I read two opposing accounts on the controversy in US healthcare this weekend and ironically enough I agreed with both. One was contained within the ‘Open Door’ magazine, a catholic pamphlet that is generally picked up on the way out of church (although this particular copy caught my eye in Tesco Maynooth), the other was in the UK Guardian, a left-leaning publication not normally given to religious regards.

Obama’s health service plans are in the news at present of course, as a debate ranges in the States over his plans to replace the current insurance only system with a national program for state cover. Some right wing critics in the States have seized upon supposed failures of the British public (or socialised as they say) health system to beat the reforming ideas of the new Healthcare push.

The ‘Open Door’ led with a front page missive upon the sanctity of human life and railed against the evils of disconnected secular beauracracies and the spectres of ‘death doctors’, putative panels with deity like powers on life and death. Forced euthanasia and mass abortions were cited as catastrophic consequences of socialised system.

I agreed with the author in the sense that I too would regard such consequences as apoclayptic if they were indeed to happen and I would very much concur with the author’s view on the sanctity of human life. However neither am I convinced that such things are contained within the healthcare package, rather a case of misrepresentation.

Which allowed me to find common cause with a quite different assessment of the plans contained within the Guardian newspaper this weekend, one which defended the plans and vilified the state-side critics. Private healthcare at the extreme as practised in many ways in the states literally is a life and death sitation for those caught in the middle. In this case of course ability to pay is the decider rather than either man or god which is a far less christian conundrum altogether.

Whilst many conservatives may take issue with Obama’s pro-choice views I believe such considerations to be misplaced at the heart of this debate. I believe him to be a fundamentally good man (in every sense including the classic biblical connotation of the word) and I believe the Democrats to be a good party. So Whilst I empathatise with the concerns of the religous orders, I fear the financial fire power of the US insurers is skewing the debate on many axes and for far baser motives, thus obscuring the real benefits the plan can bring at a very fundamental and christian level. As much as God must want to protect the unborn child, equally he must want to protect the poor sick and needy. So let’s get the balance right with an informed debate, but let’s make sure we throw out neither the baby nor the bathwater…