Some Thoughts on Health Care

I JUST CAUGHT A PROGRAM on cable last night - I think it was Michael Moore's - about the health care system in the US. Now, given the political leanings of Mr. Moore, I would usually take these things in stride but I have seen another episode which was a feature on a current affairs program (I could not remember now which one, I think its 60 minutes) that highlighted the same problems - that the US health care system is broken. But I did not know how broken until I heard the nameless voices of those of whom this system's brokenness had become a burden and a scourge.

Since our own Country, my fellow Filipino compatriot, one of many emerging nation-states (as I do not like the word "third world" as if there were other shared human realities than this one inhabited earth - among the one family of nations, there are emerging (young) nation-states, maturing (intermediate) nation-states and there are elder (shepherd) nation-states; a perfected or ascended nation-state only exists in eternity), is thinking of introducing, or have already introduced a formal health care program for our citizens, it would behoove this generation of Filipinos to learn from the mistakes of the American experiment and also sympathize with the plight of her orphaned people - hoping, constantly hoping for better days for all the nations of the one family of the nations of mankind.

Heath is not a product. Industry may use human labor or man hours in cost accounting but the human being itself can not be considered material. The common market is not the steward of either the state or the nation; that would put material things in control of human destiny - an insufferable tyranny that shall ultimately suffocate and destroy those freedoms that guarantee the pursuit of human happiness - for all people - for all times. Even those with currency and influence enough to be covered by this entirely market-driven health care system must know, here and now, that this kind of system will not recognize their own humanity should the tables of a fickle world be turned against their fortune and/or the vitality of their lives be overthrown by the uncertainties of our poor world.

Health is a right - it is without exception a God-given right of all human persons, and is a right entrusted to the care and concern of the human community - both the nation and its honorable state - to which that person belongs to as an integral part of that national community's particular endeavor of Country.

It is vital that we learn our lessons here as well. For a nation-state, true to her divine calling, has no other greater treasure than the life of her people.
---<--@

Prosper the Peace. Prosper the People.

Sancta Sanctis!

Glory to God in the highest
Adoration to Jesus Christ
Peace to men of good will.

Please refer to entry: Some Thoughts: Universal Healthcare