What Is A Christian To Think About Healthcare?

That's the question Brad Green asks --and provides a good answer, I think. Namely, that Justice is rarely served by expanding the powers of government. See also Healthcare and Catholics: True & False Arguments.

Imagine the healthcare legislation submitted to Congress involved a massive expansion of government involvement in healthcare. Let’s also suppose that the same legislation was stripped of any provisions that violated non-negotiables for Catholics. Would Catholics be obliged to support passage of such legislation?

The answer is no. When it comes to how we achieve the good end of healthcare reform - such as making it more affordable, universal, and ensuring that the most marginalized are protected - there’s a legitimate diversity of views among Catholics.

The reason for this is simple. While Catholic moral teaching has always insisted that evil acts may never be chosen, it also holds that the realization of good ends (such as making healthcare more affordable and accessible) mostly falls into the realm of prudential judgment. Outside those principles that translate into an obligation to support or work towards direct prohibitions of certain acts, the Catholic Church has always recognized that, within some rather broad parameters, faithful Catholics can disagree about matters such as how we achieve the end of more affordable universal healthcare.

But this very basic point seems to have escaped the attention of those Catholics who seem to imagine that an extension of government involvement in healthcare is by definition the Catholic approach to healthcare reform. It’s curious that the same people who are so utterly absolutist about such prudential matters invariably dissent from the truly non-negotiable injunctions of Catholic moral teaching.