Thursday, September 10, 2009

And what if it did?

By now, I'm sure most of you have seen, read, or heard about Rep. Joe Wilson heckling President Obama during his speech last evening, specifically when he yelled out "You lie" when Obama insisted that his health care plan would not pay for any health care for illegal immigrants. Much of the response to this (so far anyway) has been to condemn Wilson for his rudeness or lack of respect. And Wilson has apologized. So now the focus turns to speculation on whether the plan would indeed help pay for health care for illegal immigrants. Well, why shouldn't it? Certainly Joe Wilson himself would agree such a thing would be good. Wouldn't he? The man calls himself a Christian (a Presbyterian specifically) and is it not in the teachings of Jesus to feed the hungry and heal the sick? I'm not so familiar with Scripture that I could give you the exact line but I'm almost certain from my stint in Catholic school that it's right there somewhere in the book of Matthew. Not to mention the famous line about it being harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. (Again, I know I probably don't have the quote exact). Shouldn't Wilson either rethink his position on how we as a country should approach helping the sick based on his and most Americans' (about 80% of whom profess to be Christian) beliefs or should he also apologize for being a hypocrite?

1 comment:

Ryan said...

That was my thought when I first heard the details Obama's health care plan. It's unconscionable that we would try to reform health care without covering undocumented workers, who already pay so much more into the system than they get out of it.

I do, however, like the trend of people yelling over politicians, even if I don't agree with the content they are yelling. It reminds me of the British Parliament.