The Arrival of the Evangelical Left (III)

Deeds Not Creeds: How to Be Missional without a Defined Mission

We are still examining the article Mark Tooley, of The Weekly Standard, wrote about Donald Miller of the Emergent church and, indirectly, the Emergent church movement itself. In his book A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren explained that he was “missional.” According to McLaren, “The term missional arose in the 1990s, thanks to the Gospel and Our Culture Network (www.gocn.org). It was popularized by the Network’s important book called The Missional Church (Darrell L. Guder, et al., Eerdmans, 1998).”[1] McLaren goes on to explain that the term can also be traced to a number of missiologists, including Lesslie Newbigin of India.[2]

As I have pointed out a number of times, McLaren goes on in AGO to give us a blueprint of what has come to fruition in the development (or regress) in his “theology.” Part of that “theology” is contained in the Emergent church motto, “deeds, not creeds.” McLaren condescends to accept the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds (he never explains why those two, so the reader is left to guess why these at the exclusion of others), but he rejects most other creeds, thereby neglecting a preponderance of the rich tradition passed on through the history of the Church.

So what is the appeal of Miller? Like many of his “pomo” (postmodern for those in Rio Linda) counterparts, Miller exudes a comfort with same-sex marriages and is, at best, apathetic about pro-life causes, especially abortion. By the same token, one can only wonder where he would stand on euthanasia, geriatric euthanasia, and suicide. In addition, Miller makes casual, sometimes less than casual, references to profanity, liquor, sexuality, and marijuana, which are all considered part of his spiritual odyssey. For those of us who did not become Christians until later in life, they might be able to identify with Miller, but certainly once one becomes a Christian, sexuality outside of marriage is forbidden, as are marijuana and profanity. Miller, however, revels in pastors who “cuss.” They are seen as genuine, authentic, the real deal. He does not explain why.

Apparently, Miller had a checkered childhood without a father. To his credit, his book earnings have been used to create a foundation to mentor fatherless children. This is a highly commendable undertaking. In his books and speaking engagements, he seeks to displace traditional evangelical moralism with what he believes is a passionate search for Jesus, based on relationships and storytelling rather than creeds. In other words, deeds rather than creeds. Of course, there is nothing wrong with developing healthy relationships and using stories (parables, illustrations) to make spiritual points, but there must be more than that. I also applaud Miller’s desire to displace evangelical moralism, but what do you put in the place of it? If I examine Presbyterian and Reformed creeds, for example, many of them give rather complete expositions of the Ten Commandments. Is this what Miller has in mind? Is he, like the rest of his Emergent church movement counterparts going to talk to the fatherless children about “the ethics of Jesus,” as if that were different from the ethics of Paul, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Daniel, Moses, Peter, John, or any other human author of Scripture?

One of the more humorous lines in Tooley’s article states that “It’s not clear how politically outspoken Miller will remain. He promised last year that he would not ‘blindly’ support Democrats as he believed conservative evangelicals had Republicans.” (p. 2.) He even went so far as to challenge the Democrat party to stop mocking people of faith and to “give us a voice and a face within your party.” (Ibid.) In the first place, it appears that no one has heeded that challenge, including the President. Second, “people of faith” is a very generic term and does not mean the same thing as “Christian,” although in secular definitions, it is usually included. Third, Miller “enthused that Democrats during the campaign were doing an ‘exceptionally good job’ outreaching to evangelicals.” (Ibid.)

Given the numbers of young “evangelicals” adhering to McLaren, Miller, and others, it might very well be argued that the politicians did a better job of getting younger evangelicals to vote for the Democratic Party than the evangelical church did of equipping them to deal with ethical and political matters. This truth is a serious indictment against what the so-called evangelical church has accomplished with its emphasis on entertainment while eschewing doctrine. What is to be thought now of the many pastors who derided and ridiculed doctrine openly and publicly from the pulpit? Where are their students now? Many of them, unfortunately, voted for a man who had the most liberal voting record on many essential political, ethical issues, including abortion and partial-birth abortion. How could anyone be so undiscerning; so untaught; so naïve? If the Democrats did an exceptionally good job, then the evangelical church did an exceptionally poor one. We are now reaping the results of the trivial pandering to the “unchurched” that typified and characterized the mega-church movement. The children of the mega-church parents are the emergents of today.

Don’t get me wrong: Miller disdains the mega-church, and I concur that there was and still is a great deal in that movement worthy of disdain. One of the aspects of his ecclesiastical background that particularly piqued Miller was that “His previous churches embraced ‘war metaphors’ that pitted Christians against ‘liberals and homosexuals,’ according the Blue Like Jazz.” (Ibid.) Jesus, he contends, taught love. Well, of course, Jesus did teach love, but he also taught a great deal more. People like Miller and McLaren, with, at best, a thin veneer of theology under their belts, have nothing to fall back on except the worn-out mantra, which is a remnant from evangelicalism, “My God, is only a God of love.” That phrase is a license to live like a neo-pagan. In fact, it can be argued that it is a thinly veiled excuse to live any way you desire or choose. After all, the God of love will forgive you no matter how you live or what you do.

And when you die, you go to “heaven,” where, of course, everyone goes, so that they can smile amiably and affably down on us for eternity. Did you notice that with Michael Jackson’s death? FOX News carried some socialite regaling his hearers with this silly, ridiculous, naïve, and poorly thought through aphorism. The “smiling down” thing is another way for neo-pagans to believe in universalism; that everyone is saved irrespective of whether they were a Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, or Christian. In Christian circles, it is equally disconcerting that at funerals, someone insists on eulogizing that the departed is now smiling down on us. Wouldn’t it make more sense to leave that out, since, if the loved one is with Christ, he or she is going to be so enthralled that he is not going to be all that concerned to cast a smile our way?

Miller is also convinced that the Bush administration and, by extension, Christianity, or at least the dolts on the Christian Right, are responsible for making the United States unpopular around the world. Tooley adds that most of the Evangelical Left thinks like Miller does. Of course it does. Just like Miller, the Evangelical Left has swilled down the secular leftist progressive’s talking points. Why on earth wouldn’t they think that? It’s America’s fault. It has nothing to do with their ideology and hatred of us for our rights and freedoms. Think left. Miller is also convinced that it is the “ugly American” syndrome that has caused a number of our compatriots to think that Christianity is pugilistic, hateful, bigoted, anti-intellectual, arrogant, and possessing an inability to listen to others.

I’ll close this off with one of the funniest and inconsequential statements Miller’s made to date. It is consistent with his Emergent church movement cronies, but few within the movement ever see this glaring fallacy. What is it? Let’s put the statement on the table and then analyze it. Miller states, “Toeing the party line for the church is not my job; telling the truth is my job.” (Ibid.) I find this an amazing, egregious statement, not least because virtually all the emergents embrace relativism, Miller included. How can he tell me the truth if he is a convinced, inveterate relativist? Rob Bell did the same thing in his book Velvet Elvis. After spending 176 pages droning on about how everything is relative and the conservatives are out to lunch because of their views on truth, here is the sum of Bell’s efforts” “But I can’t do it alone. I need you. We need you. We need you to rediscover wonder and awe. We need you to believe that it is really possible. We need you to join us. It’s better that way. It’s what Jesus had in mind.”[3]

For the moment and just for fun, I’ll pass over the question of how one knows one has really discovered wonder and awe. That’s tricky in a relativistic world, except with the caveat of discovering it for me. You see, my wonder and awe from a Christian perspective might be different than yours from, say, a Buddhist perspective. What is amazing—and inconsequential in the Emergent church system—is the word “better.” Better as compared to…? The last sentence of Bell’s book makes him a candidate for “King of the Non-Sequitur.” After he’s spent himself telling us that we really don’t know about many, many things in the Bible (and his wife is complicit as well) he ends with the apodictic statement: This is precisely what Jesus had in mind. Wow. How does Bell know?

Miller is even more aggressive and assertive: Telling the truth is my job. Really? What is the truth? You see, this is precisely where all the emergents land. Why do you think McLaren continues to write books and give speeches if he is not convinced that his message is the right one; the true one? The rest of us are simply honest about it. But we’re prejudiced and bigoted and the emergents are right. Right.

---

[1] Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), p. 105.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), p. 177.

The Arrival of the Evangelical Left (II)

What’s Worse: Bush as Jesus or O’Bama as the Messiah?

We are examining the article Mark Tooley, of The Weekly Standard, wrote on the Emergent church movement in general and emergent guru Donald Miller in particular. The article is entitled “Post-Modern Prophet” and it touts Miller as the Evangelical Left’s poster-boy. You might not have heard too much about the Evangelical Left—it’s not highly publicized—sort of like “secret lobbyists,” but they do exist, they do have growing support, and they are adamant about “the cause.”

One of the pet peeves of the Evangelical Left is the Evangelical Right. Tooley writes that Miller decided to leave the “family” (the Evangelical Right), because, as he puts it, “I had to think George W. Bush was Jesus.” (p. 1.) This is an obvious exaggeration, but in his book, Blue Like Jazz, Miller complained that conservative churches he had attended “were ‘parrots’ for the GOP…” (Ibid.) So apparently, Mr. Miller has swapped being a parrot for the GOP for being a parrot for the Democratic Party. To my mind, that’s a very bad trade-off for a number of valid reasons. Before I give them to you, let me explain that I do not consider myself a “parrot” for anyone, except the Lord, but certainly not any political party. As Christians, it is my hope that we vote our consciences for the political party that most closely approximates what Scripture teaches.

Having said that, let me now explain where I believe the real problems are for Donald Poster-Boy and the so-called Evangelical Left. First, these folks pay just as much homage—if not more—to President O’Bama as they claim the Evangelical Right did to Bush, Reagan, or the GOP. If Bush were “Jesus,” then O’Bama is the “Messiah,” otherwise known as “the One” or “that One.” Miller also demonized John McCain as “religiously inarticulate.” I agree with him, but since our President has not found or made time to attend worship since his coronation, he might be a little religiously inept himself. He is most certainly lacking in religious discernment after sitting under Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s “preaching” for twenty years and not knowing that the man entertains strong Marxist notions that he learned from James Cone’s theology.

The article goes on to state that not only is Miller disenchanted with the Republican Party, but so are a number of younger church-goers. (Ibid.) If Miller and the author of the article mean younger emergent church-goers, then it’s completely understandable. If he means the run of the mill, garden variety young person, I’m not so certain. I have quite a bit of contact with young church-goers—our congregation is full of them—and I don’t hear the same kinds of sounds. I do, however, hear them from Miller, McLaren, Wallis, some in academia, Bell, Chalke, Burke, and the emergent tribe, but not from others. Reading articles like this almost gives one the impression that every young person in Christianity has joined the Evangelical Left, but that is simply not the case—thankfully. Although admittedly, I believe Tooley is acting strictly as a journalist for The Weekly Standard. On the other hand, it is true that Miller and his ilk is garnering a following.

But when I talk to young people about various ethical issues, they are not as certain as Miller is that “the presidency ‘doesn’t have much power’ over abortion.” Really? We realize that the abortion issue is above Mr. O’Bama’s pay grade (is it still?), but the power part is up for grabs. Whether you and I agree or not, Miller is convinced that “The Republican ‘mindset’ of trying to restrict abortion has failed.” (Ibid.) This is yet another example of what I call “the pretence of knowledge” and the “silencing of dissent.” By walking in lockstep with the political left, Miller has fallen right into the leftwing machinery talking points. He’s a Kool-Aid drinker. But if it’s true that the GOP has failed on the abortion issue, what is the solution? According to Miller, the solution is the Democratic Party “with their concern for the ‘marginalized and the oppressed and the poor.’” (Ibid.) This sounds just like McLaren and Wallis—Yoder and Gushee as well.[1] Tooley reports that “In justifying support of Obama, the ‘emergents’ and others on the Evangelical Left minimize abortion and same-sex marriage as politically motivating issues for evangelicals.” (Ibid.) This begs the question: How can that be? That is to say, how can crucial ethical issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage not be politically motivating the Christians? If a believer is in possession of even a modicum of scriptural truth and discernment, abortion must be repugnant and unacceptable to him or her. Only an unbeliever (Neo-pagan) or incredibly ignorant or liberal Christian would find abortion acceptable. The same is true of the biblical teaching on same-sex marriage.

Let’s make it and keep it simple: In Genesis 1:26-28, God sovereignly creates man as male and female. He gives them dominion (thinking God’s thoughts after him) and teaches them about labor, the Sabbath, and marriage—and marriage. Then the Lord lovingly planted a garden and placed the man in it (cf. Gen. 2:8). God brought Eve to Adam, which is clear that God gives husband and wife to each other. Verse 24 clearly states, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (ESV) What is unclear about God’s words? If the Genesis account is so unclear for some, then Jesus cites Genesis 2:24 in his teaching about divorce in Matthew’s gospel (Matt. 19:3-6). And as if this were not enough, the apostle Paul cites it in Ephesians 5:31, stating in verse 32 that the verse not only applies to marriage, but also to Christ and his Church. What is unclear?

Miller, the article continues, used to be Southern Baptist, but now attends a “socially conscious church” in Seattle. This is tantamount to attending an “open and affirming” church. What does it matter if the church is “socially conscious” if it is not “biblically conscious”? If there is no Scripture to back up your stance, either in the Christian faith or in politics, what is the point? For example, if Scripture is clear on abortion and the sanctity of life—and it is—how can Christians then vote for anyone who is pro-choice? It is not as if God thought abortion was adiaphorous. The same holds for same-sex marriage. This approach sounds more like a huge accommodation to culture, since the Evangelical Left realizes how radically left modern culture actually is. And—and—the emergents also realize that if they do not give our Neo-pagan culture everything it wants, it will walk away from them. Just how naïve is the emergent church when it comes to social and cultural issues? Do they really think that the Neo-barbarians are going to concede any ground? In addition, this is the blueprint that McLaren laid out early on in A Generous Orthodoxy and has gradually put into practice as he’s moved forward. Why wasn’t anyone listening? The seeds of disdain for Scripture and our rich theological heritage are in that book, as is McLaren’s stance on homosexuality, and universalism. His later theological regressions have merely been outcroppings of his original theses. For the theological world not to have listened to what McLaren said in AGO, is just about the same thing that politicians did when O’Bama was campaigning for president. Few paid any attention and almost no one was willing to listen to him because they were enthralled with O’Bama’s facility with the teleprompter and not with the content of what he was saying. Now O’Bama’s implementing all he talked about and the political hacks and pundits act surprised.

Miller opines that the Democrats have a concern for “marginalized and the oppressed and the poor…” Really? Or is this “concern” only window dressing? Here is what I mean: I’ve addressed the poverty situation in previous Ethos issues and one of the points that I made then is that in the United States today, the real poverty level is at about 1%. In fact, it has hovered around 1% irrespective of whether Democrats or Republicans were in power. But Miller is not done yet. He further believes that the Democrat Party will create “better social conditions so that less women are put in situations where they feel like they need to have an abortion.”

Is Miller saying what I think he’s saying? Is he saying that abortion is a poverty or low-income problem? If he is, he’s wrong and, if the shoe were on the other foot, he might be accused of being a bigot and uncaring. Abortion is not dependent upon income status or education. Neo-pagan women and Christian women (how can this be?) who get abortions come from the super-wealthy to the homeless. If Miller wants to make his case, he’s going to have to do a lot better than this.

In our next installment, we’ll take a look at Miller’s background growing up, because as we all know, we’re all victims these days. As just a forewarning, you’re going to hear the type of whining that both McLaren and Wallis use as well.

---

[1] See David Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008); Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change, (Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2007); Jim Wallis, God’s Politics, (San Francisco: Harper, 2005); & John Yoder, The Politics of Jesus, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1194²).

The Arrival of the Evangelical Left

Poster Boys and Liberal Theologians

Mark Tooley of The Weekly Standard wrote an article on Donald Miller of Blue Like Jazz fame. In case you’re not one of the Emergent church movement’s “initiated,” Blue Like Jazz is The Shack lite. Well, maybe not quite that bad, but it is truly a pitiful apologetic for the Christian faith. What rubs salt in the wound is the fact that Campus Crusade for Christ spent a ton of money placing copies of BLJ in the packets for incoming freshmen on college campuses.

Great! That’s just what we need. A lion’s share of these kids are just coming out of public schools (Note to parents: Send your kids to Caesar and you will get Romans back! And, please, spare me the totally specious “They’re there to be salt and light” fiasco.) and now they’re being thrown to liberal tenured ideologues and instead of something truly solid, the freshmen are given more fluff. But I digress.

In case you missed the invocation at the 2008 Democratic Convention, it was delivered by Miller, who also actively campaigned for Mr. O’Bama. Some might be asking themselves why a Christian would actively campaign for a man who has a 100% approval rating from Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and every other pro-abortion group on the planet. That’s a good question. Miller’s reply, according to Tooley’s article went like this: “Barack is the only candidate willing to talk about his faith in Jesus.” It must be nice to be on a first name basis with the President. It still remains a mystery to some of us how Mr. O’Bama could sit for twenty years under the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and not know that the man is an advocate of the kind of “liberation theology” that liberates no one because it is Marxist. Rev. Wright parrots James Cone and Gustavo Gutierrez. It is also a bit of an enigma why the President has not found time to attend worship since his inauguration. He must be too busy talking about his faith. As a matter of fact, those of us on the Right—as well as those on the Left—would be hard pressed to indicate when Mr. O’Bama has made serious reference to his faith since being in office.

Miller’s further explanation stated that he supported Barack “because he is my Christian brother and other Christians are rejecting him.” I’m not certain what that is supposed to mean, but there are others who claim to be Christians that I think are all wet and are basically biblically illiterate. Names like Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, John Kerry, and Ted Kennedy come to mind. Oh yeah, I almost forgot George Bush’s statement about Muslims being saved. Add him to the list.

One of Miller’s big hang ups with conservatives is that they are/were parrots for the GOP. Well, that’s not good. Seriously. One has to wonder if being a parrot for the Left is any better or more acceptable though. On a more mundane note (Miller and his ilk find crass language cutting edge), Miller complains that Republicans “did not give a crap about the causes of Christ.” And does Miller want us now to believe that Democrats do? They must be using a kind of reverse logic, because a huge number of those who vote Democrat do not attend church at all. One might conclude from this fact that Democrats care little about the causes of Christ either. Admittedly, some do, but certainly Miller’s accusation is just as true—if not more true—about the Democrats as it is the Republicans.

Miller seems impervious to his own internal contradictions. Here’s a case in point: He quipped, “I just felt like in order to be part of the family, I had to think George W. Bush was Jesus.” Right. Most of us in the conservative camp have that one figured out. We’re just waiting for those who voted for O’Bama to discover that he’s really not the Messiah. There’s a point where Miller and I agree: our dislike of the politics of John McCain. It was embarrassing that McCain was the best the Republican Party could trot out. There were a number of us who believed that there was a viable candidate in the last race and it was Sarah Palin. The manner in which the Left vilified her gave me the impression that she was good. She wasn’t a socialist, was for closed borders to protect our security, was pro-life, pro-death penalty, a fiscal conservative, a good shot, pro-Second Amendment, and was almost as pretty as Janet Reno, Madeline Albright, Cindy Sheehan, and Helen Thomas. She stood by her pregnant daughter, her youngest son, and her husband.

But young church-goers are less enchanted with Republicans and more in favor of the ideas and ideologies of the Democrats. Are we surprised? Where to begin? Let me start with mom and dad, who happily were pleased to be entertained to death at what passed as “worship,” never thinking that Johnnie and Mary just might need a little catechism to help them understand the Word of God. Dad and mom did little or nothing at home during the week, thereby passing no spiritual legacy on to themselves or their family. These same biblically illiterate young people, who were Ignatius the Youth Leader knockoffs or had Mr. Tattoo or Mr. Slime as their leaders, heard lots of “Christian Rock,” but what they received as a biblical worldview was non-existent. Are we surprised that their spiritual brains are mush? Really, what do we expect?

Back in the day, 1545 to be exact, John Calvin wrote this to the reader of his new Geneva Catechism: “What we set before you, therefore, is nothing else than the use of things which from ancient times were observed among Christians, and which has never been neglected except when the Church has been wholly corrupted.” What the old 500-year-old boy was saying is that the norm in the Church was not “programs” and “entertainment,” but rather catechizing the congregation. There is a clear reference to the Roman Catholic Church and its failure to teach and equip its members, but there is a broader, stinging accusation leveled at our modern evangelical churches as well. In Calvin’s view, a “corrupt” church is one that does not preach, teach, and equip its people, starting with the young children.

This is not what Miller has in mind, though. He now attends a “socially conscious church in Seattle.” Ah! There are the magic words: socially conscious. Of course, any student of history and of the Reformation will tell you that the Reformers were very socially conscious and had scriptural reasons why they were that way. The early Puritans built universities (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and a host of others), hospitals, orphanages, as well as providing for the poor and needy. So exactly what kind of social consciousness is Miller talking about? In all likelihood, it’s the Social Gospel nonsense of Jim Wallis, Brian McLaren, and other Emergent church movement gurus. Reading Wallis’s and McLaren’s “ethics” books, you have to laugh and wonder if anyone takes the slipshod or non-existent exegesis they pretend to do seriously. Apparently, Miller does.

But Miller is a notch above the rest of us. He wants to reach the post-modernist. In fact, Miller believes that the Emergent church is “trying to transcend polemics and speak to post-modernity.” Really? What’s the message? Let me put this in a contemporary context. I just returned from the 37^th General Assembly of my church affiliation. Part of the assembly was spent discussing the issue of deaconesses. It was proffered that we need to address the culture and manifest that we are not Neo-Neanderthals. You mean we’re not? Anyway, does the PCA really and truly think that the Neo-Barbaric, Neo-Pagan society is going to think we’re doing good work if we have deaconesses? If I were a Neo-Barbarian, I’d want to know why the PCA doesn’t have women Elders and Pastors. Deaconesses are small (feminine) potatoes. Miller doesn’t get it that there will be very little that will appease the Neo-Barbarian except full and complete capitulation, and the Emergent church movement has a good leg up on that already. McLaren, Wallis, and the other non-leader leaders are willing to jettison fundamental Christian doctrines for their less that veiled universalism.

In our next installment, we’ll go into Miller’s assessment of abortion and same-sex marriage. The Evangelical Left is more than a little ambivalent on these issues and are more than willing to minimize them. For anyone to make such an assertion is a clear example that their biblical discernment is in the toilet. I will demonstrate that in point of fact Miller and others like him land with both feet firmly implanted in liberal theology, the Social Gospel, and a full-orbed embracing of the views of the Left—sometimes the far left. It is disconcerting that there are so few with biblical discernment and maturity these days, but what do we expect?

A Life and Death Issue: Universal Health Care (IV)

The Rule and Not the Exception

One of my good friends from Canada emailed me recently recounting the excellent health care service that an acquaintance of his received. I have no reason to doubt what he said. Moreover, while playing squash with my family physician at the YMCA in Toronto, I tore the meniscus in my right knee. It was painful and thanks to him calling a friend, I had my knee “scoped” the next day. My point here is that there will always be exceptions to the rule. For whatever reason, some people will get good care, while others go wanting.

For every story that my friend sent me, or my story for that matter, there are other stories about socialized medicine. Besides, we need to keep in mind that we are talking about socialized medicine which means that this form of medicine is not provided in a free market environment, which further means that there are all kinds of economic implications and applications attached. There are a number of serious economic problems with socialized medicine, but I just want to take few moments and touch on a few of them.

From the Hippocratic Oath to the Vet’s Office

This probably sounds like a stretch, but stay with me on this one. The name, Dr. Hans Truffer from Switzerland, in all likelihood, does not ring a bell. Dr. Truffer is a longtime opponent of socialized medicine—for a number of valid reasons. Dr. Bill Gairdner quotes him in his book The Trouble With Canada to this end: “The real danger of collectivized state medicine is that the patient becomes a tool in the hands of the holders of power, and is dispossessed of the protection afforded by Hippocratic principles.”[1] Truffer goes on to explain that what socialized medicine offers is quite often “a veterinary ethic, which consists in caring for the sick animal, not in accordance with its specific needs, but according to the dictates of its master and owner, the person responsible for meeting any costs incurred.”[2]

This is a good example regarding socialized medicine. Our family owns a wonderful German Shepherd named Hosanna. The whole family loves her dearly, but if she were ever diagnosed with a debilitating or terminal illness, we would have to make choices and if the expenditure of large amounts of our discretionary income were involved, we might have to choose to put her down; to euthanize her. She would have no say in the matter.

In a similar vein, socialized medicine, although it pretends to be the compassionate thing to do, actually dehumanizes those in the system in the end. We will touch on this notion more fully in a moment (the “triage” mentality), but for the present it should be duly noted that just as an animal’s medical well being is controlled by others, so, in the end, is the case with socialized medicine, where ultimately the government decides.

In America, citizens became part owner of GM (Government Motors; not General Motors anymore) last Monday. Well, not really, but that’s what we’ve been led to believe. President O’Bama promised us that the government will be in and out of GM in a heartbeat. Of course, no one in their right mind believes that. What reasonable Americans anticipate is a new line of environmentally gentler, kinder, and greener automobiles. We will no longer be able to purchase the automobiles that we want from GM because they will not pass government standards of greenhouse emissions. We “owners” do not even have the opportunity to discuss whether all the “greenie” hoopla about CO₂ is valid or junk science. The government and the President seemed convinced that “climate change” is valid so it’s a done deal.

Therefore, the government will dictate how much gas mileage they deem acceptable by their CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards, not to mention their cap-and-trade policies. The “only practical way to meet higher CAFE standards is by the rather low-tech method of reducing car weight. And lighter cars are deadlier cars.”[3] We’re already seeing the disregard for human life in the stupid “Smart Cars” that are dotting our highways. The great advantage of these cars is that they double as a coffin. Once you tangle with a big rig or even a Toyota Camry, your chances of surviving the crash are minimal. In fact, the National Academy of Sciences discovered in 2001 that “the manufacture of smaller, lighter cars in the late 1970s and early ‘80s—partly due to CAFE standards—‘probably resulted in an additional 1,300 to 2,600 traffic fatalities in 1993.’”[4] In addition, consider this: “…USA Today reported in 1999 that its analysis of previously unpublished government data showed that ‘46,000 people have died because of a 1970s-era push for greater fuel efficiency that has led to smaller cars.’”[5]

So what does this have to do with socialized medicine? The short answer is: everything. Just as with nationalized car ownership, the “customer” is given a limited selection, so with government run, operated, and controlled health care. There is a “board” (read: bureaucracy) that will decide what procedures will be covered, for how much, and for whom. In other words, Barney Frank and John Kerry could manage your health care from now on.

Health dies the death (no pun intended) of unintended consequences. For example, in Ontario, Canada (OHIP) if the patient has “means,” he or she might fly to the United States for treatment, knowing that OHIP will reimburse them 90% of out of pocket costs. If, however, you are a foreigner in Canada and offer to pay for the medical treatment yourself, you go to the head of the line, while some Canadians have to wait and some die. Oh, did I mention that foreigners pay double?[6]

The “Triage” Method of Health Care

I remember the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan on the beach in Normandy. The medics were going from soldier to soldier performing triage, which is a French label, derived from the wartime habit of dividing the wounded into three groups: non-death threatening, serious, and hopeless. Medical supplies were doled out in accordance with the nature of the wound(s) sustained.

Those who were in the hopeless category received minimum care and attention. In a very real sense, some kind of triage is inevitable, but it is substantially more likely in a socialized medicine setting that under another system, especially since those who screw up our lives daily—the government—are in charge of socialized systems. I still chuckle when I think that our Congress, many of whom have never had a real job in their lives, are now going to tell the auto industry how it should be run. The same thing, with the necessary changes made, applies to health care.

No matter how wealthy a nation is, there will always be a relative scarcity of available doctors and medicine to contend with. And where medical care is perceived as “free,” which is a total misnomer, there will always have to be a rather strict triage system at play.

Take a Number Please

Bill Gairdner is correct when he writes, “scarcity is inherent in our delivery of medical services. This means that not everyone will be able to get what in a perfect world he might wish to have.”[7] Here is really where socialized medicine begins to break down. The utopia of free medicine has a very harsh and realistic side to it. As much as our egalitarian ideologues want to “level the playing field,” it simply does not happen in socialized medicine. How is that?

Well, the explanation has an economic side to it. In America, most of us are keenly and acutely aware that we are in a recession that threatens to go deeper and deeper daily due to the economic policies our current President has put in place. Yes, I understand that he inherited part of the mess from Bush, but the President cannot keep riding that pony forever. In point of fact, the serious blunders that he has put in place and the exorbitant and extraordinary amounts of U.S. tax dollars poured into the “bailouts,” not to mention the misappropriated or lost U.S. tax dollars for which ACORN cannot account, are clear signs of gross economic mismanagement. Now the President wants to spend even more to implement socialized medicine. If the American people are so foolish to allow this to occur, the nation will be looking at hyper-inflation in the not too distant future. In addition, we will be witnesses to the demise of the greatest health care system in the world.

Allow me to conclude this installment with some positive recommendations. These are far from exhaustive, but certainly constitute, I believe, a vast improvement on our present health care system here in America as well as having the added advantage of stopping socialized medicine in our land.

First, eliminate all unfair tax treatment of health insurance for all Americans, i.e., those who are here legally. Expand choices, coverage possibilities, and personal control over individual health care.

Second, increase affordable options for working families and small businesses to purchase health insurance through a standard tax deduction. That is to say, give legalized citizens a tax break here.

Third, provide cross-state “pooling” to reduce health care costs. For example, if Arizona can provide a cheaper rate for the same coverage in California, allow citizens to purchase health care coverage in another state.

Fourth, emphasize preventative care and reward healthy individuals with extra rate reductions. Make it worth a person’s while to live a healthy lifestyle.

Fifth, give legal citizens the choice to opt out of, say, Medicaid, and to convert their benefits into private health insurance, thus putting them in the driver’s seat and not government.

---

[1] William Gairdner, The Trouble with Canada, (Toronto: General Paperbacks, 1991), p. 314.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Steve Milloy, Green Hell, (Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2009), p. 61.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Gairdner, Trouble, 315.

[7] Ibid., 316.

A Life and Death Issue: Universal Health Care (III)

A Scarcity of Doctors

You’d probably never think that the United States has or ever could have a shortage of doctors. In America, you make an appointment to see your family physician and, bingo, you’re there. But when America’s top health insurers and providers met in early May at the White House their real aim was to sabotage our current health care system, which is the best in the world.

The present administration believes that a kinder, gentler, more socialistic system should supersede what we have. That is why when Mr. Obama was campaigning he kept repeating this phrase: “America is the greatest country in the world. Help me change it!” Huh? If it’s the greatest country in the world, why would we want to change it, especially if that “change we can believe in” entails socialized medicine?

Mr Obama and the health insurers vowed to save $2 trillion over the next ten years with this new plan. That was very interesting and certainly some were enthused and encouraged by the thought of a $2 trillion savings. The question that no one seemed particularly interested in asking was: How are you going to save the $2 trillion? The short, common sense answer is by cutting doctor’s fees and Medicare fees. This is the way it’s been done in other countries that languish under universal health care and the U.S. will be no different. As I write this, Congress is attempting to find a way to cut Medicare fees by 21%.[1]

“How does this translate into poorer health care coverage?” you might ask. That’s a good question. The intent is to cut doctor’s fees and to regulate medicine to the degree that doctors cannot make the kinds of decisions doctors are supposed to make because of bureaucratic red tape and hyper-control of resources. This is already true in countries like Sweden, Holland, Britain, and Canada and accounts for why many in those and other like countries are opting out of the socialized medicine and are heading towards privatization. It’s more than just a little bit ironic that while all these countries have lived through the baneful effects of socialized medicine, are starting to turn the corner, and are longing for privatization, America wants to give socialized medicine a shot? What! Are our elected officials really that stupid? Sadly, the answer is Yes and, we should add, greedy into the bargain, for they believe they stand to make more money on this abortive (no pun intended) undertaking.

Here’s how things work in the real world: Congress cuts Medicare by say, 25%, which brings about a concomitant cut in doctor’s fees, which, in turn, means that the doctors earn 25% less money. I’ll touch on how this works out in the practice later. The net result, however, is that these cuts discourage people from entering the medical field. As Dick Morris rightly observes, “The limited number of doctors and nurses in the United States is the key constraint on the availability of healthcare.”[2] The U.S. currently has about 800,000 doctors for a population of 300,000,000-plus. The average rate of growth in our physician cadre hovers around 1% annually. If that drops, coupled with an increasing retirement rate, it is going to be next to impossible to take these limited resources to treat the almost 50 million new patients that will join the ranks of the insured if universal health care is implemented in the United States.

Let’s compare these facts with what is occurring in the U.K and its National Health System (NHS). The press over there reports that twice as many bureaucrats now join NHS than doctors and nurses, and that 858,000 Brits were on a waiting list for an operation at the end of 2004, some of whom had been on the list for more than a year![3]

Personally, I think the 47 million without health care is a bogus number in spite of what President O’Bama, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton say. Nancy Pelosi cannot be trusted to get a simple story straight about when she was briefed—or not briefed; or misled, lied to, and bamboozled—by the CIA. If the woman cannot get a simple story like that straight, how in world did she get to be Speaker of the House? Anyway, all three of them toss around the number of plus/minus 47 million without insurance in the United States. Isn’t that awful? Well, no and that is for a number of valid reasons.

In 2006, the Census Bureau “reported that there were 46.6 million people without health insurance.”[4] So at least we know where the numbers come from. The next logical question is to ask: are these numbers reliable, accurate? Do you remember that then-Senator O’Bama campaigned on the right for everyone in America to get universal health care? He did and that number included all those in this country illegally. Now if Americans were to deny health care to those here illegally (known in the kinder, gentler PC world as “undocumented workers”) that number would drop by about 12 million, which is a substantial number. We also know that there are about 17 million more who lived in households that earn more than $50,000 per year who, for whatever reason, do not want health care. It’s a free country and they can make that choice. No problem. Nevertheless, they comprise 17 million people. Bang, Bang. Now the total number of uninsured in America has dropped precipitously by 29 million warm bodies.

Another large chunk of the 47 million comprise the eighteen to thirty-four age bracket and believe they’re healthy, if not indestructible, and have opted out of health care. They would prefer to spend their discretionary income on drugs, X-boxes, video games, DVDs, movies, clothes, and the like. Another group are those unemployed, but the caveat is that 50%, which is almost half, got jobs and health care within four months of the survey. So why don’t Mr. O’Bama, Ms. Clinton, and The Confused One, Nancy Pelosi, tell us these facts. Rest assured they know them—perhaps Ms. Pelosi heard them, but wasn’t certain what they really meant. And if the CIA gave them to her, we all know that they intentionally misled her.

Since our President is insisting that we include the illegal aliens in the mix, our limited supply of doctors and nurses will have to contend with a sharp increase in patient load in the future. So, once again, here is how things work in the real world: “The only way to save money on the scale projected is to ration healthcare services.”[5] But our meds will be free! someone might object. No, not really. By this time, adults should be keenly and acutely aware that there’s no such thing as a free anything and if something sounds too good to be true, it almost always is. In the very least, it’s not nearly all that was promised. Universal health care is a system that simply cannot deliver what it initially promises.

Allow me to give you a couple of examples. “Forty-four percent of the drugs approved by the Canadian health authorities for use in their country are not allowed by the healthcare system due to their high cost.”[6] In addition, “Obama’s pretension that nobody will find change in his or her current health insurance plans except for a magical reduction in their cost by $2,500 a year is a fool’s proposition.”[7] Why is this a ruse? The answer is to be found by looking at the health care management systems of other countries. Generally, here is the way things shake out. Insurance plans are governed and managed “by government healthcare planners who will approve treatments, limit drug use, hold down medical incomes and bring their cost-cutting programs to bear. Inevitably, their ax will fall on the oldest and the sickest among us.”[8] The net result of all the promises will be that “A crucial part of our quality of life—the best healthcare in the world—will be gone forever.”[9]

If you don’t believe me, Bill Gairdner, or Dick Morris, let me refer you to the Canadian Fraser Institute’s (www.fraserinstitute.org) “Waiting Your Turn. Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (2008 Report, 18^th Edition). The study documents the extent to which queues for visits to specialists and for diagnostic and surgical procedures are being used to control health care expenses. The report chronicles that the average waiting period in Canada for a CT scan is approximately five weeks. Moreover, “the total wait time remains high, both historically and internationally. Compared to 1993, waiting time in 2008 is 86 percent longer.”[10] In 1994, long after Canada’s system was in place and up and running, “Statistics Canada showed that over one million Canadians felt that they needed care but did not receive it, and that approximately 30 percent of these people were in moderate or severe pain.”[11] Just a few years later (2000-2001), “Statistics Canada data showed that an estimated 4.3 million Canadians had difficulties obtaining routine care, health information or advice, immediate care for minor health issues, and other first contact services, and approximately 1.4 million Canadians had difficulties gaining access to specialist visits, non-emergency surgery, and selected diagnostic tests.”[12]

Canada has attempted to remedy their problems by spending more (taxpayer dollars) on health care, but with undesirable results. A study from 2000-2003 “found that increased spending was actually correlated with increases in waiting times unless those increases in spending were targeted to physicians or pharmaceuticals.”[13] This truth led the researchers of this Report to conclude: “This grim portrait is the legacy of a medical system offering low expectations cloaked in lofty rhetoric” and “the promise of the Canadian health care system is not being realized.”[14] Is this what Americans want, because this is precisely what Mr. O’Bama wants to give us? Our health system is currently the best in the world. If the U.S. goes the route of socialized medicine there will be no country where those in lousy health care systems can flee to get treated, illegal aliens will be in the endless queues before Americans, and we will be forced to participate in something we do not want, constituting the loss of yet another freedom.

---

[1] Dick Morris, “Death of U.S. Healthcare,” (TheHill.com) May 12, 2009, p. 1.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Larry Elder, “Newsweek to America: Stop dreaming,” (www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/elder060205.asp), p. 4.

[4] Mark Levin, Liberty and Tyranny, (NY: Threshold, 2009), p. 107.

[5] Morris, “Death of U.S. Healthcare,” 1.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 1-2.

[8] Ibid., 2.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Nadeem Esmail, Maureen Hazel, & Michael Walker, “Waiting Your Turn. Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada,” 2008 Report (18^th Edition), www.fraserinstitute.org, p. 7.

[11] Ibid., 10.

[12] Ibid., 11.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid., 7.

A Life and Death Issue: Universal Health Care (II)

What is Universal Health Care?

Social Gospel peddler Jim Wallis of Sojourners answers the question posed in the heading in the following manner: “To guide our search for more humane and effective health care, we will need to establish some principles: for example, that health should be a human right and not a commodity for sale, and that wealth should not determine one’s share of health in our world. We need to build consensus on principles and priorities if we are to address successfully the enormous challenges of public health in a world of massive inequalities. And until something is done to make universal health care a reality in America, millions of families will remain poor.”[1]

Wallis’ statement contains almost as many errors as words. The quote from his book also raises a number of serious questions. First, who is the “we” that will establish the principles that will guide us in this investigation? Does it include Jimmy Carter, who wrote the Foreword to Wallis’ book? Clearly, Wallis has someone or a group in mind. Who might that be? Will conservatives be allowed to participate, or will “we” comprise only leftwingers?

Second, where and how does Wallis establish the principle that health is a right? For Wallis, it is the principal thought that Jesus healed. The quantum leap conclusion, therefore, is that health is a right. Surely Jesus said that somewhere in the gospels, didn’t he? If, health is a right, as Wallis asserts, then why didn’t Jesus heal everyone while he was on earth and not just the few mentioned in the gospel accounts? Moreover, in this age of the Holy Spirit, why doesn’t the Spirit pick up where Jesus left off and become the divine health (care) dispenser?

Third, Wallis’ assertion that health (care) should not be a commodity for sale, entirely misses the mark. Health care, rather than being given over to the government to run, should be privatized in a free market economy. Mr. Wallis doesn’t want that because his particular brand of the Social Gospel drives him inexorably in the direction of Socialism and Socialism disdains the free market. No, what Wallis and those like him desire is a government run and controlled health care system (read: socialized medicine) that would be similar to the Post Office, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or the IRS running your health care according to their rules and on their timetable. Therefore, if you get turned down for a particular procedure, you have no recourse of appeal and nowhere else to turn.

Why do you think so many foreigners that have socialized medicine in their country of origin fly to the United States and have their procedures done? The short answer is: because it is much better and ultimately cheaper.

Fourth, if Mr. Wallis would like to see more charitable giving by United States citizens overseas to rid poverty (how does he intend to do that when we cannot even completely eradicate it in our own country?), then he might want to lobby for the President and Congress to lower corporate and individual income taxes. As far as the “massive inequalities” in the world are concerned, I’m still unclear how Wallis intends to remedy them. They have existed for time immemorial and I, for one, would be keenly interested in how he intends to rid the world of poverty. Mr. Il of North Korea might put a kink in Wallis’ plans by not wanting to cooperate with Mr. Wallis’ plans to provide all North Koreans with affordable health care. Il barely provides them with a sustainable lifestyle, let alone expensive health care!

But there is more to this. Does Mr. Wallis really expect us to believe that the wealthy do not profit from private health care in socialistic countries? Does he really want us to believe that the wealthy and prestigious in countries with socialized medicine actually stand in queues waiting for their turn for health care? That’s almost as silly as Mr. Obama, Mr. Kennedy, Ms. Pelosi, or Al Gore putting windmills on their lawns or driving Smart Cars. Do you think they are going to send their children to government schools? In fact, are we so naïve that we actually believe that they are going to do anything they want us to do?

What Wallis and far too many of our current politicians want is government controlled everything and America is being pushed hard in that direction and needs to muster up the gumption to push back—and soon!

In the last issue, we were listening to Canadian Bill Gairdner as he described the Canadian socialized medicine program. How did Canada get there? Did they always have socialized medicine? The answer is: No. There was a time when Canada’s health care was provided under normal free market conditions. Admittedly, “a very small number of Canadians got caught without insurance. Their remedy was usually the charity of the doctor or hospital, special community funds set aside for this purpose, mortgaging their assets, or assistance from family.”[2] This all sounds quite feasible and hardly grounds for forcing and coercing Canadians to give their hard-earned money to those without health care. Thomas Paine once quipped, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” Thomas Jefferson added, “The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.”

Economist Walter E. Williams says that with all that’s going on around us, it’s easy to blame the politicians. But, “Politicians tend to do precisely what we elect them to office to do. We Americans elect politicians to office on their promise to take what belongs to some Americans and give it to other Americans to whom it does not belong. Or we elect them to give some Americans special privileges that are denied other Americans…. Indeed, more than two-thirds of the federal budget is spent for programs that fit the category of legalized theft.”[3] The net result is that every time Congress meets Americans lose another freedom. Again Williams: “Welfare and liberal visions of the War on Poverty haven’t simply been failures. They made whole classes of Americans indolent, dependent, and immune to the traditional cure for poverty—a growing economy.”[4]

Either Wallis has no clue when it comes to basic economic principles or when it comes to issues like poverty, or, worse, he knows and doesn’t care. Wallis claims to be a Christian; to be an evangelical. If he is, it is next to impossible to understand how he could possibly be in favor of creating an indolent, non-productive class in America, or how he could vote for a president that is so “in-your-face” about his pro-abortion stance, not to mention Mr. Obama’s views on embryonic stem-cell research. But I digress.

Gairdner recounts how previously responsible, law-abiding Canadians took care of their health care. Almost imperceptively—freedoms are hardly ever lost all at once; rather, it is a gradual, piecemeal process—the government was creating an atmosphere where it was considered a travesty if there were even one person in Canada without health care. That same perception is being created in the U.S. today. Politicians talk about the huge number of Americans without health care. Hillary Clinton mentioned the number 47 million, which is absurd. Mr. Obama’s promise for universal health care will include every illegal in this country. If we drop illegal aliens from the list—which we should—we’re down to 30 million.

Then we need to ask how many of those 30-or-so million don’t want health insurance right now. They are young and healthy and would rather spend their discretionary income elsewhere. Why can’t they do that in a free country? If you answer, “They can,” I’ll respond with, “For now.” You see, Mr. Obama’s plan, like most of the failed socialized medicine plans requires 100% participation. The idea is if the state sees itself as the public protector (Nanny), then it is government’s duty to require free people to cough up their money to take care of others.

One of the key architects of Canada’s health care program was British immigrant, Tom Kent, who was “the socialist-minded adviser to Prime Minister Pearson.”[5] He was followed by a long succession of health ministers, including Monique Bégin, who penned the book Medicare: Canada’s Right to Health. The title says it all. She and Wallis must have compared notes. But here’s the kicker on Kent. He was an unelected, yet highly influential person, who was an ardent socialist. He pushed socialized medicine on the Canadians and they were so apathetic that they let him. It was Kent’s rabid ideology that Canadians allowed to go unchecked. In essence, they permitted him to quash their freedoms and politicize the medical framework of the entire nation.[6]

In our next issue, we’ll examine more in detail how socialized medicine organizes scarcity and give you more interesting statistics from the Canadian Frazier Institute.

---

[1] Jim Wallis, The Great Awakening, Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, (NY: HarperCollins, 2008), p. 123. Emphasis added.

[2] William Gairdner, The Trouble with Canada, (Toronto: General Paperbacks, 1991), p. 300.

[3] Walter E. Williams, More Liberty Means Less Government, (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1999), pp. 51-52.

[4] Ibid., 55.

[5] Gairdner, Trouble, 301.

[6] Ibid., 302.

A Life and Death Issue: Universal Health Care

Rushing Towards Medical Mediocrity—At Best

Some might find it a little dramatic to discuss universal health care as a life and death issue. For those who have lived under universal health care (American politicians, tenured professors, and the general population of the United States), it might appear to be a good idea and to offer advantages over our current system. This is a false notion. I believe I qualify to write on this subject for a number of good reasons, not least of which is that I lived under it for nine-plus years in Holland and then, being a glutton for punishment, another nine-plus years in Canada. This fact alone puts me ahead of the curve for those who want to recommend universal health care to us.

Moreover, I have read widely on this subject and want to explain to those who are willing to listen that it is not merely about health care, but rather this issue spreads its tentacles out to a variety of ethical issues. For example, universal health care has an enormous impact on questions surrounding abortion, euthanasia, and stem-cell research, not to mention economics, free market principles, the government’s take over and nationalization of banks, schools, the auto industry, and health care as well as the broad topic of (real) poverty.

The Obama administration is rushing this country headlong in the direction of Socialism and it just announced that Mr. Obama would like to have universal health care, or some semblance thereof, in place before July 31^st. This administration is moving at breakneck speed towards fulfilling Mr. Obama’s agenda, which has already cost Americans more than they, their children, and their grandchildren can repay and the prognosis is that it’s only going to get worse. Even though it’s getting to be a hackneyed phrase, one cannot help but wonder aloud and on paper why the United States wants universal health care, when every country that has ever tried it finds it to be a dismal system that cannot and will not deliver what it promises. Why would anyone want to attempt to implement a system that has failed (miserably) wherever it’s been tried? Almost every morning I wake up these days wondering what stupid thing our elected and appointed representatives have done while I slept. Today it’s universal health care.

In the course of these issues, I want to lay out the numerous reasons why universal health care is a bad choice, in addition to the fact that it’s comparable to the Department of Motor Vehicles or the U.S. Post Office running your health care. Moreover, if this is such a crackerjack undertaking, why don’t Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, Boxer, Feinstein, and Schwarzenegger lead by example and use this program as their only form of health insurance? The short answer is: for the same reason they oppose school vouchers, want you and me to send our children to government schools, and who send their children to exclusive, expensive private schools. It’s the same reason a huge number of public (read: government) school principals send their children to private schools as well. Our government schools receive failing grades across the board and the same is true of every country that has every experimented with universal health care.

Make no mistake: it is an experiment that repeatedly demonstrates unfavorable results. In this preliminary installment, I want to begin by taking a look at the universal health care of our neighbor to the north, Canada, and a link to an excellent video by Dr. Walter E. Williams, an economist from George Mason University in Virginia. Way back in 1991, Dr. Bill Gairdner wrote an excellent exposé on the overall ills of Canada.[1] Chapter 11 of this fine work is entitled “Medical Mediocrity. Canada’s Sick Health-Care System.” Gairdner begins his discussion with a series of newspaper headlines from Canadian papers such as, “Metro wait for surgery forces 100 heart victims to hit U.S.,” “Patients wait in line for hospital bed,” “Second heart patient dies as surgery delayed nine times,” and “No one blameless in rise of health costs, study says.”[2]

After using these headlines as a jumping off point, Gairdner continues, “regular cost overruns, long line-ups for surgery, experts leaving the country, patients dying as they wait for service, lack of equipment, wage clashes between professional staff and hospitals, fee-schedule battles between physicians and government”[3] all add up to a sad but predictable story. It’s sad because I know from personal experience about a congregational member who died waiting for a heart transplant; he waited eight years and his wife found him dead in the living room one morning. It is also sad because in the past when anyone wanted to flee from their abysmal universal health care system, they could come to the United States. If Mr. Obama gets his way, this will no longer be the case. It’s predictable because it was doomed to failure from the outset. Every country that has toyed around with universal health care had the same predictable results. For Mr. Obama, that doesn’t seem to matter because he’s intent on establishing a Nanny State here in America.

Gairdner makes my point that universal health care is, indeed, a life and death issue when he writes, “But the predictable breakdown of our medicare system—yet another of our social-welfare schemes—will eventually confront us all, some in the most heartbreaking way, as we watch a loved one deteriorate at home, or die lined up in the corridor of some hospital, for lack of adequate service, facilities, or equipment.”[4] What makes this difficult for Americans right now is that (1) it’s still an academic question until universal health care finally gets implemented, (2) it sounds good: free medical care, and (3) it sounds compassionate.

But then again, history teaches us that whatever sounds good, compassionate, feasible, etc. might not actually be all of those things. There is an important economic principle involved here. You might have heard—way back when—someone say something about “supply” and “demand.” It is a basic, fundamental marketing principle, but few seem to understand it anymore or have any respect for its validity. I say this because it is germane to the discussion of universal health care. Here’s the overarching principle: The demand for an unlimited free commodity is infinite.[5] This is so obviously true that I’m almost embarrassed to mention it. I mention it though because recently I walked into a store where a young person was singing the praises of Mr. Obama (Apparently, to this young person, Obama is da man.) I asked him what in Mr. Obama’s economic policies he found attractive. He informed me that he had never heard the word “economic” before. Just another 18-year-old product of our government schools. Anyway, the principle is a sound one and applies in spades to every country that has given socialized medicine—that is what universal, government sponsored health care is—a shot.

There is also the adage that there is still no such thing as a free lunch rings true. Nothing is “free.” The government doesn’t pay for all this, the taxpayers do. The government will create yet another gargantuan bureaucracy that will mismanage taxpayer dollars, lose funds, make the politicians and bureaucrats wealthier, and provide, at very best, mediocre coverage for those who used to have good health care coverage.

In our next installment, we will delve deeper into this socio-economic problem, but in the meantime, I want you to contemplate the principle that the demand for an unlimited free commodity is infinite. That is to say, if health care is “free” (socialized medicine is very expensive free health care), human nature will dictate that people will make use of it more frequently, which means long lines and scarcity of medicines, procedures, and doctors appointments. If you have cancer and don’t mind waiting six to eight months for an MRI, Mr. Obama’s plan is just what you’ve been waiting for.

---

[1] William Gairdner, The Trouble with Canada, (Toronto: General Paperbacks, 1991).

[2] Ibid., 299.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid., 299-300.

[5] Ibid., 300.