Religion and healthcare

In the Huffington Post, Princeton Professsor Paul Raushenbush argues that he can’t think of one religious reason to be against health care reform and that all arguments against such reform essentially come down to selfishness:

I honestly hope that someone will correct me about this, but it seems to me that the objections to health care reform always come down to selfishness. People who enjoy good health care are worried that their own care might suffer if it were extended to a wider group, or else they resent that they might have to pay a bit more to allow for health care for the poor. Putting aside the fact that those with money will always be able to buy superior health care, and that insurance companies continue to raise costs on health care annually — with reform or without it — the religious objection to these arguments is that they are grounded in making self interest the priority at the expense of the well-being of others. This selfishness is the antithesis of the religious impulse.

Read more here.

Rebecca Sager is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She has recently published work from her dissertation on state level "faith-based" practices including, Faith, Politics, and Power: The Politics of Faith-Based Initiatives (Oxford University Press, 2009), “The Cultural Construction of State Sponsored Religion: Race, Politics, and State Implementation of the Faith-Based Initiative” in The Journal of Church and State (2007), and “The Importance of Faith-Based Liaisons” in Sociology of Religion (2007). Rebecca is working on several research projects, including a new project looking at the role of evangelicals within the Democratic Party.

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