Being a Canadian, of course, the present Supreme Court debate over the Obama Health Care bill is really just of passing interest to me. I find myself, however, still fascinated by what its outcome will be. In a certain way, the decision will truly reveal the underlying foundation of American values. A key question, pursuant to my understanding, is: Can you direct someone to buy health insurance or is that an infringement on that person's liberty? To me, though, is the further and greater question is: What would the answer to this question tell us about the comparison of American values and the Halacha?
I guess, the first question in the study of such a comparison would be: What would the Halacha say about this bill? The system of Halacha is built on tzivui, command, which raises a very interesting issue in connection to the American system built upon freedom, in other words, no one telling you what to do. Halacha, of course, is built upon One telling you what to do. The first challenge in looking at this greater issue is the determination of how much the difference in the One giving the command may affect our understanding of general liberty.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
5 comments:
The main difference between halacha and secular medical law is that in the latter personal autonomy is the primary value whereas in the former it is an understanding that the body is as a gift from God granted on condition that we keep it in the best shape possible.
Therefore it is possible under halacha to force a patient to make decisions against his will if his judgement will lead to damaging his body.
So the question is: does having mandatory health insurance count as an expected thing a person should do to keep his/her health in order?
There is another issue and that is the obligation of the community. To what extent is the community obligated to maintain the health of its citizens. Within Halacha, there is a general positive duty of care on each Jew to maintain the health of another Jew (without getting into details and parameters) which could possibly result in an obligation on a Torah community to maintain health services for its citizens. The question then emerges: how much does an individual citizen thus have to contribute to this communal health responsibility? It is within this context that we could now consider this health insurance requirement.
The key difference, as you correctly point out, is that within Halacha, the value of freedom is not paramount. An individual is obligated to protect his/her health. There is also an obligation on the Torah society to assist the individual in this regard. This is where the question of health insurance gets interesting.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
You cant seriously be asking this. Jewish Working class people work, and they worked hard to get what they have. So they don't want it threatened. And they're smart enough to realize that if you can take down the wealthy and the powerful, you can squash working class people like a bug.
There is a mitzvah in the Torah not to steal. That means in plain English not to take what belongs to someone else because you can do it by force, E.g. the force of the state. I could never figure out why orthodox rabbis have no moral compass. This is in spite of several very large Talmudic tractates about not stealing and not damaging other peoples property.
I would direct you to look at the various halachot that deal with communal obligations and the subsequent right of the community to tax. In this regard, you will find that there are halachic parameters that reflect your concerns yet the community can, within these parameters, still make demands on the individual and this is not considered theft.
The question here is the individual responsibility to preserve one's health and the community's responsibility to assist in this regard. The specific question is who pays. While a person may individually be willing to gamble with one's life and take the risks inherent in not having insurance, from a halachic perspective a community may still have a responsibility to treat the person even at the community expense. It is within this perspective that there may be an issue of whether a community can demand some type of insurance payment of one who could pay it.
Rabbi Ben Hecht
taxing for health care and the Torah?
I concede your point about tax. that is a true point. I don't agree it applies to health care. The point is first as your mentioned the rambam and the shulchan aruch about taxing in general and one of the things about taxing is charity. That is true and i agree with this. also there is the traditional Jewish communities in eastern Europe which did tax and had power to do so from the Polish princes. this i concede to. The point that i don't agree to is when these power are expanded without support from the halacha or the constitution of the USA. the relevance of the USA constitution here is that it is based on John Locke and natural law and i agree with this approach.
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