Trumpcare takes care of Trump and the Republicans in Congress, whose political fortunes rest on their promise to destroy Obamacare. But it takes care away from tens of millions of Americans, and degrades the health insurance of tens of millions of others. Trumpcare, rolled out today by Republican senators as the Better Care Reconciliation Act, threatens countless human lives.

All clergy and lay-leaders in churches and temples around the country are invited to put candles on their altars and invite the congregants to come forward and light them to prayerfully remember the enormous number of Americans whose health is put at risk by Trumpcare. Please take pictures of the candles and send them to me and to your Senators and members of the House of Representatives and your local press, indicating that this is happening in houses of worship around the country. Let me know if you plan to participate!

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office in May concluded that “in 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under H.R. 1628 (the bill gutting Obamacare that was passed by the House of Representatives) than under current law. The increase in the number of uninsured people relative to the number projected under current law would reach 19 million in 2020 and 23 million in 2026. In 2026, an estimated 51 million people under age 65 would be uninsured, compared with 28 million who would lack insurance that year under current law.” From what is known about the legislation being secretively considered in the Senate, the ultimate Trumpcare bill will have similarly disastrous effects over a longer period of time.

Trumpcare is cruel, immoral, and unholy. Every last person in this country should be and must be insured so that they have access to decent health care, and it is government’s role to assure that this is the case. As communities of faith, we must light the way and burn with conviction in resistance to this planned destruction of our nation’s health care system.

It may seem noble to die for a noble idea. “Give me liberty or give me death!” is a rousing cry for the defense of this fundamental American value. But with Trumpcare, a lot of Americans will die for an ignoble Republican concept of freedom that even Republicans abandoned long ago.

Republican President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act in 1986, which requires hospitals to treat patients in need of emergency care regardless of their ability to pay, citizenship or even legal status. With the stroke of his pen, Reagan acknowledged that government must intervene forcefully to ensure that everyone in America has access to life-saving medical care that the “free market” cannot provide. Obamacare did not break new ground: it was just a sensible extension of what we can call Reagancare. Obamacare assures that people get medical attention before they need to go to an expensive emergency room. Will the Republicans now repudiate Reagancare, and take us back to the barbaric days when people could bleed to death simply because they had no proof of insurance? I doubt it. But for Republicans to let Reagancare stand is an admission that health care is a “good” that cannot trade in the kind of market that effectively delivers us televisions, shoes, and computers. The consumer will inevitably be in the dark about types, qualities, and costs of medical treatments, as the Nobel Prize winning economist Kenneth Arrow concluded in 1963 in an academic paper that is still considered the definitive work on the subject. Arrow proved that this fundamental imbalance between the consumer and the provider makes a medical “free market” impossible.

“In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:16

For the next couple of sabbaths, with candles on our altars, let our light shine before others so that our country can continue the good work of assuring that every American is guaranteed access to health care.

Rev. Jim Burklo, Associate Dean of Religious Life, USC – jtburklo@yahoo.com
Website: MINDFULCHRISTIANITY.ORG Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
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Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California