It will be interesting to see if the health care reform projects passed by Barack Obama and his colleagues in Congress will now pass the Lemon Test.
Mandatory health insurance is touted a great thing among the more liberally inclined folks dwelling among us. It is especially great since it reaches those unfortunate folks -- 30 million of them -- who do not currently have coverage.
Of course, no one likes to talk about that 30 million, who they are, and what they want. Some of that 30 million includes people who hate medicine, who want nothing to do with doctors; who know that medicine and doctors are not infallible, that doctors often misdiagnose, poison, maim, wound or even kill people. Some people are just plain phobic: sadly, they MUST pay for something they not only don't want, but fear.
Another subset of the American public is that group, like some if not many members of the First Church of Christ, Scientist, who do not want health insurance simply because practitioners of Christian Science seek help in different ways. Is the United States government going to force certain religiously-driven people to comply with something that stands against their religious beliefs? Is the United States government going to subsidize alternative forms of care that are religiously- and not medically-based? Is the United States going to fund care at a Christian Science facility? Is it going to force adult Jehovah's Witnesses to receive blood transfusions if needed, though such transfusions are against the teachings of the Jehovah's Witnesses' church?
Seriously, the religious and therefore legal implications of the new reforms are dizzying. If certain religious people can be exempted from such insurance, then all religious people can. If the federal government is going to pay for Christian Science-based care (for example), such will be denounced as excessive entanglement in religion (which means, it fails the Lemon Test). And if religious people who DO NOT WANT HEALTH INSURANCE are FORCED to do so, the state, then, will be acting as "Theologian-in-chief," telling its citizens that the cult of the state trumps the cult of any particular church, synagogue or mosque.
These issues are an obvious result of poorly formed, poorly planned legislation that was passed with nary a debate. This is the result of taking advantage of a manufactured crisis and its resultant fears, of ramming through something not because it was good for the country, but because it was good for a man and his party. And it is just further evidence of the Democrats' "Legislate now, think later" behavior. It is, sadly, a behavior that looks more like addiction than anything else.
©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.
