On separate ends of the spectrum, politicians are bickering over healthcare and its potential effects on our country. One side worries about massive spending and government takeovers. The other side proclaims that it is the responsibility of the nation to care for those who cannot access healthcare due to medical problems or impoverishment.

Do we, as a country, have a moral obligation to ensure that healthcare reform legislation is passed?

According to Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners Magazine, that answer is a resounding yes. In an article entitled “A Faith Declaration for Health Care Reform” in the Huffington Post (Oct. 7, 2009), Wallis made his case for passing healthcare reform legislation.

Wallis begins by arguing that health is the will of God. Some of the most prominent and memorable stories in the New Testament feature Jesus Christ healing lepers, making the blind see, and the lame walk. With all the devotion to the phrase “what would Jesus do,” are persons of faith actually willing to do just what Jesus did? No matter the disease, condition, or socioeconomic status of the ailing, Christ healed the sick, as should we.

Wallis also trumpets the need for unity in promoting the common good. Moral principles of major world faiths consistently declare that people should not be simply left to suffer because they cannot afford a basic necessity. Just as those without money to pay for food should not be left to starve, those without health care insurance should not be made to suffer physically and financially. 

Finally, Wallis emphasizes the unconscionable and unprincipled act of rejecting a person for pre-existing conditions so as to widen the profit margins of the health insurance company. This is essentially gambling dangerously against a vulnerable person and is definitely not the image of compassion and charity that the religiously devout should be seeking to extol.

We should choose carefully how we proceed in support or rejection of the current healthcare reform legislation. Wallis argues that healthcare reform and fiscal responsibility need not be pitted against one another; we have a responsibility to ensure that we pass on a financially sound nation to the next generation. We must not, however, simply shove aside all legislation in defiance of the common good. Instead, let us work to refine the current legislation underway.

Hannah Anderson is a Policy  Intern with the New River Valley Chapter of the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy as well as a Masters of Social Work student at Radford University. She lives in Christiansburg with her husband and two young daughters.