Is Healthcare a Right?

March 13, 2010 in Health Care by Greg | 2 comments

As President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats pull together a final version of a health care overhaul bill and push for House votes as early as this coming week, it’s important to consider health care as a right. Last year, Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) wrote persuasively that health care is a right versus a privilege, ostensibly because this is the way other countries treat health care. Not to be left behind in the international community, he advocated the following:

Healthcare_stethoscope As the health care debate heats up in Washington, we as a nation have to answer two very fundamental questions. First, should all Americans be entitled to health care as a right and not a privilege – which is the way every other major country treats health care and the way we respond to such other basic needs as education, police and fire protection? Second, if we are to provide quality health care to all, how do we accomplish that in the most cost-effective way possible?

I think the answer to the first question is pretty clear, and one of the reasons that Barack Obama was elected president. Most Americans do believe that all of us should have health care coverage, and that nobody should be left out of the system. The real debate is how we accomplish that goal in an affordable and sustainable way. In that regard, I think the evidence is overwhelming that we must end the private insurance company domination of health care in our country and move toward a publicly-funded, single-payer Medicare for All approach.1

Politicians have a propensity to exhibit A False Solicitude for the Unfortunate in society. And previously, Michael Connelly pointed out the health care bill is “a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred.”2

Recently, Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University, addressed the question of health care rights from a moral and economic point of view. He wrote that true rights exist at the same time among people. As such, one’s rights should not infringe upon the rights of others3:

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  1. “Health Care is a Right, Not a Privilege”. 8 Jun 2009. The Huffington Post. 13 Mar 2010.↩
  2. Health Care Bill Constitutional?.↩
  3. This principle echoes D&C 134:4 which was written in regards to “religious opinions” but can be applied to other forms of rights.↩

Places of Safety and the Holy Ghost

March 9, 2010 in Holy Ghost by Greg | No comments

In January 2005, shortly after the Indian Ocean earthquake, Henry B. Eyring taught the Lord has prepared places of safety to guide people to if they develop the capacity to receive revelation through the ministrations of the Holy Ghost. Here is an excerpt of his talk:

Our Refuge and our Strength The Lord told us in the time of the Prophet Joseph that war would be poured out upon all nations. We see tragic fulfillment of that prophecy, bringing with it increased suffering to the innocent.

The giant earthquake, and the tsunamis it sent crashing into the coasts around the Indian Ocean, is just the beginning and a part of what is to come, terrible as it was. You remember the words from the Doctrine and Covenants which now seems so accurate:

And after your testimony cometh wrath and indignation upon the people.

For after your testimony cometh the testimony of earthquakes, that shall cause groanings in the midst of her, and men shall fall upon the ground and shall not be able to stand.

And also cometh the testimony of the voice of thunderings, and the voice of lightnings, and the voice of tempests, and the voice of the waves of the sea heaving themselves beyond their bounds.

And all things shall be in commotion; and surely, men’s hearts shall fail them; for fear shall come upon all people (D&C 88: 88-91).

Fear shall come upon all people. But you and I know that the Lord has prepared places of safety to which He is eager to guide us. I think of that often. . . .

Now my purpose today is to share with you what I have learned over the years about getting and keeping the companionship of the Holy Ghost. It isn’t easy, but it is possible.

The foundation is a burning desire to qualify for that gift. Most of us who are members of the restored Church have enough faith to want the Holy Ghost at times. That desire may be weak and intermittent, but it comes, usually when we are in trouble. For us to be led upward to safety in the times ahead, it must become steady and intense.

The problem for most human beings is that when things go well, we feel self-sufficient. You remember the warning:

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World Vision in Haiti and Chile

March 4, 2010 in Christianity by Greg | No comments

Earlier this week, an op-ed caught my attention about the mission of World Vision. According to their web site, World Vision is a “Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice.”

Chile Earthquake A day after the Chilean quake, the organization assembled tarps, blankets, water and other aide for survivors of the quake. Steve Matthews of World Vision’s global rapid response team,

. . . was quick to allay fears that Chile would turn out to be another Haiti, where a massive earthquake on January 12 killed more than 200,000 people.

“This quake will not be like the one in Haiti,” he said. “Haiti was concentrated, and that led to the challenge of tons of aid and hundreds of aid workers being sent into a small zone.”

He added, however, that it would be extremely difficult to assess the number of deaths and extent of the damage caused by the Chilean quake because of its potential to reach remote areas.1

World Vision is uniquely qualified to provide disaster relief efforts in both Haiti and Chile. They have a presence in over 100 countries worldwide and distribute over 86% of total revenue to programs which benefit people. Here’s a brief excerpt on how one columnist views their mission in political terms:

For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”

Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.

A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

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  1. Hutt, Brian. “World Vision readies emergency response to Chile earthquake”. 289 Feb 2010. Christian Today. 1 Mar 2010.↩

Why Jaredites Fell

February 28, 2010 in Book of Mormon by Greg | 11 comments

In the Book of Mormon, the Jaredites were a group of people named after their leader Jared. Their history is almost exclusively found in the book of Ether.

According to this record, they were led from the “great tower” – presumably the tower of Babel, mentioned in Genesis 11:1-9 – to a “land of promise”, somewhere in the Americas. Like the Nephites who came after them, they grew to a large population but were eventually destroyed by internecine warfare.

Without making direct reference to the Gadianton Robbers, in 1940 J. Reuben Clark, Jr. summarized the fall of the Jaredite nation in this manner:

Journey of the Jaredites Across Asia by Minerva TeichertWe are not given the step-by-step backsliding of this Jareditic civilization till it reached the social and governmental chaos the record sets out, but those steps seem wholly clear from the results. Put into modern terms, we can understand them. First there was a forsaking of the righteous life, and the working of wickedness; then must have come the extortion and oppression of the poor by the rich; then retaliation and reprisal by the poor against the rich; then would come a cry to share the wealth which should belong to all; then the easy belief that society owed every man a living whether he worked or not; then the keeping of a great body of idlers; then when community revenues failed to do this, as they always have failed and always will fail, a self-helping by one to the goods of his neighbor; and finally when the neighbor resisted, as resist he must, or starve with his family, then death to the neighbor and all that belonged to him. This was the decreed “fulness of iniquity.”

Then came the end; the Jaredites were wiped out in accordance with “the everlasting decree of God.” A nation had been born; it had grown to maturity; then to a powerful manhood; had then gone on to sin, decay, and destruction, and all because its people had refused to heed the promises and commandments of Him who is their Creator and Father, all because the people who possessed the land had failed “to serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ.” (Ether 2:12.)1

Sources:

  1. “The American Republic”. Prophets, Principles and National Survival. The Inspired Constitution. 28 Feb 2010.↩

Tea Parties

February 21, 2010 in Economics by Greg | 1 comment

Recently, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin spoke to the “tea-party movement’s rank and file” in Arkansas. According to CBS,

Modern_Tea_Party_protestors. Asked what her advice would be to conservatives as the November elections approach, Palin first lavished praise on the Tea Party movement, calling it “a grand movement” and adding, “I love it because it’s all about the people.”

But she quickly pivoted to the broader question of whether the Tea Party movement might successfully field its own candidates in national elections, and on that point she sounded far from convinced.

“Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party,” Palin said. “Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you? And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D’.”1

Of course the first tea party – the Boston Tea Party – was not organized along political parties. It was formed as a consequence of a series of actions by King George III and the British government to recoup war costs of the French and Indian War that concluded in 1763. These actions included the Stamp Act of 1765, the Townsend Acts of 1767, and the Boston Massacre of 1770, all of which strained relations between the colonists and the Crown and eventually led to The Boston Tea Party of 1773.

Though the modern “Tea Party movement is working to halt the creation of dangerous precedents” such as the “’ratchet effect’ – that is, once government expands its power and new bureaucracies are in place, it’s difficult to undo them”, some have noted troubling differences. For example,

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  1. Conroy, Scott. “Palin: Tea Partiers ‘Have to Pick a Party’”. 17 Feb 2010. CBS News. 21 Feb 2010.↩

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