Archive for September, 2009

The Public Health Care Option and Mandate to Purchase Health Insurance

Sep 20th, 09 / 1 Comment

Two of the major reforms being proposed in the health care package being debated by congress are the addition of a non-profit public health insurance option (which is NOT single payer and is NOT socialized health care) and mandating that everyone purchase health insurance, with a fine levied on those who fail to do so. The mandate for purchasing health insurance needs to be tied to the public option, and if the public option isn’t passed, the mandate to purchase must not be passed either.

I understand why the mandate is seen as a good idea. There are many people who are uninsured who will have their bills footed indirectly by taxpayers and those who do purchase health insurance, and by requiring other people to purchase insurance, we’ll be spreading the cost around more and asking them to contribute to the pool of money that will likely end up helping them or their families at some point in their lives.

Here’s the problem though: many of the people who do not purchase health insurance can not afford it. They simply haven’t found a way to earn enough money to do so. Fining people money they don’t have is not the way to help them get insurance or get on their feet. While I understand there is a system of tax credits in the work, such a system does sometimes render people who need help to make such purchases ineligible for help. See the recent fiasco with food stamp benefits for an idea of what I mean. If this were to happen with health insurance, it could deal some families a financial blow they can’t deal with. The public option would be another layer of protection to prevent this from happening with a mandate to purchase in place.

I know there are also talks of having insurance co-ops instead of having a public option. I don’t think co-ops can replace having a public option when it comes to providing affordable insurance to the largest number of people possible. I think they would be a great supplement to the public option and give people more choices in their plans to pick one that best suits their needs, but a non-profit will likely be most able to offer the most inexpensive insurance, which is what some people need.

I’ll be honest, on their own, I think the public option is a good idea, and the mandate to purchase is a bad idea. As a package though, having the public option and the mandate together is still quite good, and I’d be very happy with a bill that did include both. I just don’t want to see a mandate to purchase health insurance pass, then see families who can’t afford health insurance fined because the assistance system put in place to help them overlooked them.

As a final note, I’m no expert on health care, I’ve just been reading a lot about it lately. So, this is true to the best of my knowledge, but there is a lot of information and misinformation going around, and it really is difficult to pick the good out from the bad right now. I’ve also mentioned my biases about the two major topics, so you know where I’m coming from on this. In addition, the bill is still being hotly debated, is constantly changing, and different ideas seem to be going on and off the table all the time, so it’s hard to keep up with all the developments. I’ve tried to be accurate in my representation of what is being talked about, but I know that I may be missing some pieces, so feel free to add your own voice in the comments if need be.

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The Relationship Between Science and Religion

Sep 2nd, 09 / 0 Comments

A lot of people seem to think that science and religion are simply incompatible with each other. I think this idea really stems from taking too literal a view of any religious writing, though the Bible is the most commonly cited here in the U.S, and then realizing that science as we understand it says that many religious stories simply couldn’t have happened, or that they are very unlikely to have happened, depending on the story in question. If you take the view that a religious text is a history book, then this is very difficult to reconcile. This is one way people come to perceive a divide, and I think it is also the major root.

What if there were no books detailing these religions though? What if religion simply boiled down to belief in God? For some people, religion simply is a belief in God and a relationship with him, without the baggage of any particular belief system. In this case, there really is no incompatibility. You see what science has to say about the world, and any other beliefs you have can be shaped around our current knowledge and the areas we have yet to learn about in a scientific manner. One thing that is certain is that science in it’s current state can not prove or disprove the existence of God. It can’t even study the possibility. So belief (or disbelief) in God won’t contradict current scientific knowledge. That doesn’t mean such a belief is scientific, it just means that such a belief, if true, wouldn’t necessarily mean science is wrong.

There are other areas in which beliefs aren’t contradicted by science, because science can’t study them yet, and may never be able to do so. The afterlife is a big example. Another example is moral values. It’s hard to study the afterlife when you’re still living, though perhaps it will be possible in the future. And moral values aren’t something you can simply study by cause and effect. While you may be able to observe the moral values people hold, you can’t study what values people “should” hold just by observing reality. They’re constructed by people (or perhaps handed down by God). It seems very unlikely for them to be hard coded into reality like the laws of physics.

So, when it comes to the existence of God, the existence of an afterlife, and determining moral values, scientific knowledge does not currently contradict religion, and there is no evidence to say it will in the future.

As far as religious stories go, yes, science does contradict some of those. However, the stories could be metaphorical, or intended to convey some kind of lesson rather than to be taken literally. Also possible is that the miracles described in various religious stories did actually happen, but for some reason no longer happen so blatantly today. It’s also possible there’s another explanation that we simply can’t see from our human perspective that let’s everything work out, though I find this the most unlikely explanation. My view is that the stories ought to be taken metaphorically and may have something to teach us. In this sense, there is no contradiction, though there certainly is if you take the stories literally.

However, I think that in truth, it’s very easy to reconcile religious beliefs with scientific knowledge. You just have to think a little, be willing to make a few concessions on the end of religion, and understand the limitations of science while understanding that science being limited doesn’t make it wrong, just that it only covers certain aspects of reality, unless an objective, physical world truly is all there is.

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