The Moral Imperative of Faith Communities and Government Around Health Care
While Kentucky lawmakers work through details of health care policy, as with any policy designed and instituted by lawmakers, the faith community must be advocates for the impoverished on this issue. Health care is a moral imperative. Our communities, from Kentucky to El Salvador to Mumbai to Soweto, must lead the direction on this issue, globally and locally.
The Christian Church and those faith communities, who share common scriptures from the Bible or similar beliefs, have two primary guides for our actions around the support of health care for all in the United States and globally. Jesus made it clear in the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:24-35) that health care is for all no matter one’s status, merit, ethnicity, or ability to pay. He goes on to make the point that the person who cares for their neighbor elects eternal life with God. Whether the person in need of health care is from Columbia or Samaria, Christians have a responsibility to be advocates for health care as a basic human right and affirm the duty of governments to assure health care for all (2008 United Methodist Book of Discipline, ¶162 V). Any Christian to advocate anything different must seriously consider the peril of their eternal life as described in the Lukan scripture.
Lack of health care access effects ethnic minorities disparately and serves as a major contributor to the economic cycle of poverty in the United States. Employer sponsored health care driven by insurance companies hinders health care access based on racial, economic, and class barriers in this current system. It is, therefore, the duty of the United States government to provide a quality health care alternative for all human beings within its borders and jurisdictions, as Israel was charged to do for its nation in the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel 34:4). Thus, health care is a joint responsibility of the faith community and the government.