universal health care and the bible

my 49 year old mother needs a liver transplant. i'm angry. i'm scared. i'm anxious.

I'm angry because I know my mother's been screwed by medicaid. time after time, they cut her off while she was in the midst of trying to get her sickness diagnosed. and when she wasn't cut off, she was being denied--denied doctors, denied medication, denied HEALTH. with all these roadblocks and hiccups in her 'care,' it took them fuckin YEARS to finally arrive at the diagnosis of primary biliary cirrosis. it took them YEARS to tell her the disease is a hereditary autoimmune sickness. it took them YEARS to tell her, finally that it's an incurable disease. it gets progressively worse. it eventually kills. and early detection is key to keep it from taking your life. early detection!? with a diagnosis 5 years in the making!? yea, well this is the reason she nee ds a transplant...

and so i want to know WHY. why are poor people left hanging to die? why do poor people have to die from things rich people don't die from? why was my mother denied the treatment necessary to keep her from getting sicker? i want to know WHY healthcare is a fucking luxury in this country and WHY is this country the ONLY industrialized nation in the western world with no universal healthcare?? for a more articulated tangent on this issue, watch michael moore's "sicko." for something to do about it, go to his website www.michaelmoore.com. cuz there indeed IS value in the stories we have to tell about getting jacked up and screwed over by the very people and the very system that is supposed to protect our health and take care of us when we need it. don't let people suffer! dont let them die in vain and trust me they do DIE from being denied care. it's THAT bad. health insurance companies will find any reason to declare a certain treatment uncovered by their policy. and if they cant find a reason, they'll look for ways to cut you off completely. watch "sicko;" it provides many such instances of people DYING from things they should never have died from--because so many treatments were available--but they were all held out of the reach of the people that needed them all because the insurance companies are more interested in keeping money in their pockets than they are in healing people.

it is so disgusting from so many standpoints. politically, socially--even religiously. i find it so ironic that it is the christian right who can be some of the most powerful and vocal opponents of universalized health care. so ironic and so incongruous. do they not READ their bibles?? does it NOT SAY in leviticus and numbers and deutoronomy that we are to do good by GOD through doing good by one another. God knows what he's doing when he charges us with this task. he's setting us up--giving to eachother is also giving to God and, in the end, what we give will all be returned to us when He showers us with blessings for doing right by Him.

So where are the bible verses when it comes to helping people in poverty get even the bare necessities that they need to live? have we not been told not to take a man's millstone or his cloak when he requires it? these objects are symbols for that which is vital for survival. you cannot strip people bare and leave them to die. you MUST leave some of your harvest for the ones who have none of their own. you must give to those who need it. so how do these lessons translate into a country where 80% of the wealth is held by 1% of the population. 1%!!! By denying the poor, america denies God himself! everything Jesus taught us falls by the wayside and is washed down the sewer--all in the name of profit.

apparently the bible is only useful to right wingers when they THINK it justifies hatred and the systematic denial of rights. when it actually commands people to GRANT rights, THAT messages gets ignored...i think it's just so funny that left wing liberal democrats seem to be more in line with biblical ideals (whether they know it or not) than the ones who claim religion as the fundamental basis for all they do politically, but that's a whole other rant in itself...