Thursday, December 3, 2009

Why the Principle of Subsidiarity Negates Government-Dictated Health Care


 By Judie Brown

Earlier this year, I wrote a blog about health care reform and the Catholic Church’s principle of subsidiarity. In the essay, several Catholic bishops who had raised the same question in relationship to health care reform were quoted. Shortly thereafter, several readers wrote to say that they had never heard of the principle of subsidiarity before. They asked if I could explain it in a fundamental way that would be easy to understand.

I agreed to do this but moved on to other topics of concern and immediately forgot my promise. But then a brick bat struck me in the head (not literally) as I began to absorb the totality of what government-mandated health care reform would really do to the one fundamental structure that operates best in our society—the human family.

If the family itself is placed at the service of the government, chaos results.  And in the United States, we have the statistics to prove that. Just what has the welfare program done for families, for example?

Statistics readily available to anyone show that the welfare system has contributed directly to the breakdown of the family unit. As family research expert Patrick Fagan, Ph.D., has testified regarding what states and the federal government have done to assist families, we learn something remarkable about our tax dollars at work... Read the rest of Judie's blog post here.