Father Sirico on the Parched Wilderness of Socialized Medicine

Great article by Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute on the attempt of the "religious left" to absolutize the health care debate into a battle of good versus evil. Here's his conclusion:

There is little or no recognition that other key institutions—the family, the Church, local civic associations—might also have a role to play in shaping reform. Certainly, no recognition for those civic and social groups that have a healthy distrust of an invasive state. Instead, we get the constant demand from the Religious Left that Washington must act. It is a sort of idolatry—the worship of Big Government as the solution to all of our problems.

There is a near total blindness to the fact that nationalized health systems in other countries are deeply troubled, even deadly. Horror stories about these systems are plentiful in the mainstream media. What about the common good? A 2002 report by the Adam Smith Institute noted the following about Britain’s state-run healthcare monopoly:

The NHS has a severe shortage of capacity, directly costing the lives of tens of thousands of patients a year. We have fewer doctors per head of population than any European country apart from Albania. We import nurses and doctors from the world's poorest countries, and export sick people to some of the richest. More than one million people—one in sixty of the population—are waiting for treatment.

Faith communities should recognize the Religious Left’s “40 Days” campaign for what it is: a politically driven “community organizing” effort that aims to expand a bloated state and make Americans evermore dependent on politicians and bureaucrats, not doctors, for healthcare. As people of faith, we need to speak up against this dishonest affair. After all, it’s our “prophetic” duty.

Of course he brings up a lot of questions we all have, primary among them this one: "Why must it be the federal government that takes care of everything?"