The risks associated with government provided health care

My views and concerns on health care in the United States shift frequently. I do not have faith in privatized care, having seen my own family members unable to afford medications that could save their lives and have no access to quality specialized care. As the Catholic Church has asserted, health care is a basic human right, and as the Church has also stated, the role of the State is to promote and establish justice on behalf of all its citizens (viz., protecting basic human rights). I have little faith in local communities’ ability or willingness to find a viable solution, and so looking to the principle of subsidiarity, I find socializing medicine is a viable option.

However, there are many doubts and concerns that remain for me over socialized medicine, be it a single-payer or hybrid system, not least of all because of the issue of abortion. More and more insurance companies are classifying pregnancy as a “medical condition” or “illness” in terms of what sort of benefits it accords for that category. What would prevent a government health care system that is universal from doing the same and, combining this medical understanding with the law of the land, providing fully funded abortions? Could this be a distinct possibility?

Well, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards both are touting plans for a universal health care system that would cover abortions. I will not support a universal health care system that fundamentally and universally includes the “benefit” of abortion services. I believe such a system run by government would help to fortify the abortion laws of that same government, delivering a potential death blow to pro-life movements in politics. If abortion is grafted on to general health care, and this health care is socialized, then I suspect the entire health care system would have to be deconstructed and/or demolished before we could once more fight to change abortion laws in this country. In other words, I will not support a universal health care system run by the federal government if it includes abortion as a funded “service.”

This issue could actually be the undoing of both Obama and Edwards, since they are receiving criticism from within their own party. This could give Hilary Clinton yet another boost.

For more on Edwards and Obama on the question of universal health care, see here, here and here.