As many know by now, a revised version of our president’s health care reform bill was passed a few days ago. We could debate various perspectives for or against the bill, predicted implications of the bill, consequences for the health care industry and our quality of care moving forward, but analysts on every channel are already spinning all of this in droves. Set aside, for a moment, your political affiliation and your feelings about government’s level of involvement in our lives. Instead, I’d like to view this discussion with a different lens.

First, I will admit that I have experienced two sides of health care. I have been completely without insurance and have absorbed medical costs as a result, and I have also been over-insured and benefited from sharing health care expenses. As a husband and a father, I do believe in the importance of having health care insurance, especially in this age of massively absorbent medical costs. However, is medical insurance a human right? What litmus should we use to define a human right? Is the health care issue in America a social injustice on the level of child sex trafficking or racial discrimination? There is little doubt that these are two issues that must anger God. In a world, however, full of such explicit inhumanities, I wonder what God thinks of America’s attitude and energy expended about our debate over health care rights. Are the lines between rights and entitlements beginning to blur? Have we finally crossed the line as a nation into full-blown opulence or are we finally addressing a real American oppression?

What I would like to know is if you feel Christianity has anything to say about what is and what is not a natural-born right. Does this health care topic intersect with your faith?