‘America deserves better’: A call for health-care reform
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PrintProviding quality, universal health care as a core societal obligation is a 2,000-year old command in the Jewish tradition. It speaks across millennia to us today. Consider the words of the Jewish tradition on health care:
• “Whoever is in pain, lead him to the physician.” (Baba Kamma 46B)
• “It is obligatory from the Torah for the physician to heal the sick and this is included in the explanation of the phrase and you shall restore it to him, meaning to heal the body.” (Moses Maimonides)
• “God created food and water; we must use them in staving off hunger and thirst. God created drugs and compounds and gave us the intelligence necessary to discover their medicinal properties; we must use them in warding off illness and disease.” (Moses Maimonides)
• “No disciple of the wise may live in a city that is not provided with the following 10 officials and institutions: [the first two being] a physician and a surgeon, [a bath-house, a lavatory, a source of water supply such as a stream or a spring, a synagogue, a school teacher, a scribe, a treasurer of charity funds for the poor, a court that has authority to punish with stripes and imprisonment].” (Moses Maimonides)
• “Our Rabbis taught: the non-Jewish poor are to be sustained along with the Jewish poor, the non-Jewish sick are to be visited along with the Jewish sick … for the sake of the ways of peace.” (Gittin 61a).
Indeed, the very word “shalom” comes from the root “l’shalem” — to make whole, to heal. People of faith have always understood our responsibilities to include the obligation to bring health to all, and healing to the sick and infirm. With optimism and determination, we are on the cusp of fundamentally changing the way that Americans ensure health care to all.
To those who would say that religion has no place in the health-care reform debate — that this has become too much a partisan political issue — organizations representing a broad consensus in the mainstream religious communities insist that this is a quintessentially religious issue. The health-care crisis touches nearly every citizen, every community, every church, mosque, temple, and synagogue; every member of the clergy and every congregant. The failure to provide universal health-care coverage challenges the simplest and clearest biblical command expressed by Ezekiel, that “[e]very living thing shall be healed.” It is these values and these concerns that bring the religious community here to say: America deserves better than the reality.
What is the reality?
“We live in a country with a pitifully inadequate health-insurance system that causes horrors every day so tragic that they could rip the heart out of a stone.... The time has long since passed when our leaders should have done what every other advanced country has somehow managed to do: provide all its citizens with essential health care.”
With these words, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of our Union for Reform Judaism, called on all of our synagogues to join the struggle to pass universal, affordable, accessible, and portable health-care reform.
The moral test of health-care reform is whether it provides accessible, affordable, quality health insurance for all, including our country’s low-income seniors, children, the disabled, and immigrants. These are the people most at risk of falling through the cracks, and these are the people who rely on us to ensure that they can find decent health care when they need it. Indeed all Americans, wealthy and poor, children, the elderly, and, yes, women, deserve care that meets all their needs — including reproductive health needs — and keeps them healthy throughout their lives.
Yes, America deserves better than the reality.
For the 10 million uninsured children, we say: America deserves better! For the millions of the disabled whose health care is threatened, we say: America deserves better! For the more than 80 million who at some point this year will lose health insurance, we say: America deserves better! For those millions of hard-working Americans who have lost jobs and with them their health benefits, we say: America deserves better! For all of those tens of millions of Americans who fear that they may lose their access to comprehensive coverage, and whose life savings are threatened by catastrophic illness, we say: America deserves better! For the soul of our nation, we say: America deserves better.
Our traditions demand better. Our nation seeks better. God’s children deserve better. This Congress can do better. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call of the fierce urgency of now should animate the decisions each senator will make in ensuring universal health coverage. We pray and advocate that they will do better — for all Americans and for our nation’s future.
Stay tuned for the return of comments
Flag CommentI agree with the Rabbi here ... BUT Obamacare is NOT about health care reform ... it is about health care deprivation/deformation ... it will worsen health care for everyone and still not cover everyone ... it will bankrupt our economy, contrary to what the President in his ideologically driven zeal says… stop repeating the deception ... do not play on true compassion and Jewish liberal standards to lead us into this trap!
Last week, Rabbi Waskow misused the Jewish religion to promote his politics re climate change. This week, it is Rabbi Saperstein’s turn to misuse the Jewish religion to promote his politics re health care.
I have no problem with clergymen expressing their political beliefs. I do have a big problem with clergymen expressing their political beliefs as religion based. Then, why is there so much disagreement among the clergy regarding politics? We have seen the clergy promote evil deeds as well as good deeds.
The clergy should stick to their business. Teach the laity religion and religious behavior. Let us interpret how our religion should affect our politics.
You’re still free to interpret how religion should affect your politics - however you want. But so are they! Do with it what you will.
It is a shame for the Rabbi to conclude that what is needed is universal healthcare according to Baba Kamma. What specifically is wrong with the American healtcare system? Where is the list of legitimate problems? When will we study them, and if needed, then resolve them?
I have written to my legislators and the only response I have gotten is “Thank you for your response.” The Halachah tell us that the most important factors in life are the individual and the community. In my opinion, neither the current administration nor the Rabbi have fully performed their due diligence in this respect. The Rabbi’s statements are uninformed at best and political, it seems, which is the worst. Further, it appears that the current administration is unable to truly care about much of anything and that its actions are also uninformed and political only, both of which are the worst, especially when governing. But the real question is what can be done about any necessary improvements to our healthcare system that may be needed in an affordable way, and in a way in which the government does not take over the system?
Rabbi Saperstein fails to differentiate between access to healthcare and affordable healthcare insurance. It is true that everyone in the US (including non citizens) have access to basic healthcare - granted it is inefficient and costly - but no one is refused service at hospitals. Healthcare insurance is not really insurance - which is defined as protection against catastrophic events. It is basically a non-taxed benefit that large corporations offer to their employees - which is neither fair to the general public nor fair to tax payers. Perhaps the US should reform the concept of government funding of healthcare and return ownership of healthcare to the doctors and individuals and out of the hands of the government.
I am overwhelmed by the comments of those who do not care about the other human beings in their community. In our interdependent society, no person is an island unto themeselves. Your self interest has overcome your sense of obligation to the community of people on earth. I am aware that we can’t solve every problem in health care all at once. It is very difficult to change an inequitable process that has developed for many years. We must start to right the wrongs of the past by extending health care to all. The present legislation extends health care to those who have pre-exsting conditions, those who can’t afford to purchase insurance and those unable to care for themselves. Insurance is shared risk and we need everyone in the ‘pool’ of the insured to make it affordable to all.
Unfortunately this legislation is not driven by the citizens but a compromise of competing self-interests and that many items will not be in force for a few years. I am confident that future adjustments will provide a more equitable system.
For those who think morals has nothing to do with politics, need to realize that laws are based on our moral values. Laws about murder didn’t develop from politics.
Those who care about the future health of society need to let their legislators know that it is immoral to deny health care to a third of our population.
