Becky Akers: Obamacare's immoral imperative
By: Becky Akers
Op-Ed Contributor
September 21, 2009
I'm one of the 45 million Americans without medical insurance. I don't want it, either, especially if the government taxes you to buy it for me.
That's theft. The feds may be willing to do the stealing for me, but it's still wrong: I'm also a devout Christian.
Tragically, many of my fellow believers seem to have forgotten the Eighth Commandment. But there it is, carved in stone: "Thou shalt not steal." Notice there aren't any exemptions, not even "unless thou art a politician and robbest thy neighbors for sake of health care reform."
It's bad enough that the laity ignore this clear prohibition against stealing -- but what are we to think when clergy jump on the Obamacare wagon? Some of them even promote a monstrosity they call "40 Days of Health Reform," an obvious, ecumenical attempt to turn "faith communities" into political action committees.
We're about a month into those 40 days, with groups varying from Catholics United to the Islamic Society of North America to the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism urging "people of faith" -- faith in government, apparently, not God -- to lead "a national campaign for health care reform. ... We'll be holding hundreds of prayer vigils. ... We'll sign petitions, write our representatives, organize a nationwide conference call for people of faith and air a national TV ad -- all to say the faith community supports health care reform."
Meanwhile, theologians and religious scholars prattle about a "moral imperative" to "provide health care." But you need be neither a Christian nor a Ph.D. to understand the fast one these so-called leaders have pulled on both morality and logic.
God endows each person with time and skills; the amount of time and the kind of skills vary, certainly, but everyone owns some of both. We combine them to produce wealth.
Those who extort that wealth become thieves, regardless of motive. Buying health insurance for an American who lacks it doesn't justify using stolen funds to purchase it any more than buying him a Lamborghini does.
Jesus Christ freely healed the sick. No bureaucrat coerced Him. Compulsive Obamacare may be many things, but it's neither Christian nor moral.
Becky Akers is a freelance writer and historian.
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