Healthcare Letter (Secular)

The second of two connected posts. This is the secular letter I wrote for the healthcare reform group I'm collaborating with. If the religious letter isn't your cup of tea, but you agree with my message, feel free to use this letter.



It's understood—and often understated—that markets exist for communal not private benefit. In no area of business is this perhaps more true than health care. As it stands now decisions pertaining to medical access are made by private insurance companies who are more beholden to their shareholders than their policyholders.

We need a public option to not only give access to quality medical care to the poor, but as an alternative for the thousands of citizens who are often dropped by their insurers precisely when they need their policy the most. In a country where every criminal is promised a lawyer why should law-abiding citizens ever be denied access to a doctor?

This isn't just a question of morals. Preventive care lowers overall medical costs by allowing individuals to treat illnesses before they develop into something more costly and serious, but many people hold off on seeing a doctor until it's unbearable because of the cost. A reliable public insurance option could lower medical bills through preventive care, cut down on emergency room traffic, and promote a healthy national workforce, increasing productivity by keeping workers on the job and off sick leave.

With the mass retirement of the Boomer generation looming, the single biggest addition to the national debt will come from the influx of people dependent on Medicare and Medicaid. The impact of this wave can be lessened by lowering health care costs now, which a public option as a part of overall health care reform can achieve.

These are momentous times. We have a chance to protect our most valuable national asset, our workforce, and the only true inalienable right—life. I urge you to support a public insurance option and to press for health care reform now, so that our nation's greatness may carry forward into the future.

Healthcare Letter (Religious)

Lately, I've been doing some activist work with a group in Louisville who are pushing for public healthcare option. In the first of two related posts, this is a religious based letter I wrote for the group to distribute to supporters. I mailed this letter to Kentucky senators Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell, as have several others. If you like it, and agree, copy, paste, and mail the thing in now.


Then you will call, and the LORD will answer; you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I. "If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.” Isaiah 58:9-10

We live in a world of fear, lies, oppression and inequity. If a person looks at this world and and sees anything other than a tragedy in dire need of change, then they are not seeing the world clearly. As a Christian, I know not only is creation groaning as a woman in childbirth (Romans 8:22), screaming for deliverance, but that every individual, great and small, is a reflection of the creator (Genesis 1:27). And what we do, or fail to do, to “the least of these,” we do to our Lord (Matthew 25:31-45). You can help “the least of these” now by supporting a public option in our current healthcare reform legislation.

Jesus dispersed his disciples not only to spread the good news, but to heal the sick (Luke 9:1-6). As modern disciples of the Christ, are we not called to the same vocation today? When Jesus described the spiritual practices befitting of His disciples He named three: giving to the needy, prayer, and fasting (Matthew 6:1-18), and faith without action is dead faith (James 2:20).

God has made abundantly clear His disinterest in pious showmanship and empty platitudes (Isaiah 1:11-15; Isaiah 58:5; Micah 6:6-7; Matthew 6:2,7,16). What does our God demand? Justice, care for the sick, concern for the downtrodden and the poor (Isaiah 1:16-17; Isaiah 58:6-10; Micah 6:8; Jeremiah 7:5-7; Deuteronomy 15:7-11; Ezekiel 16:49; Zechariah 7:8-10; Luke 10:29-37; Luke 12:33; Luke 14:13-14; Leviticus 23:22; Psalm 41:1-2; Proverbs 14:31; Proverbs 19:17; Proverbs 21:13; Proverbs 31:8-9; 1 Timothy 6:17-19; James 1:27; 1 John 3:17-18).

Our Lord calls for us to change our hearts—the core of our being—and to serve Him by loving both God and neighbor (Mark 12:29-31). Ours is a god of liberation; He calls on us to love the needy among us, lest we forget the price that was paid to free us from bondage (Deuteronomy 10:16-20; Galatians 5:1).

We have a chance to answer God's call by providing healthcare access to millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans. Please, do not squander this opportunity to do real good in the world. Trees are known by the fruit they produce (Mathew 7:16). How will we measure up when we spend as much as every other nation in the world on the means of war, and ignore acts of compassion easily within our grasp? It is impossible to serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Shall we serve righteousness or worthlessness (Jeremiah 2:5)?

Ontologica 1.1

The first issue of Ontologica is now live at http://www.warriorpoetgroup.com/Ontologica. Just click on the cover graphic and you'll download the entire magazine in .pdf format. We have essays (including a philosophical piece by yours truly), poetry, fiction, and reviews, as well as some great photos and paintings including artwork by Lousivillian Dennis Waddell. Check it out and tell your friends. And if you know Drew (the fiction editor and web developer) or Dave (poetry editor) be sure and let them know what an amazing job they did on our inaugural issue.

I see an almond branch

I'm convinced more and more every day that we've squandered the opportunity for repentance this recession should have been. Does anyone else feel that something has slipped beyond our collective grasp? The unmistakable sense that we've pursued worthlessness and made ourselves worthless in the process?

It's said the recession has changed our values, but what happens when it ends? The wealthy of Jeremiah's time gave up their slaves only to take them back when the threat of siege temporarily lifted... What will befall US when it is our skirts stained with the blood of the guiltless poor? Our legs spread for Mammon?

The Christian martyr and playwright Kaj Munk wrote:
What is, therefore, the task of the preacher (or the church) today?
Shall I answer: "Faith, hope, and love?"
That sounds beautiful.
But I would say--Courage.
No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth.
Our task today is recklessness.
For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature,
we lack holy rage.
The recklessness that comes from the knowledge of God and humanity.
The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the street...
and when the lie rages across the face of the earth---
a holy anger about things that are wrong in the world.
To rage against the ravaging of God's earth,
and the destruction of God's world.
To rage when little children must die of hunger,
when the tables of the rich are sagging with food.
To rage at the senseless killing of so many,
and against the madness of militaries.
To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of
destruction--Peace.
To rage against complacency.
To restlessly seek the recklessness that will challenge and seek to change
human history until it conforms with the norms of the Kingdom of
God.
And remember the signs of the Christian Church have always been--
the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish...
but never the chameleon.