Watch the Pronouns

Of all the talk we have heard about the President’s health care plan—my concern has been the pronouns that keep popping up. Listen closely and you hear my insurance plan, my doctor, my family’s medical treatment and my Medicare. All these are appropriate concerns. But listening closely I hear few responses beyond the I’s, the me’s and mine. What about all those other pronouns? Nobody much is talking about those 47 million who have no health care of any kind. I remember hearing Tony Campolo says that 30,000 kids die every day of sickness and malnutrition. Wonder how many of these are Americans? When the 47 million figure crops up lately we have heard a lot of snarls about giving 20 million illegals health care--not to speak of what they call the other deadbeats. The words we hear often are they and them.

Whatever happened to the common good? Whatever happened to that old vision of liberty and justice for all? Did those words of Jesus, “I was sick and you visited me…” get lost in the shuffle of self-interest and fear and most of all: greed? Where are the “us’s” and the “we’s?” Few who oppose health care reform offer any solution whatsoever to those 47 million who have no coverage. I haven’t heard any sermons on this subject. Maybe I have not been listening closely enough.

It looks like the united interests of pharmaceutical companies, for-profit hospitals and insurance companies and a multitude of doctors have poured millions of dollars to maintain the status quo. Chances of health care for all looks bleak from my corner of the woods.

The naysayers won’t go away. Lately they have tried to drown out all the voices for health care. Maybe it is time for us “sayers” to speak up. How can Congressmen and Senators who have the finest health care in the world even after they leave office—how can they ignore all their constituents who have no insurance? What should we do? Pray, write letters to our elected officials. Maybe we ought to raise our voices in letters to the editor and let everyone know how we feel.

We’re in this together. We have to get beyond the me and mine and the you and yours. We need some we’s. We need some us’s—we need, once again a vision of a united states. Ours is an unfinished business. The promise of the future is scary indeed. It took the children of Israel 40 years to go 400 miles. The theologian Kosuke Koyuma used to call this The Three Mile an Hour God. One of the reasons for their painfully slow movement was that they had to bring everyone along. The old, the children, the rebels and the difficult. Can we afford, at this time in our history to leave behind 47 million of our brothers and sisters on our journey? Listen to the pronouns when health care is being discussed. Me and mine. You and Yours. We and us. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We all came over here on separate boats but we are all on the same ship.”