Where is our Empathy?

This is our ongoing healthcare debate in a nutshell, folks.

On one side we have patients who need continued protections from pre-existing condition discrimination and lifetime or annual limits for our coverage. On the other, we have extreme stinginess and selfishness that says people like me aren't worth treating, aren't worth the monetary cost, and aren't worth burden we place on society.

People with health conditions like mine are extraordinarily expensive to try to keep alive. From the perspective of strict utilitarianism or social Darwinism it doesn't make sense to save lives no matter the financial cost. But if we as a country claim that all people are equal, or if we who are Christians believe everyone bears the image of God and is equally worthy of love, we must reject such thinking. I find it odd that many of the people who support a social Darwinian approach to healthcare also view Charles Darwin as an evil, Satan-inspired figure, his ideas an attack on God. I've long rejected such notions, but now I see they hold a kernel of truth. When concepts like survival of the fittest are misunderstood and taken as prescriptions for human society, not as descriptions of the mechanisms at play in the natural world, that is indeed an attack on God and God's children.

That's how I see our current healthcare debate. We can attack those people who've had the misfortune of experience health issues at some point, or we can continue to protect and care for them while working to improve our healthcare system for everyone. We can decide people like me aren't worth covering and treating if it means everyone else pays a little more, or we can recognize that to be a part of society means to accept our shared responsibilities towards one another. That this is even up for debate right now makes me wonder when we lost our empathy, if ever we had any.