Advocates of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) make increasingly strained arguments that the state has a moral obligation to provide health insurance for underprivileged children. That moral obligation rests on social justice theories which posit that access to publicly funded health insurance is fundamental to human dignity and therefore an imperative.
Former Lt. Governor Bill Ratliff has entered the fray on the side of CHIP, arguing in a recent speech (reprinted by The Austin American Statesman) that support for CHIP, a government-run program, rests on certain biblical teachings, and accuses those legislators who oppose increased funding and revenue to pay for CHIP of failing to live up to the highest imperatives of Christianity.
Ratliff, who supported changes to the CHIP program in the 78th Legislature, states: “When considering how many poor children in Texas will be removed from the Children's Health Insurance Program in order to hold down costs to the state, they [referring to certain legislators] choose not to consider Christ's admonishment to ‘suffer the little children to come unto me.’"
One may ask Mr. Ratliff: what end of social justice is served by continuing to fund a government program that has not met its objective of reducing the number of children who are without health insurance? The fact that certain families decline to sign up for the program is not a failure on the part of any public official “to suffer the little children.” Parents must make a myriad of decisions based on what is best for them and no amount of cajoling by the government will determine the best interests of every family.
Furthermore, by adding income verification and asset limitations, the legislature actually protected the state’s ability to keep CHIP eligibility at 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL) – the exact same as before the cost savings measures were instituted. But there is growing and publicly available evidence of program fraud. Included in the 2004 report to the 2292 Legislative Oversight Committee is evidence that people on CHIP were driving luxury vehicles including a 2003 Lexus. One family of 2 (mother and son) had three vehicles with a value exceeding $50,000.
Perhaps CHIP advocates should explain what Christian principle requires taxing a family making 205% FPL in order to pay the insurance of a family driving a Lexus? Who wouldn’t be offended if the well-off took money from the collection plate at church?
More importantly, taking someone else’s money in the name of charity is not charity at all. It goes by the name of hypocrisy. There is not one command in the Bible – not one reference – to shift the duty of care for the poor to the government. It is a shame when Christians call for the government to relieve them of that responsibility.
Mother Teresa labored intensely, patiently and lovingly in the slums of India. She devoted her life to the service of the poor, embracing the AIDS patient, the leper and the cripple in a real, meaningful way just as Christ did. Despite her example, too many advocates confuse taxation with charity, and see government programs as the chief means of achieving social justice on earth. Mr. Ratliff says, “We even have the teaching of Christ's parable, where he tells the rich man that if he wishes to enter the kingdom of heaven, he must ‘go, sell everything you have, give the money to the poor, and follow me.’ Talk about a high tax rate!”
Government programs are nothing more than an involuntary transfer of wealth, no matter how noble one might want to make a program appear. Whether children’s health insurance is really a matter of social justice is debatable. Access to the health care may be closer to the mark, but that is not a justification for government doing what we should do for ourselves and each other.
However, Christ did not instruct his apostles to petition the Roman authorities to help the lame and the poor. He did it himself, and demanded they do likewise. Christ filled the multitudes with loaves and fish, and gave us the bread of eternal life in the form of His self-sacrifice. But government advocates, wrapped in their own self-sewn Shroud, can, at best, salve their own moral conscience by insisting that others do the work of tending to the poor. Is that really living the word of God and emulating Jesus Christ?
The first obligation of all those who believe in the message of Christ is to follow His word. If the advocates of CHIP really believe so passionately in the justness of their cause, then they will adhere to the Biblical admonition to “sell everything” and give it to the poor as Christ commanded rather than demanding that the rest of us render more unto Caesar. Giving of your own resources directly to the poor is called Christian charity. Redistributing the wealth of others in the name of the poor is called socialism. Mr. Ratliff needs to learn the difference.
Colyandro is Executive Director of the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute; Connett is a policy analyst at TCCRI.
