Sunday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

Last summer the United States was caught up in a furious discussion about health care. Eventually compromises were reached on changes the Republican Party suggested during the Clinton Administration and the Democratic Party endorsed during the Obama Administration.

If no one is happy about the new rules that’s probably a good sign. Perhaps neither party won but we can hope the poor, the elderly, migrants, the homeless, disabled and children won better care than they are now receiving.

Last summer, at the height of the debate, I met one fellow – a Catholic – who insisted there is no right to health care. He believes neither the government nor the nation owes anything to the needy. He is willing to pay the insurance premiums for his wife and his children but no one else. I asked him if hospitals should refuse treatment to an indigent with a highly contagious disease, thus imperiling the whole population, but he deflected the question.

I wonder how he hears Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan.

Reentering the familiar story, do the passersby know the class or position of the injured man? Jesus has told us the man was the victim of robbers, but not that anyone in the story knew it. Stripped, beaten and unconscious, he has nothing to signify his rank or merit. Is he an innocent traveler or a highwayman who’s met his match?

I could suppose he’s a criminal; or I could suppose he’s a law-abiding citizen. And if preferring the latter costs me time and money, why not believe the former? What claim does he have on my compassion? He got himself into this mess; let him get himself out of it. I’ve got better things to do.

As the story continues, several people did pass by. They had obligations and duties and reasons they could not stop. However, a Samaritan stopped and cared for the man. Not only did he go to the trouble of tending his wounds and carrying him to a nearby inn, he offered a “blank check” to the innkeeper for any extra expenses.

Jesus concludes, he was the true neighbor. He alone kept God’s command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

I am the Roman Catholic chaplain in the Robley Rex VA Medical Center. It’s the attitude and core belief of the VA, acting in the name of a grateful American nation, that every veteran deserves the best health care we can provide. I think that’s a great policy. I would not hesitate to extend the same policy to every human being in the country.

In fact, that is the policy of our hospital system. It’s necessarily bureaucratic; and incredibly complicated. There are systems within systems tying into other entangled systems and if anyone understands all of them, please don’t even try to explain it to me.

But if anyone arrives in any emergency ward he or she will find professional compassion regardless of his or her moral innocence, political opinions, or national origin. That’s the law of this country and it’s a good law.

As I see health care administered I have the sense that no health care worker is willing to say who should and who should not receive quality health care. No one is willing to turn the needy away for the sake of saving the best resources for the most worthy patients. The question never arises. Even to make such a suggestion would raise the stress-level of hard working care givers exponentially.

In another parable Jesus explained how human compassion works. In Matthew 25 he says, “When I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink….” No questions were asked about worthiness or merit. In fact the generous people did not even recognize Christ when they did their good deeds. Bewildered, they ask, “When did we see you hungry, or thirsty or naked?” They cared for the sick because that's what people do. Our nature is to care for one another. Only sin can suppress that instinct.

The health care system of a nation cannot afford to discriminate. It would collapse if it tried. We have a long way to go before we apply Jesus’ parable perfectly. But we can hope and pray the new rules for health care and the insurance industry will provide better care for all of us, without discrimination of any kind.