In many parts of the world, health care is regarded as a necessity for all people regardless of employment and income. When someone gets sick and dies, their death is a loss for their families and for the wider community. Death is a part of life, and this is a given. Death, when it can be forestalled, is defeated for a while because of modern medicine and good health practices. Eventually, serious illness and the aging process will surrender to the inevitability of death. Adequate health care is a necessity for everyone because without it, death claims lives randomly, prematurely, and inequitably.
Bacteria and viruses do not discriminate. Rich people and poor people get sick and, sometimes, die because of these unseen organisms. Joseph Lister became the father of modern surgery because of his work with bacteriology and infections. Utilizing Louis Pasteur’s work on germ theory, he invented the modern concept of sterilization. These 19th-century scientists paved the way for the discovery of sulfa drugs that have made pneumonia and appendicitis curable infections. Listerine and pasteurization are household words but echo a history replete with preventable deaths among rich people and poor alike. Today we attach the word globalization to infectious diseases and know that Ebola in Africa can easily cause a worldwide calamity if not treated properly. COVID-19 already convinced most reasonable people that adequate health care needs to be treated as a basic human right and not reserved for the wealthy and powerful.
Capitalism has raised more people out of poverty than economic systems that stifle innovation and reward mediocracy. The downside of capitalism is that it can lead to a widening chasm between the ultra-rich and everyone else. Billionaires are growing in numbers around the world while poverty, homelessness and starvation continue to exist in even the most advanced countries on the planet. The challenge is obvious. How do we use the power of capitalism to address poverty, poor health, and all the rest?
The United States is the only country in the world that was founded based on ideas. Democracy and freedom have helped to create a nation that is a powerhouse of innovation and ingenuity. It is no wonder that this is where the poor and powerless want to come. Enlightened capitalism has led to graduated income taxes that unleash the power of government to provide education for all, roads that stimulate the economy, and safety on our streets. They have also allowed us to protect our nation from adventurous adversaries and provide generosity to nations that are less fortunate. While our history of slavery, Jim Crow, and discrimination are dark chapters, we have still managed to be a land of opportunity, generosity, and compassion.
The freedoms that undergird our democracy are at the heart of our success as a nation. As an inalienable right, freedom demands that it be used for the good. Robbing a bank is an abuse of freedom. In order that freedom be used properly, all who exercise freedom need to cultivate character which involves truthfulness, honesty and integrity. Compassion, generosity and respect for the common good are complements to our innate hunger for justice. Together, these character qualities allow for the proper exercise of freedom. Unbridled capitalism that ignores these virtues masquerades as freedom but is its clear abuse.
Ingenuity, capitalism, and inalienable rights are ingredients that can be stirred into a solution for the vexing problem of providing adequate health care for all. What is needed is the political will to address this issue in a non-partisan way. Branding recommendations as socialism creates a partisan dead end. Continuing to force emergency rooms to treat the uninsured is misguided and expensive. Allowing profit margins to control solutions diminishes limited resources instead of marshaling these resources in pursuit of the larger goal of advancing good health for everyone.
The key to providing adequate, universal health care depends on the cultivation of a consensus that we are all in this together. Globalization means that everyone is at risk when the next deadly virus hits. A stranger is the friend I haven’t met. I am my brother’s keeper. These are all ways of recognizing and living out the principle of solidarity. Living this principle is how we create a better world for the poor, the powerless, and all of our neighbors together.
Msgr. Garrity is a Senior Priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and former pastor of St. Mary’s Parish and High School in Lynn.