It is our duty to help all the less fortunate

Health care, what can I say?

I could write about how it affects employers and employees. Maybe that health care premiums have doubled since 2000 and will double again by 2018. Or how GM spent more money on health care insurance in 2007 than it did on the steel it used to make cars.

How about the fact that American employers who pay for their employees are less competitive than foreign counterparts, and how employers who don’t provide health care have sicker employees less likely to show up to work on a regular basis.

I could write about the uninsured – how half of all bankruptcies in this country are related to medical expenses. Or that 87 million people – one in three Americans under 65 – were uninsured at some point between 2007 and 2008. I could say that 80 percent of the unemployed come from working families. Or tell you the bleak fact that 22,000 Americans die prematurely each year because they don’t have insurance.

But what good would this do? You’ve heard the facts before. They’re overwhelming and numbing. For most of you reading this, you’re lucky enough to afford insurance, or you have Medicare or VA benefits. And you’re happy with the way things are. For you.

Let’s forget about the political verbiage for just one second and look at our values, such as fairness, freedom and stewardship.

One aspect of fairness is universal participation in the system. Currently, only those who can afford it, the very poor and the elderly are covered. Young people – those least likely to get sick – do not participate in the system, making risk pools more expensive. Under health care reform, the young would have to enter the system or pay a tax to make the system fairer.

When we think of freedom, we think of the freedom to choose your own doctor or to choose the care you receive. Under the current regime, we will soon price ourselves out of the ability to make these choices.

Opponents have said that people in countries with universal health care wait in long lines to receive care and are basically brought before death panels. Why is it, then, that these countries have longer life expectancies than the United States?

Stewardship is the concept of collective responsibility to pay attention to the way our system serves us all. In Leviticus 19:9-10, God issued an order to his people:

“Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvestâ€-you shall leave them for the needy and for the stranger.”

This passage isn’t about government intrusion into an individual’s freedom. It’s about those who have sharing the bounty with those who do not. It’s about keeping preventable starvation from occurring.

Health care is like food is, capable of sustaining life. The stewards of today may become the poor of tomorrow. It is therefore our duty to chip into the system when we can so that we can call upon it when we need help.

When we actually look at it, we share the same values. We want leveling of the playing field in our sports, we want freedom for our nation and we are stewards of our churches and our communities.

We are in more agreement than we probably think. If we put aside our knee-jerk political reactions, and a biased media more intent on ad revenue than educating the public, and return to fundamental American values, maybe we can come to a consensus on health care reform.

(Editor’s Note: Aguirre is a Nogales native. She is a University of Arizona graduate and attorney in Tucson. When not practicing, she is a Community Organizer for Organizing for America, a grassroots campaign, focused on realizing President Obama’s agenda.)