Health Care Reform On a Napkin
For those of us who like short and simple, Peter Grier has sifted President Obama’s health care reform down to four points you can write on a napkin.
+ Health Insurance: You’d have to have it.
+ But the Feds might help you pay for it.
+ Your employer might have to help out.
+ Uncle Sam might get into the insurance business.
The direction of this plan is acceptable — it builds on what we have and seeks to improve it. It’s more evolution than revolution.
Small government conservatives oppose it, but government outgrew small long ago. I don’t object to them, though — a democracy needs an opposition party to keep the ruling party honest.
Repeated use of the word reform in this context catches my attention. The Protestant reformers reformed the church according to scripture, and Catholic reformers according to scripture and tradition. Today’s health care reformers want to make it available to all, a good goal.
Reform never achieves as much as it advertises — it runs up against the futility built into the structure of things (Rom. 8.20). But it can achieve something, and this is my hope.
Give me the plan on a napkin, though, so I can understand.
ADDED: David Lewicki has a thoughtful post on the difficult relationship between theology and health care proposals. Check it out.
