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Politics The Town Voice Balanced

Obamacare and the Establishment of Religion

By Arlon Staywell RICHMOND October 27, 2011 — There is no final answer yet from the courts. It will require the Supreme Court to rule. So Obama's health care reform bill, more accurately the Patient Protective and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA, remains a topic at political forums across the country. A new approach emerges.
Although over half the states have challenged its constitutionality, there remains a large number of people who believe it is a good thing.
The profound concern of the experts is that the intrusion into private financial decisions is unprecedented and so massive.
However, even though the intrusion can be, and has been, called totalitarianism, a large body of support remains.
Apparently there are many totalitarians now.
Because more people are atheists these days, totalitarianism has more appeal. Atheists tend to justify coercion while religious people tend to minimize coercion. This was covered in detail in a previous article here, Breakdown of the atheist dialectic.
So a unique approach emerges to show the atheists the error of their ways. It compares PPACA to the establishment of a religion. If indeed "most" people believe, for example, cancer treatments work better than real scientific evidence makes clear, then if "most" people believe prayer works, what evidence otherwise should matter? It would be equally fair to force all citizens to pay for religious organizations. It would not even require "most" people to believe prayer heals anyone. So long as "most" people believe prayer does some kind of good in this world or some other world, they can justify their coercion of payments for such religion the same as people who believe in medicine.
Now consider the argument that although science can't prove much benefit from its cancer treatments, there are jobs created. Even more jobs would be created by giving high tax revenues to religious organizations. And they could actually make society better by teaching against homosexuality and other sins.
Two approaches to removing PPACA are; having it found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and repealing it by Congress. Once Congress succeeds in forcing people to pay for something it almost never backs down, so unless the Supreme Court stops PPACA nothing likely will.
But there might be good or bad news in that for religious organizations.
If all these years people thought that Congress not being able to "establish" a religion meant that it could not support one with tax money, PPACA changes that. Apparently now Congress can support with tax funds something people merely "believe" is good for them. Then Congress can just the same support religious organizations with tax money and other coercions of payment such as are involved in PPACA.
That would be good news for religious organizations. But if Congress failed to fund religion as it funds questionable medicine, that would be bad news. It would be very strong evidence that the country is atheist.
Or people could come to their senses and use their own money for things they believe work and forget totalitarianism.
Sometimes in these debates it is noted that states can force people to buy automobile insurance. The great difference with that is driving is not considered a right. No one is born with the right to drive a car. It is considered a privilege for those who meet numerous legal requirements. No one has to drive if they don't want. If they don't drive they don't have to buy insurance.

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