[Vision2020] Rabbi Fink on the Health Freedom Act

[Ralph Nielsen]

An excellent article by Rabbi Fink in Boise.
Ralph

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2010/04/10/1147814/health-freedom-act- 
puts-idaho.html

The Idaho Statesman

Fink: Health Freedom Act puts Idaho in some bad company

By Dan Fink - Special to the Idaho Statesman

Published: 04/10/10


With their proclamations of sovereignty and passage of the Idaho  
Health Freedom Act, which purports to exempt our state from federally  
mandated health care reform, our governor and Legislature have  
reduced Idaho to the level of a petulant child whining to Washington,  
"You're not the boss of me!"

This position may curry favor with anti-government zealots, but it is  
also legally and ethically wrong-headed, and fighting it will  
squander enormous resources.

The U.S. Constitution clearly grants the federal government the power  
to write laws that are binding on all 50 states. In 1861, the  
Confederacy challenged that authority - and lost when the Civil War  
ended with their unconditional surrender.

The history is telling because ever since then, efforts to re-vivify  
the old states' rights argument have consistently been - to borrow a  
phrase from Samuel Johnson - the last refuge of scoundrels. Idaho  
Republicans have now cast their lot with the dubious company of  
antebellum slaveholders and Jim Crow Southern segregationists. Now,  
as then, assertions of state sovereignty have nothing to do with real  
freedom and everything to do with maintaining an unjust and  
oppressive status quo.

Why has this always been the case? Because genuine freedom is not  
about the childish notion that one can do whatever one desires,  
regardless of the cost.

My Jewish tradition speaks out of a deeper understanding of  
liberation in this season. Our festival of Passover marks our  
deliverance from Egyptian bondage - but we regard that exodus as  
merely the first step of the journey rather than the final goal. We  
remind ourselves of this by counting the omer, the seven weeks that  
separate Passover and Shavuot, the holiday that celebrates the giving  
of the Torah on Mt. Sinai. This connection asserts that freedom does  
not find its fulfillment until we accept the responsibility to one  
another and the rest of God's creation that is at the heart of  
Torah's teachings.

By this same logic, the federal government can and should require  
individuals to purchase health insurance for the same reason that  
states require drivers to buy auto insurance: We are part of a the  
commonweal, and the welfare of any one citizen affects the welfare of  
us all. Mandating that those who are healthy and can afford to pay  
must do so is the only way to create a pool large enough to cover the  
needs of those who can't afford insurance on their own.

This is our moral obligation because we are, as the Bible  
consistently teaches, our brothers' and sisters' keepers.

An important Talmudic teaching describes the classic libertarian  
attitude of "what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours" as the  
morality of Sodom. Indeed, the sin of Sodom has nothing to do with  
sexuality (as many anti-gay groups would have it), and everything to  
do with selfishness and the tyranny of valuing individual wealth over  
social responsibility.

As the prophet Ezekiel taught: "Only this was the sin of your sister  
Sodom: arrogance! She had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility,  
yet she did not support the poor and the needy ... and so I removed  
them, as you saw."

Alas, here in Idaho - 3,000 years later - too little has changed. The  
so-called "Idaho Health Care Freedom Act" only entrenches our place  
among tantrum-throwing toddlers, selfish sinners of Sodom and  
spiteful segregationists.

Is this really the kind of company our governor and Legislature wish  
to keep?

Dan Fink is the rabbi for the Ahavath Beth Israel congregation.