Pontius Pilate Applies for Blue Cross

Luke 10: 30 In answer Jesus said, 'A man was once on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of bandits; they stripped him, beat him and then made off, leaving him half dead. 31 Now a priest happened to be travelling down the same road, but when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32 In the same way a Levite who came to the place saw him, and passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan traveller who came on him was moved with compassion when he saw him. 34 He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. He then lifted him onto his own mount and took him to an inn and looked after him. 35 Next day, he took out two denarii and handed them to the innkeeper and said, "Look after him, and on my way back I will make good any extra expense you have." 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved himself a neighbour to the man who fell into the bandits' hands?'

The current disaster movie now being filmed in the halls of Congress is called “American Health Care Reform.” The ink on the various bills was not even dry when they were dragged into dark corridors and beaten into insensibility. The issues involved in reforming the provision of health care in this country are so complex and intersect with so many other areas that it is daunting to know where to begin. However, one of the most basic issues that must be settled before health care has any chance of being reformed is agreement on whether or not human beings owe each other a duty of care. If we say from the outset it’s every person for him or herself, then the health care debate becomes somewhat simplified. We ignore the needs of the poor, the weak, the old, the sick, the uneducated, the wounded and allow the logic of the present system to work itself out, letting the chips fall where they may.

Somehow that does not feel like the lesson of the good Samaritan. It is interesting that in this parable Jesus specifically uses the care of wounds as a measure of neighborliness. Some might reply that it does not mean that the government should have the responsibility for providing that care. As a sociologist, I would normally refrain from engaging in the use of religious argument, but let us suppose that Jesus is confronted with precisely this case. Is it to be imagined that his reply would be that government ought to stay out of the business of health care? Are we to suppose that the Samaritan would be any less praiseworthy if instead of providing assistance of himself he was instead a representative of the community at large? If Pontius Pilate decreed that henceforth all the medical needs of the community would be met, would that be cause for denunciation and alarm? Such a decree surely would be welcomed even if it did not exhaust the entire meaning of the parable. Compassionate human beings would still be responsible for those needs which escaped the notice of the authorities or for harms occurring in plain sight. Alternatively, one could easily imagine the complaints of the passersby who refused to give aid in the first place saying that they resented having to give their hard earned tax money for such a purpose.

Thousands of years have passed but the needs are still as great and their disregard is just as bitter. In the right hand column of this blog I have posted two parts of an interview with Slavoj Žižek, a controversial Slovenian sociologist and psychoanalyst. In the first part of the interview, he makes an interesting case that provision of health care should be treated like water or other public utilities. He willingly gives up the choices involved in treating health care like a business so he can devote himself to a truer freedom. If we are burdened with concern over how we can afford health care for ourselves, our children, our parents, then what is our freedom at the end of the day? There are powerful interests in this country and the world who benefit enormously by treating health care as if it were a giant haberdashery and not a matter of life and death. They have the resources to create the public relations necessary to stampede a credulous public into believing that its interests are best served by giving up the power to organize and control. It seems to me that the banks have been operating on the same set of principles that these health care interests are trying to keep in place. As Chico Marx once famously said, “Who you gonna believe? Me or your own eyes?”