Ye Know Not What Ye Ask!
By Teri Ong
While we have been away, I am sure that Congress has been working hard on “the health care crisis.” Just before we came over, the Senate had cleared the way for debate on some version of a national health care plan. While we have been in a country that has a nationalized health care system, I have become more and more convinced that if we get what we are collectively asking for, we won’t like it.
Life is inherently risky. There is almost nothing we can do in a day that doesn’t have any potential medical consequences. One can even get water poisoning from drinking too much water and upsetting crucial electrolyte balances. Such perfunctory tasks as eating and sleeping, if done either too much or too little, carry well known possibilities for bodily abuse.
So– when the government is shelling out billions to pay for various consequences of living (including getting old), the government has a vested interest in getting citizens to do fewer risky and foolish things. And believe me, I have seen government in action in ways large and small in the last two and a half weeks.
Item 1: County councils in various parts of England are planing to hire inspectors that will be sent to the homes of families with babies and toddlers to make sure their homes are safe for children. (heard on a BBC news broadcast)
How well will privacy-loving Americans adapt to having bureaucrats poking around in their cupboards and fining them for that can of cleanser they forgot was there?
Item 2: UK taxpayers have forked over several thousand GBP (Great Britain pounds) to send out a brochure to senior citizens telling them what type of slippers to buy and how to wear them safely. For a mere 5 GBP, a senior can have a government representative come to his or her home and fit him or her with proper slippers. The representative will then instruct said senior in how to minimize the potential of falling down while wearing slippers. (The Daily Telegraph, Dec. 5, 2009, pg. 5, col 7)
With our government already buying up car companies and banks, maybe they need to look into footwear factories so they can be ready when Health and Human Services mandates safe bedroom slippers.
Item 3: Poster campaigns are all the rage. Every Underground station had Swine flu awareness posters showing how easy it is to spread flu germs. The posters show hand prints in florescent colors of items that have been touched by a victim of the flu. Eeooo! The worst thing about the poster campaign is that you are suddenly made aware of the presence of germs on solid surfaces while you are touching who knows how many solid surfaces in one of the most public (and probably most unsanitary) places in the world– London’s subway system.
I think I read somewhere about how increased stress runs down a person’s immune system. I wonder if the H1N1 awareness campaign is more expensive than the cost of printing posters! Maybe the health ministers in the U.K. need to heed the advice on one of their other poster campaigns: Like the man in the bathtub with the electric drill says, “If you’re doing something stupid– be careful!”
Item 4: Posters in the Underground also tell how many billion GBP are spent on health care services every year because of alcohol abuse.
Bar owners in America complained vociferously when they had to go “smoke free,” since people who drink alcohol in bars often liked to do so while enjoying their nicotine as well. Wouldn’t it be ironic if bar owners were forced by healthcare watchdogs to go “alcohol free” as well as smoke free!?
I personally would welcome a new era of prohibition, though I think it is unlikely that alcohol will go the way of tobacco, especially when marijuana is on its way IN. Alcohol is so devastating in the neighborhood where I live. I think poor neighborhoods suffer even more than they might otherwise from the economic burdens of 
drunkenness. But all socio-economic strata suffer the emotional and domestic pains that inevitably come with alcohol abuse. King Solomon understood:
“Who hath woe? Who hath sorrow? Who hath contentions? Who hath babbling? Who hath wounds without cause? Who hath redness of eyes?
“They that terry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine.
“Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright.
“At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.
“Thine eyes shall behold strange women and thine heart shall utter perverse things.
“Yea, thou shalt be as he that lieth down in the midst of the sea, or as he that lieth upon the top of the mast.
“They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick; and they have beaten me and I felt it not; when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.” (Prov. 23:29-35)
In America as in the UK, the wheels of government are frequently oiled with alcohol. For that reason, if for no others, we are probably destined to pay and pay alike for the consequences of escapism. But at least remember– like another of the famous posters says, “Don’t drink and ski!”
Item 5: London also has an anti-rape campaign going on right now which is inextricably lined to the alcohol issue. The culture of drinking and partying from Christmas through News Year’s Day causes criminal behaviors to increase proportionally. This is a double problem because it costs law enforcement services as well as healthcare services. And realistically, rape and its attendant costs are only a tiny fraction of healthcare expenses related to what society looks upon as “benign” forms of “unsafe sex.”
If we ever hope to stem the costs of “unsafe sex,” we must begin with calling it what it is– the sin of immorality. As long as we celebrate immoral behavior, rather than being ashamed or disgusted by it, we will never take any steps to curb it as a society. I am sure that the cost of immoral bedroom behavior is much higher than the cost of unsafe bedroom slippers.
Item 6: Brits seem willing to pay (and pay and pay) even though the quality and quantity of available healthcare keeps slipping. One report says, “Twelve hospital trusts are significantly underperforming… despite nine of them being rated ‘good’ or ‘excellent’ by the official health regulator… The research also uncovered widespread safety issues including 39% of trusts failing to investigate unexpected deaths or cases of serious harm on their wards.” (Fred Attewill, “Box -ticking in NHS Hides Bad Practice”, Metro, Monday, Nov. 30, 2009, p. 16)
Someone quipped in America, “When you think of ‘the government option,’ think of the efficiency of the postal system with the compassion of the IRS.” But it would also be good to think of the effectiveness of government-run education. Annually, we keep throwing billions of dollars at a declining system, hoping to fix it. That has happened to government-run health care in the UK. Do we really think it won’t happen here? My own father was nearly the victim of passive euthanasia in one of the best VA hospitals in America, a system that is frequently touted as being a good model for what is to come. Our experience with American education shows that no matter what comes, we will once again being willing to pay (and pay and pay).
Item 7: Brits have also worked themselves into an old-fashioned Catch 22. The cost of health care keeps going up and up, which means that the bill to the government keeps getting bigger and bigger. How do governments ultimately pay for bigger bills? By taxing at a higher rate. Insurance costs will cause a 1% rise in tax rates in the UK across the board. The catch is that “as Britain’s biggest employer, the NHS (National Health Service) will be hard hit by the 1% rise… A Tory official claimed the bill would equate to 14,000 fewer NHS staff which, shared equally between the current payroll, would mean 1,000 fewer doctors and 4,000 fewer nurses.” (Joe Murphy, “Rise in National Insurance to cost NHS 446 million Pounds”, Evening Standard, Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009, p. 9)
Isn’t it Economics 101 that somebody has to pay the bills? The problem is that if your employer is the government and the cost to the government goes up, the government still has to cover the increased costs by taking more from somewhere. If all other employers have to cough up more in tax revenue, so should your healthcare employer (i.e. the government!), which in turn makes the cost to the government for healthcare go up yet more! If it sounds circular, it is. If it sounds complicated, it isn’t: costs go up, and we pay!
Item 8: It seems that a number of parents of underprivileged children are protesting that they haven’t gotten their fair share of money for exercise programs and diet plans, in spite of the fact that “the government has spent 69 million GBP in the past year funding schemes such as the Mend Programme as part of an attempt to fight obesity.” (Evening Standard, Dec. 10, 2009, p. 13) It was too funny that on page 35 of the same paper an article reported that an endangered albino hedgehog, which had been eating too much high calorie dog food, had been put on a special diet to get it back down to a safe weight before being put in a special game preserve for albino hedgehogs! At least human beings aren’t the only species being micro-managed in regard to healthcare.
Government-based health care has become our god of choice; we must just have faith that it will take care of us. But it is a cruel god requiring increasing obeisance and great sacrifice. Psalm 115:8 says that people that make idols “are like unto them; so is everyone that trusteth in them.”
The healthcare gods in the UK are fearful, insecure, and largely bankrupt. Is that really what we want to become?
How much did the Brits spend last year in support of George W. Bush’s misbegotten war in Afghanistan. Maybe it could have been better spent at home. It may even be the case that the United States might have done the same with the $1.05 trillion that it has allocated to the same misbegotten and unjust (from an Augustinian point of view, that is) war. It may be that by regulating cost (so that health care professionals make a reasonable salary–how about minimum wage, since that’s good enough for the rest of the country), and by eliminating the profit motive in the insurance industry (i.e confronting the “fearful, insecure, and [morally] bankrupt” gods of Wall Street), and adding in a significant part of the U.S. “defense” (ha!) budget, we could provide a reasonable level of care for all.
I realize that the suggestion of regulating cost and limiting (if not eliminating) the profit motive smacks of socialism, but in the end, it may turn out that “the kingdom of God is not a democracy”, as a wise man once said. Maybe some things are more important than the ability of corporations to make more and more money.