumping literal opiates on the masses to keep the poor from becoming restive.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

I just saw today on CNN or somewhere that librarians are being trained in administering Narcan because there are so many overdoses happening in libraries. Where are these drugs coming from?

Jonathan
Jonathan
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

A great number of them come from doctors who simply place the conscience aside to make a buck.

Or who are too lazy, or too caught up in the “drugs and technology solve everything” mindset, to look into root issues rather than automatically prescribing hard-core opiates anytime someone complains of pain.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Jonathan

I think that even when physicians are willing to look for deeper issues, they don’t necessarily have much they can offer by way of help. I am sure that a lot of people who abuse their pain meds do it because they are depressed and desperate. A lot of patients live in places where there is not much access to psychiatric care. Doctors may suspect the patients are self-medicating but they don’t have much else to offer.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Most of them are coming in from Mexico.

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I think a lot of the “opiates” are actually fentynil. I knew a guy who died from it.
I just read that Prince died from it too.????

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  adad0

The problem with fentanyl is that the effective dose is very close to the toxic dose. It is also very hard to screen for.

I don’t know what the answer is.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago

I wonder if the parable of Lazarus was against the high priest family who were Sadducees.

The rich man is unnamed. He is wealthy. He dresses well; purple clothing may represent royalty/ rulership. He eats well. He has 5 brothers. And there may also be a subtle hint that his brothers deny the resurrection of the body.

Caiaphas was wealthy, dressed well, was a ruler, he ate well, had 5 brothers-in-law. He was a Sadducees and the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the body.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

They didn’t believe in an afterlife. And that is why they were Sad, you see.

adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Oof!????

kyriosity
kyriosity
6 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

Interesting. I don’t think Scripture records the five brothers-in-law, but that appears to jibe with other historical knowledge of Annas’s family.

bethyada
bethyada
6 years ago
Reply to  kyriosity

No, only the father Annas. Josephus: Ananus [Annas] proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. (Antiquities of the Jews, 20.9.1). Caiphas was married to Annas’ daughter. There was a son of Annas, also called Annas, who ordered James (of the epistle) to be put to death. There is a theory that Theophilus to whom Luke and Acts was written to was the Theophilus… Read more »

Joseph Gerth
Joseph Gerth
6 years ago

Wait, was this reading a parable? Because Jesus never called it such

Barnie
Barnie
6 years ago

Convergence of the churches represents a Constantinian shift as they switch sides to back the strong horse in the culture war.

Barnie
Barnie
6 years ago

You’re absolutely right but here’s the problem. The Pharisee is very good at this since he clawed his way to the top past other Pharisees and he speaks from a position of superior holiness. He’s going to challenge you to give all you have to the poor and either you will (in which case you’ll be a homeless bum with kids to feed and no longer a threat to his power) or you wont and he’ll turn to the crowd and say “See, he’s the hypocrite.” He wins either way. The way I see it you are going to have… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Barnie

“The way I see it you are going to have to break out of the false ethic where care for victims eclipses everything else.” I’m going to agree with you on this one issue. It’s really tough on the working class and poor who are actually striving to live right, when care for “victims” begins to eclipse everything. So who gets funding, care, access to services, support? Those who have made a mess of their lives, disabled due to addiction, homeless because they didn’t pay the rent, chronically unemployed, single moms with half a dozen kids. I am full of… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Barnie

Barnie wrote:

The way I see it you are going to have to break out of the false ethic where care for victims eclipses everything else.

Indeed. Much mischief and guilt manipulation results from the attempt to place the poor at the very center of the Gospel. The poor are of great concern, but that doesn’t make them the center.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago

While I have some quibbles with some lines in this post, I am more in agreement with Doug than not. It strikes me, however, that Christian opposition to universal health care and social safety nets is precisely the same sort of rationalizing workaround that the Pharisees had. In Jesus’ day, universal health care wan’t even on the radar, but it’s not tough to imagine what the Pharisees would have said if asked if they were willing to have their taxes go up to ensure food and health care for the poor. I know the answer from Christian conservatives: God gave… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“…..but it’s not tough to imagine what the Pharisees would have said if asked if they were willing to have their taxes go up to ensure food and health care for the poor.”

The very wealthy never pay those taxes. Those taxes are only going to fall on the middle class and the working poor who you are alleging you want to help.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Oh, I don’t know; other countries seem to be able to tax the very wealthy. All it requires is political will.

But even if you are right, your solution is what exactly?

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

My solution is to get the far left with their unicorn theories of economics as far away from the reins of power as possible, to smash the entire victim grievance industry, and to drain the swamp.

So far my plans for world domination are coming along nicely.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

How would that look in practical terms? Is a disabled person on Social Security part of the victim grievance industry? Should he be cut off? Should the people who have got themselves hooked on opioids go without treatment unless they can afford to pay for it themselves, and will this make for a stronger, healthier society? What about the mom whose ex is thousands of dollars behind in child support? Should we starve the children to teach mom a lesson? I agree that it is tiresome to have to pay for other people’s irresponsible decisions, although I am entirely willing… Read more »

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I actually like Mother Teresa here, “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love. The poverty in the West is a different kind of poverty — it is not only a poverty of loneliness but also of spirituality. There’s a hunger for love, as there is… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

I think that is very true. I do think the antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications are important, speaking as someone who doesn’t function well without them, but they are not enough in themselves. And some people have horrible physical problems that love just can’t fix. Stuff like kidney failure that will always need medical care. I think we need to have both.

But, have you noticed that it is hard to initiate contact with people who might need you but who you don’t know through church.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Mother Teresa has a point, but nothing in that quotation actually puts food in the stomachs of the poor or provides health care to the sick.

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Gulag gulash!
Stalinist comfort food!

It’s good if you can get it,
But his 9,000,000 victims were not so lucky.

‘Wonder how many “victims” that “nice” Mother Teresa had? ????????

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  adad0

adad, the idea that any progressive policies leads to gulags is just silly. One could equally as well argue that all religion leads to inquisitions. YOU may not be able to tell the difference between Stockholm and Siberia, but that doesn’t mean nobody else can.

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Well,
At least you blog name is not
“Reality_chek”. ????

That would be too funny!????

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill Smith wrote: How would that look in practical terms? Is a disabled person on Social Security part of the victim grievance industry? Should he be cut off? In practical terms, Social Security is a ponzi scheme attached to a bankrupt socialist state. So when discussing unsustainable promises, it’s not a question of whether people will be cut off, but when. If Jill has a genuine practical concern for the needy, she should be considering a return to practical alternatives to that system. To simply attempt to rationalize socialism to the bitter end doesn’t seem like “an approach consistent with… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I believe that the government has a role in providing for the sick and the poor, and I have lived in a country where this role is accepted by the vast majority of the voters. This role does not remove the need for private citizens to extend charity to people in need. My preference would always be for those close to the person in crisis to give them assistance tailored to his or her circumstances with a view to returning them to self-sufficiency as quickly as possible–when this is in fact possible. I think that for individuals who fall on… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

As I was saying, to simply attempt to rationalize socialism to the bitter end doesn’t seem like “an approach consistent with Christian beliefs”, nor is it consistent with a high regard for the role and authority of the Church.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

Yes, I understood that. My point was that my own experience left me with grave doubt about the ability of the church to care for the poor within its own flock, let alone the outside world. When the church can do nothing for the misfortunes of a longtime faithful and diligent worker, who in their senses would entrust it with ensuring that people who, through no fault of their own are suddenly cast into poverty, still are treated with kindness and given something to eat? I am not interested in defending socialism to the bitter end. I am interested in… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill Smith wrote: I am interested in ensuring that people have somewhere to turn when they are poor. I love the church and I respect its authority over my spiritual welfare. But the church is not, and perhaps cannot be, interested in my temporal welfare. We finally come to the rub. Jill has assigned the Church to the spiritual stuff, leaving no compassionate Mother to care for the needy out of God’s own tithe and storehouse. She must turn to some temporal sword-bearing entity to fill this role because the Church is “perhaps” dead to such a task. Is it… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

When I take a good hard look in the mirror, I see many detestable things quite apart from the havoc the California sun has wreaked on a pale complexion. I have many truly horrible spiritual defects including, when pushed, a truly satanic level of pride and stubbornness. In my spiritual mirror I see intellectual arrogance, spiritual conceit, and the kind of unimaginativeness that has to have have human suffering right in front of me before I act. By the nature of the beast, I don’t see the self-deception that everyone else can see in me, but I have no doubt… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill Smith wrote: But when I look in the mirror, I don’t see someone who has completely sloughed off her duty to help the church in its mission to the sick and the poor. What duty? Jill can’t have it both ways. She cannot say that “the church is not, and perhaps cannot be, interested in my temporal welfare”, and then say that the Church has a mission to the sick and the poor. Which is it? Jill Smith wrote: I have no intention of discussing specifics, but of the many sins and wrong decisions I reproach myself for, lack… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

You and I seem determined to willfully misunderstand each other. Let me try again, being as clear as possible. 1. I have never said that the church has no role in providing services to those in need. For me, it is not either the state or the church. It should be both-and. As I said in an earlier post on this thread, I believe that the best point of service is local. If by providing a basket of groceries once a week, a church can keep a parishioner off welfare, that is the ideal to be hoped for. If a… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill wrote: 1. I have never said that the church has no role in providing services to those in need. Jill previously wrote: I love the church and I respect its authority over my spiritual welfare. But the church is not, and perhaps cannot be, interested in my temporal welfare. Words have meaning, and Jill can’t have it both ways. If the Church has a duty and role in the temporal welfare of the poor, then it has an interest in the same, and Jill was wrong to say otherwise. Jill attempted to separate spiritual and material roles, and give… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

All right, Katecho, after much thought. The reason that my statements are illogical and contradictory is that my doctrine is at war with my emotions to a degree I had not previously recognized. You used the analogy of a bad mother. I am going to use the analogy of marriage. I believe that marriage is the best source for happiness in this vale of tears. I firmly believe that God gave us marriage as one His best gifts. I believe that marriage makes people happier, healthier, and even more virtuous than they might have been had they stayed single. But… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill Smith wrote: So. What I ought to have said is, “Sometimes an individual church can handle the temporal realm so badly that you start to feel as if they have no interest in it, and that we are just a collection of souls without bodies. There are several lines of argument that I could continue to push, but I think the most important thing at this point is to commend Jill on patiently hearing my objection, acknowledging a contradiction, and making a sincere effort to try to resolve it. The personal experience of deep hurt within marriage and church… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

OK, MeMe, so your earlier post was just concern trolling and you don’t actually care if the poor have a social safety net or not. Got it.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Actually I am “the poor,” so not concern trolling at all. Love really does put food on the table, it enables and empowers people to get their needs met for themselves. In the US, the vast majority of our homeless and our addicts are suffering from spiritual wounds that simply cannot be healed by treating the symptoms and throwing money at them. Love IS the social safety net that we need in the West. “Here’s an extra 20 bucks in food stamps and a prescription for opiates,” is not only inadequate, it’s down right cruel. I am angry Krychek, I… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Actually, a significant part of poverty in this country is traceable to conservative policies, not liberal ones. Liberals weren’t the ones pushing globalization that sent jobs out of the country. Liberals weren’t the ones who gutted labor unions, that enhanced the working class standard of living. Liberals weren’t the ones who deregulated financial institutions, allowing them to cause the 2008 financial collapse. Liberals weren’t the ones who gave tax cuts to the wealthy, which in turn caused the deficits to spiral out of control. You’re blaming the wrong people. Liberals aren’t the ones who inherited a healthy economy from Bill… Read more »

adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

And yet, somehow, the Cookie Monster is blue!? ????

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Uh yeah, Nancy in her gated community with her botox injections is a fabulous example in which to lecture people about the nature of the beast and the inherent joys of liberalism. You probably should have just gone with Adad’s blue Cookie Monster instead.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Make personal attacks on liberals you don’t like if it makes you feel better, it doesn’t change the fact that red policies hurt the poor and working class, and blue policies don’t. Truthfully, there’s a small part of me that hopes that Paul Ryan and company are successful in gutting the social safety net, because then maybe red state voters will realize what they’ve been voting for all these years. I’m not vicious enough to actually want that to happen, but the 22 million people now likely to lose their health insurance mostly voted for Trump. So maybe karma is… Read more »

adad0
adad0
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

No personal attacks on blue Cookie Monsters,
were made in the creation of these comments! ; – )

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

I don’t understand your problem with her. Why is it okay for a rich conservative to be absolutely indifferent to the welfare of the sick and the poor, but somehow wrong for a rich liberal to care about them?

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jilly, because his (her?) position is visceral, not logical. MeMe hates liberals (even though I suspect she probably benefits from some of their policies). I may have said this here before, and if so I apologize for repeating myself, but I have a sister with multiple disabilities who is on SSI. She votes Republican because she’s a racist who hates immigrants. Then she calls me and cries because her benefits are being cut and she doesn’t know how to survive. That’s about as irrational and illogical as I can imagine, and candidly my sympathy for her is pretty thin right… Read more »

JohnM
JohnM
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2, I seldom vote Democrat, and have never for President, for reasons I won’t go into here except to say they’re not the same as those you attribute to your sister, however your point about many Republican voters in your sister’s circumstance makes sense. However, earlier you said: “I agree with you that the solution is not another $20 in food stamps so much as jobs, and Democratic policies create them….” But how would that help people like your sister with multiple disabilities? Do not a few people just need food stamps, or something like that? At the same time,… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

JohnM, I believe that people who are able to work should do so; work is a blessing. And I believe the system should have as many checks and balances as possible to keep abuse to a minimum, although probably no system will ever be completely immune to abuse. At the same time, there are some people who are simply not able to function for one reason or another. I have another relative who is mentally retarded and functions at the level of a 6-year-old, even though she’s now almost 70. Over her life she has done things that brought in… Read more »

JohnM
JohnM
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

I don’t fault people for being born rich, though of course I don’t give them any credit either. Frankly, I’d raise everyone’s taxes, and would be happy to invent ways to tax the able bodied/able minded who otherwise contribute nothing, until we pay down debt, and until everyone figures out that there is really no such thing as free.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

Would rather raise every citizen’s taxes today than pass the debt on to a generation that wasn’t around to vote against the theft, and will see little of the benefit.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

When the ACA was being legislated, I understood that one of the central goals was to deal with the kind of abuse you mention. In California people who lacked any health insurance went to county facilities when they got sick. They received treatment and then a bill which they were often unable to pay. Because they did not have savings and assets that the county could seize to pay the bill, they knew they had little to lose by deciding not to pay for health insurance. This was grossly unfair to the rest of us who did keep up our… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

I too have had a hard time sympathizing with people I have seen being interviewed about the potential loss of benefits they rely on. One person said that she voted for Trump because she thought he was going to cut benefits to minorities, not to poor white people like her.

JohnM
JohnM
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

“One person said that she voted for Trump because she thought he was going to cut benefits to minorities, not to poor white people like her.”

Nothing about that should surprise me, but it does never cease to astound, how lacking in self-awareness people can be. Reminds me of a married woman I knew more or less shacking up with a married (to someone else) man, gossip-criticizing another woman for adultery. She thought about it a moment and then said. “Of course there’s me and Frank”. (brief silence) “But that’s different”.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  JohnM

Isn’t it amazing how it is always different? The capacity for self-delusion is apparently infinite.

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

That has seldom been my experience when I have been one of the poor. I grew a little of weary of my church people telling me they loved me while watching me pass out from hunger because the only person I could afford to feed was my daughter. Giving “love”is certainly easier and cheaper than giving someone a basket of groceries. “We know you’re recovering from cancer but we want to empower you with love, so go get a job.” That isn’t love. That’s abdicating responsibility because, not only are these people unwilling to help you themselves, they are even… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

In the 2011 election campaign, Mitt Romney pointed out that 47% of all Americans pay no federal income tax. People got upset, but the numbers turned out to be true. A lot of the working poor and lower middle class don’t earn enough to pay federal income tax after various deductions and credits are factored in. The number of nonpayers is less now because the economy is better than in 2011.

Rich people may have access to tax lawyers, but I do think they are mostly paying a lot of money in taxes.

CHer
CHer
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

“Rich people may have access to tax lawyers, but I do think they are mostly paying a lot of money in taxes.discussion.”

They are. If anyone is a victim here, it’s the middle-class who work long hours (or 2 or 3 jobs or side hustles) because they refuse to live off the dole. Some of the more crafty 47% live better lifestyles than the hardest workers do.

demosthenes1d
demosthenes1d
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

They still pay payroll taxes (if they work), property taxes (if they own any), use taxes, liscensing fees, and (egregiously) sales taxes. Folks with very little income can still have a quite high effective tax rate, and if you take into account the marginal utility of the dollars they surrender in taxation they have a much higher “real” tax burden than high income folks.

Rich people should be divided up too, a surgeon making 500k likely pays much more in taxes than an investor making 500k.

Matt
Matt
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

The rich pay the majority of the taxes in the US. It’s even a conservative talking point.

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Matt

The rich pay the majority of the taxes, and that includes the fact that the very wealthy have lots of ways of avoiding taxes (just ask Warren Buffett). Of course the dirty little socialist secret is that taxes don’t pay for all of the government expenditures and promises anyway. The Democrats complain that we should just raise taxes to satisfy the hungry government beast. They seem to just enjoy grabbing more and more of other people’s money “for the good of society”, etc. The Republicans complain that we should cut taxes to stimulate the economy, while the debt explodes. Neither… Read more »

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

K2, the final solution is in Luke 10: 25-37. There are different realms of responsibility and the state does not need to interfere as you so desire. The good Samaritan did not rely on the government to help the robbed man with his injuries. Instead, the good Samaritan took care of it on his own. That is the logical conclusion and the Biblical conclusion.

Universal health care is only a premise to steal from those who work and give to those who did not earn it. That is why it is so desirable today.

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

The Good Samaritan wasn’t faced with a six-digit medical bill for someone with cancer or heart disease. And what makes you think that people with catastrophic medical bills didn’t work? A lot of them worked hard all their lives.

Some things are more efficiently taken care of collectively than individually. This is one of them.

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

K2, your concepts of government and church are just like K2 skis — they go downhill quickly. The good Samaritan was faced with a hefty bill for his day and he paid it out of his pocket. Our extremely high medical bills are caused by government regulation and other complications caused by that regulation. For example, a doctor with one Medicare patient must charge Medicare prices to all his patients, even if the others are not on Medicare. That decision was from the Federal court system. It was not the case at all before and a doctor was free to… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Our extremely high medical bills are a function of the fact that we have technology that keeps people alive a lot longer than they used to — once upon a time, before technology, a patient either got better or died and that was that — but this technology comes with a price. If a hospital uses a million dollar piece of equipment to prolong someone’s life for a month, somebody has to pay for it. And as for government regulation raising the cost. we spend about 16% of our GDP on medical care; the Europeans, who have single payer, spend… Read more »

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

k2, you are right — the Soviet single payer medical program was enjoyed by all! It was so good that moms in the maternity wards had to have their families take care of them because the hospitals wouldn’t. The Venezuela model is also a sterling example of the single payer (Communist) model of health care that you wish upon everyone else. The VA is an example of USofA single payer health care and it stinks. I watched one of my good friends die after a simple surgery because of the extremely poor VA care given him at Fitzsimons Army Hospital… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Arguing that a social safety net leads to the gulags is like arguing that all religions lead to the Inquisition. It’s a silly argument. There are multiple models, some of them better than others, and you picking the worst of them isn’t an accurate representation.

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Canada has one of the better single payer systems; yet, Canadians come to the USofA for health care because they can’t get taken care of in their wonderful system. If you QUALIFY, you may get a replacement joint when the money becomes available not when you need it. If you are old, you probably won’t get the replacement.

If single payer worked so well, Canadians, Germans and others would not be in a Mexican, Indian or Asian specialty clinic getting worked on. They would be at home using the single payer system instead of abroad paying out of pocket.

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

” I would only urge you to follow it to its logical conclusion.” K2 To finish out the thought, all of the failed communist systems, socialist systems and those which do not honor God fail. K2 complains that I pointed out the worst as examples; however, they are the logical conclusion. It’s easy to point at the good systems that are working, but when they fall down it is a huge mess and everyone is quick to say “Our system won’t do that because we are smarter then they were.” Honor God in all that you do. That includes politics,… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

I disagree with your premise, but even so, what makes you so certain that single payer doesn’t honor God? There’s a lot in the Bible about taking care of the poor, and your attempt to divide responsibility so it’s not the state’s job frankly strikes me as an attempt to evade the plain meaning of those texts. You don’t want the state involved in health care so you’ve created out of whole cloth a division of responsibility that’s nowhere in the text. Find me something in the Bible that explicitly says that the state is forbidden to provide health care,… Read more »

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Single payer takes by force from those who earned the wage and gives to others. That is not scriptural. Show me in scripture where it is allowed to force bakers to produce cakes for a homosexual wedding. Show me where it is allowed to kill babies in their mother’s womb? Show me where it is allowed to pay healthy individuals to sit at home and not work or to sit at home and be paid to have babies on the tax payer dime. No K2, America is off the straight and narrow path and needs to avoid solutions that you… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Show me where abortion or gay marriage or cake baking have anything to do with single payer health care. And unless you’re a total anarchist who doesn’t believe in government at all, you must believe in some taxation, so the question is where that line gets drawn and not whether it exists.

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

“Find me something in the Bible that explicitly says that the state is forbidden to provide health care, then we’ll talk.” You asked for the logical conclusions and then didn’t like the answers. The good Samaritan shows how health care is to be taken care of and is explicit — people not government. You didn’t like that answer.and countered with huge bills. Then when Christian insurance was offered you didn’t like that answer. When communist health care was brought forth, you countered with it as a bad example when in fact it is the logical conclusion that we have witnessed… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek_2 wrote: Find me something in the Bible that explicitly says that the state is forbidden to provide health care, then we’ll talk. Krychek_2 seems to have adopted a hermeneutic that anything is permitted of the State unless it is explicitly forbidden. Like most things, he apparently plucks that bias out of thin air and expects us to jump. What if everything is forbidden of the State unless it is explicitly permitted? Krychek_2 doesn’t seem to comprehend such a possibility. Is God’s assignment of the sword of His wrath not a big enough clue that the State is not in… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

It is undeniable that there are long delays for elective procedures. However, my father got a knee replacement at the age of 80. Due to underfunding, there is a shortage of operating rooms. However, I know the system very well, and I can assure you that when there is a genuine medical emergency, you do not wait for treatment. My mother, who is 97, receives excellent medical care including house visits. My brother waited a year for his knee replacement. He could have paid to have it done right away in Seattle, but it was not seriously inconveniencing him and… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

You misunderstand how single payer works. To use a food analogy, single payer means that everyone is guaranteed enough calories a day to be healthy, but it does not mean that everybody gets steak and lobster every night. If you’re rich enough to afford steak and lobster, you can buy it yourself.

Likewise, with single payer, everyone gets medical necessities. If you can afford better, you’re free to get it on your own. But the point is a guaranteed minimum so that nobody lacks necessities.

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

The point is that it doesn’t work. “. . .everyone is guaranteed enough calories a day to be healthy, but it does not mean that everybody gets steak and lobster every night.” Now examine that thought in the logical conclusion to the socialist method of working which means that some will be given bugs to eat because they have enough protein to sustain and some will be given steak because all animals are equal but some are more equal than others. In communist and socialist countries those on the bottom barely eat at all. That fact is exposed in numerous… Read more »

Krychek_2
Krychek_2
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Right, single payer health care leads to people eating bugs just like religion leads to people hijacking airplanes and flying them into buildings. If you’re going to take the most extreme possibility, then nothing should be allowed. People shouldn’t eat since it may lead to obesity. People shouldn’t breathe since they may ingest carcinogens and get cancer. People shouldn’t marry because they might get divorced.

Sorry, but your slippery slope argument is just nonsense. Everything might lead to something bad, so nothing should be permitted. That’s no way to go through life.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Government run health care often is much like eating bugs. I’ve worked in it. People themselves may care deeply but the system is always so dysfunctional patients are totally forgotten and lost in the shuffle. People who have had to camp out in front of public health clinics waiting for their name to be called can tell you this. The VA is another example of some real problems when we put Gov in charge. Due to the ACA, we now have this huge shortage of doctors, people piling up in ER’s and urgent care facilities, critical appointments being scheduled for… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

Do you think that people who could not get insurance because of pre-existing conditions or because they could not afford it were better off before the ACA? Did doctors and hospitals treat them for free? I wonder why there were all those bake sales to raise money for children’s leukemia treatments.

MeMe
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

I totally, absolutely, believe the poor and working class, and much of the middle class too, are way worse off because of the ACA. We have insurance policies that cover nothing, huge deductables going to collections, irs fines when you can’t afford the ponzi scheme anymore. We have people actually getting divorced just so they can qualify for better insurance. We have people quiting their jobs because to work is no longer profitable. When your income plunges low enough and you now qualify for medicaid, the state is allowed to make your benefits become a lean on your home,too. So… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  MeMe

This is hard for me to grasp because most of my personal experience has been with people who were helped by the ACA. My HMO, Kaiser–which I think is wonderful–picked up many new patients and made massive profits without cutting care. My friends’ premiums went from $1200 a month to $500, and new items were covered. It was very good for hourly workers who don’t typically have access to insurance through work. So, while of course I believe you, it is hard for me to understand what went wrong in other places. Before ACA, how did your state treat the… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Krychek_2

Krychek, can you envision single payer ever working in the U.S.? I can’t. I think it requires a reasonably homogeneous population in terms of values and expectations. There is an old joke that goes something like this: How do you get 50 Canadians out of a swimming pool in five seconds? Say, “Everyone out of the pool, please.” This is a national trait that most Americans don’t even find explicable, let alone admirable. But it is a trait that makes single payer possible. For single payer to work, you need an absence of attitudes of entitlement, and you need a… Read more »

Katecho
Katecho
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill Smith wrote: For single payer to work, you need an absence of attitudes of entitlement, and you need a national commitment to the notion that a rich man should not get his hip replacement any faster than a poor man. Ironically, the notion that a poor man should get his hip replacement as fast as a rich man is the epitome of an attitude of entitlement. While it is pure Christian nobility, and heavenly reward, for a rich believer to give up his place in deference to a poor man, the notion that the poor man deserves to have… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Katecho

I understand why you would think that, and I also understand why most Canadians don’t agree with you. Canadians see health care as something entirely different from the right to eat expensive food or to live in a mansion or to drive a Rolls Royce. It is seen more in the nature of an essential service where need, rather than ability to pay, determines the order in which people are helped. Firemen here in the United States would not let a poor person’s house burn to the ground while they rescued the rich man’s cat from a tree. If two… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

What happens when the Good Samaritan learns that his victim urgently needs an MRI and a CT Scan? And surgery to fix the subdural hematoma? If there is no option to send the victim to the county hospital, does he leave him to die? I think that, in our eagerness to remove health care from those we don’t think deserve it, we can end up with public health crises we may not be prepared for. I don’t want to live in a crowded city in which people with tuberculosis and virulent hepatitis can’t get treated. I especially don’t want mentally… Read more »

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill, Americans are so unschooled in Biblical government and worship that the entirety of our society is way off track. We have had a century of bad preaching and almost no teaching in these matters. The poor used to be taken care of by churches or by local individuals. In the Great Society, LBJ offered less than 1% increase in Federal Tax and that there would be offices throughout the land to take care of the poor, the needy, the hungry and that the churches would then be able to get to evangelism rather than helping those in need. Throughout… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

You are always so nice to me, and I don’t want to sound like I’m nitpicking or being contrary for the fun of it. You probably already know that the Catholic church is the largest not-for-profit health service sector in the U.S. One out of six hospitalized patients is in a Catholic facility. Health care is a subject dear to my heart. What I see as the major problem is that the advances in medical treatment–with more occurring every day–have outstripped our ability to apply traditional solutions. I wasn’t being silly when I used the example of the Good Samaritan… Read more »

Dave
Dave
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jill, the system is rigged to steal from the taxpayer and give to those running the system. That is why LBJ started the Great Society; why the Clintons wanted to run Hillary’s health care plan; why HMOs were set up in the 70s, realigned several times and finally run into the big scam the ACA. Hospitals were able to receive donations from churches, individuals and such and could charge what they wanted to for different patients. Now that is not allowed because of government regulation. Why do we have health insurance at all? Because it is easier to steal from… Read more »

demosthenes1d
demosthenes1d
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

The political process that has been playing out around healthcare is the soul searching evident in your comment writ large. It is nice and convenient to have a villian in mind (as Dave apparently does) who is keeping everyone who wants it from having high quality healthcare through theft, or liberalism, or vodoo, or whatever, but I think God requires us to live in the real world and try to figure out real problems. The simple fact is that not everyone can have access to the latest, most incredible, treatments. The discussion we need to have, without trotting out bromides… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  demosthenes1d

Do you notice, as well, that the minute you try to consider one element, all the others come into play? When my daughter was seriously injured in a car accident (not her fault), my non-litigious Canadian friends looked askance when we filed a lawsuit. i had to explain, slowly and patiently, that the only way to pay for necessary surgery and rehab was to go after the culprit’s insurance company. Once my daughter’s health insurance company knew there was a culprit, they would not go on treating her without getting her agreement that her costs would be reimbursed. In Canada,… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  demosthenes1d

I thought of this discussion when I read this tragic story about a British baby whom the doctors plan to take off life support against the wishes of the parents. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/07/01/parents-brain-damaged-baby-lose-fight-to-keep-him-on-life-support.html.

Would this happen here? Should it happen? Catholic moral theology would say that removing the baby from the ventilator when there is no prospect of recovery is lawful. But it is a disturbing story and I wondered what you thought.

demosthenes1d
demosthenes1d
6 years ago
Reply to  Jill Smith

Jilly, I down see this comment earlier, and I have already commented on the case in brief in another thread, but this is a case that illustrates one of the primary dangers of a single payer system. The government HAS to ration care (through the somewhat Orwellian NICE in this case). There is no way to continue every treatment out to the bitter end, and at some points this is going to very much be “death panels”. This case goes begin even that, though, the bureaucrats and the judges aren’t just deciding that no more public money can be spent… Read more »

Jill Smith
Jill Smith
6 years ago
Reply to  Dave

Thinking about your comments about demanding tax money from one person to support the poor made me curious about how poverty was dealt with in the original American colonies. Almost all of them quickly developed laws that resembled the Poor Laws of Elizabethan England. Local officials were authorized to collect taxes from citizens in order to support poorhouses and outdoor relief for the elderly, the sick, and the destitute. Yet these were explicitly Christian communities basing their charters on Biblical principles. Do you see that kind of taxation as illegitimate?