Why do you use Brazil as an exapmple of publicly financed healthcare? Why not look at industralized OECD countrys with GDP per capita at par or only some 10-20% below that of the US? Norway, Denmark, Finland, UK, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Iceland... Pick any?

From what I can read from your answer there are no actual logic reason for your opinion, there are only a web of more or less religious, dogmatic principles that you simply live by no matter what. Ever heard of Darwin?

Now you stepped in it...

Don’t be naïve to think that “birth control” refers only to condoms - but abortion pills and the killing of innocent children. So abortions will be considered routine. As our President loves to say “Make no mistake” - this is about money. Money for Planned Parenthood. This means 17 million women will now have the right to kill any unwanted child. Just because teenagers or adults are irresponsible doesn’t give them the right to end a life that has no voice. Just my opinion.


For more see the full press release




I’m not really interested in Middle Eastern social systems outside the Bible. But out of curiosity which ones are you referring to?

It is morally wrong for government to help because this is not the government’s responsibility – it falls on the shoulders of individuals and religious organizations (as well as NPO’s). More dependency on government isn’t what we need economically, socially, or morally. Just my opinion. But once again in this great country we are privileged to agree to disagree.



That remains to be seen. A lot will depend on this next election. Some people are trying to transform America – not fix it. We’ll see what the next few years will hold.

Well, I am actually convinsed it would be enough scale with US popuilation divided in 20 different groups. The big problem with health care finances with individual incuranse is that something like 10% of the population represent 90% of the health care cost. If a company can decline someone a policy, it would be worth tens of thousands of dollars for the company to try to identify every single one of those 10%.

This means that if the theoretical total need of healthcare is $100, it could make perfect sense for the only two incurers on the market (50/50 market share) to spend $44 on identifying the 10% of the population that represent 90% of health care cost (90% of $100 is 90, and 50% market chare of that is $45). With tax financed health care for everyone, hunting down those who are most likely to need health care makes no sense, and is not done.

Anyway, what is the christian stance on declining care to those who need it the most? Note I am a huge sceptic of Obama care (sinse it is a costly patch on a rusty cotainer), but a fan of tax financed universal health care á la European well fare states.

I'm interested in the basis for your opinion. To say that it's morally wrong for a government to help because it's not government's responsibility -- this is something I cannot find in the Constitution nor in any Biblical texts. What makes you believe that it's wrong for government to help people?

Brazil is the country I'm most familiar with. See below on other industrialized country's.




Lol. Well I can't say I'm surprised at this. I've clearly stated my reasons but I will do so again:

1) People should be allowed to chose for themselves what type and if they want health care. If this can be mandated what about silencing religious freedom, telling people where to live, or limiting other freedoms?

2) It is not the responsibility (or at least it hasn't been up until this law was passed as a constituional tax by the U.S. Supreme Court) of government to care for those in need. This is the job of individuals and NPO's (Non-Profit Organizations).

3) This law provides direct funding for organizations that are pro-choice which the law will force all American taxpayers to contribute towards. See previous post. Once again I believe I should have the right to chose whether or not to contribute towards such an organization. (As I understand it religious organizations will also be forced to contribute indirectly towards these pro-choice organizations if they offer any kind of insurance to their employees).

4) As DoingHomework pointed out the social healthcare may have worked in Europe (and I'd still like to see statistical data on this) but it will not work as well here due to constant abuses (corruption). With this new system in place the abuses will only get worse.

Please address these four issues. Let's start with that.

But if you look at the top 20 countrys with the best quality of health care, the majority is made up by what you call "a socialost system". Intriguingly, these countrys manages to produce helth care for everyone with about half the money that is spent to provide health care for 80-90% of US citizens (the rest is not covered).

In what way is this corrupt and inefficient?

That is an excellent question. I'm not an expert in law but I'm not sure Obamacare would allow such a company to exist without paying into the "general pool" of money being funnelled to the PP. Something to look into...

Well, if you don't want to have an abortion you should not have one. I really think you are mistaken if you actually believe that anyone is in favor of abortion. Every woman I have know who has had one did not do so lightly. It is not a routine step and never will be for any woman, regardless of her political or religious views.

I do think it is a positive step though that women will now have access to health care services without a bunch of men telling them what they can do with their bodies. It's been a few thousand years in the making.


I was talking about the ones in the bible, the OT is at least partially about law and government. The NT has a lot in there about organizing the early church as a mobile nation. As a matter of history, they did not see a difference between the religious leadership and the "government." That came much (~1000 years) later. So anyone trying to teach you that the bible does not prescribe a role for government is misinformed. You might want to take some university courses in middle eastern history. But be careful, they might open your mind.


Hmm, so the government should not help people? Wow, that's an extreme view. So a poor, homeless, widow can only get help from churches? I guess she'd just have to die if she did not want to agree with your beliefs. Is that how it works? If she happens to be a hindu that does not want to convert then she has to rely on a church rather than the government?

And what's the deal with talking about non profit organizations? That's just a category the government created to provide a subsidy in the form of tax exemptions for their funding. Why is that not equally morally wrong for churches and NPOs to use the government handouts they receive in the form of tax deductibility of contributions for helping people?

I can appreciate a hard line argument for limited government. I might even agree with it in many areas. But you are not being consistent at all. As Northern Light said, you have some dogmatic views that seem to be based of little more than what you've been told to believe. Your arguments to support your views seem to be very inconsistent or simply your opinion.




Actually is doesn't remain to be seen. My point was that the esteemed legal scholars on the U. S. Supreme Court did not see the law as an unconstitutional infringement upon religious freedom. If they did they would have written that in their opinion. They have already issued their ruling and written opinion. There is no "to be seen." It's over. The election has nothing to do with it. There is no infringement upon religion in the view of the only people that matter on the subject.

Let's replace a few words here with another example and see how it sounds:

"People should be allowed to choose for themselves whether to stop at street intersections. If this can be mandated, what about silencing religious freedom, telling people where to live, or limiting other freedoms?"

The government controls our freedom to pass through intersections by putting up traffic lights or stop signs and enforcing them. Why? Because if they didn't a lot of people would be injured or killed in the ensuing free-for-all. You could say that the government is trying to protect us, but it's also a major cost-saving measure for society at large: someone has to pay to deal with all those injuries and deaths. Either we give up some of our freedom, pay via our taxes for the traffic lights, stop signs, and police to enforce them, or we pay even more via our taxes for the costs of responding to all the injuries and deaths.

The concept of individual freedom is a fallback to Neanderthal values. It's based on one of our animal instincts that we should be trying to transcend as we try to fulfill our potential as human beings who can think beyond individual self-interest and consider the larger public good in this complicated, interconnected world.

We already tell people where to live in the form of zoning regulations (which Texas largely lacks so perhaps you are unfamiliar). And we limit many other freedoms in the interest of living together in peace. Owning slaves was once a right sanctioned under the constitution yet we limit that now for obvious reasons. There are many other rights that are limited for many different reasons.



Please take a civics course as well. The U. S. Supreme Court did not pass any laws and has no authority to do so. It also has not power to tax. Its power is restricted to reviewing decisions of lower courts and, here, to determining whether a law violates the constitution (simplified but basically that is what happened).

Congress passed the law and the president signed it in accordance with the process defined in the constitution. The law was challenged by some parties who believed some provisions were not within scope of powers granted to the Federal government by the constitution. The ruling of the supreme court was that the law was in accordance with the constitution.

Congress can only pass a law if it has the power to do so. In the Affordable Care Act Congress claimed authority from the commence clause that grants it the ability to regulate interstate and international commerce. The supreme court ruled that the commerce clause did not apply but the law was consistent with Congress' power to tax.

So, no, the court did not pass a tax. They simply said that what Congress had already passed was a constitutional tax.



Again, my personal opinion is that you should have that right. But the supreme court says you do NOT have that right and their opinion is the only one that matters. You don't have to agree with them but you do have to live with their decision unless/until a new law is passed by Congress and signed by the president.



I do think that Americans will abuse the system. But that's an administrative challenge for the future bureaucrats to deal with. It has nothing to do with whether the law is the law of the land.

I'll take a couple.


For the record, the Supreme Court does not pass laws; Congress does. The Supreme Court only rules on the Constitutionality of laws, which is what it did. Roberts himself stated that it was not the Court's job to pass judgment on whether laws were good or bad; this was Congress' job. Funny thing about all this is that the Right is adamantly against the Court legislating from the bench...right up to the point where the point where they want they don't like the decision because the Court refrained from legislating from the bench.

And interestingly enough, your statement about it not being the responsibility of government to care for those in need until the law was passed (using your word) by the Supreme Court pretty much ignores the existence of Social Security and Medicare, both of which have been around much longer than you. Your statement is factually wrong.


Yes. And the Right is adamant that religious organizations that provide healthcare services receive funding even if some taxpayers don't agree with their beliefs. So the law also provides direct funding for organizations that are pro-life wherein the law will force all American taxpayers to contribute toward. In other words, the law does not discriminate.


Well, there's your start for at least 2 of those topics.

It's also indicative of a very early stage of moral development...where one is focused on personal impact rather than on the effect on society at large.

Helath care is not anything you "want", it is something you need. Mostly unexpectedly. I live in one of the most secular countrys of the world and even if you would imagine this beeing a pack of satanists (...) I can tell you the majority (I would guess >80%) of the people of Sweden would find it unbearable to witness sick people beeing declined quality care.

My guess is most people who decline incuranse in the US and then get really sick don´t have the "decency" to crawl away under a rock and die. My guess is they lean on family and friends. That makes thme just as much a free loader as someone in a system of socialized health care. And by the way; who is choosing for themselves - the family and friends of those sick people stupid enough not to get incuranse?

I think the argument of "choise" is just a principle crock of bull. You don´t have the choise about obeying the law, it´s forced upon everyone (except really rich people like OJ Simpson of course). Civlized society. What is the problem?


This is your opinion, baced on principles. As a teenager, and even further on, I was (or thought I was) very driven by principle. As the years passed I more and more often found that beeing pragmatic and focus on the problem at hand is far superior to constantly living by an ever so simple principal. I find most people around me have similiar basic needs and meet similar problems in their daily life as I do. Having an open mind, always look for dialogue and trying to reash consensus seems to me beeing a way of building a relaxed, happy and smooth running country - even though it might end up quite secular (...)



Se previous answer. I try to be pragmatic. I doo find the debate about abortion in the US a bit "medieval". In Sweden abortion is part of the public health care and a possibility fore women up too week nine. I and my fiancé had one done when we were very young and even though I did not think about it at the time, and even now do not regret doing it, since we got kids much later not one week goes by without me thinking of what could have been, and feel a bit downhearted about it. We don´t plan to get more kids, but if my finacé got pregnant now I would no way in hell want an abortion. I can not look at my kids and think we would turn one little dude in there down. This has nothing to do with religion or "respect of life". I am just a muchy father of two. Even so, I don´t want to judge others, and I am convinsed there are very good reasons for most abortions. If it is used as a contraceptive I would vote for increased fees to scare people (idiots) off.



It most certainly "works", but as everything with human involvement has flaws (se above: bbeing pragmatic). Are americans more prone to take bribes or cheat than most europeans? I find that hard to believe.

And an athiest like me has no problem giving pro-life groups direct funding for health services as well. If a woman wants to receive services consistent with her own pro-life views she should be able to on an equal footing with a woman who chooses to have an abortion.

It's sad to me that many who argue in favor of individual liberties are only be in favor of one of these.