Subsidiarity. Learn it. Live it. Love it.
Last year during the run up to the eventual passing of the Obamacare bill, President Obama had to take to the airwaves several times to promote the bill. One significant reason why was the dextrous dubbing of care rationing panels as ‘death panels’ by former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
When Palin gave a name to the fear, the poll numbers for the bill really began to crash. President Obama and his supporters were livid. They ran to any network that would put them on air to decry the use of the term and to personally ridicule Palin for saying it. They said over and over and over again, there is no such thing as a Death Panel.
So now the deed is done and guess what? President Obama’s Director of OMB says that the unelected Medicare advisory panel can and will make binding decisions on how much care is too much. A death panel.
Avoiding such monstrous and murderous machinery is why the Church has advocated the principle of subsidiarity as an organizing principle in the affairs of man. Simply stated, subsidiarity “is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.”
Wikipedia (yeah I know, but it is right in this case) “Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum and holds that government should undertake only those initiatives which exceed the capacity of individuals or private groups acting independently.” Even if government does get involved, the principle still applies, the smallest, lowest, and least powerful government should be employed to get the job done.
I do not think it is plausible to argue that health care can only be achieved by a huge centrally and federal elephantacracy. Which brings us back to death panels. In a world where subsidiarity rules the day, the damage of such a death panel would be limited. In the world in which this principle is routinely ignored—our world—the damage that can be wrought by such budgetary barbarity is limitless.
When Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum, it was intended to alleviate “the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class” and it rightly criticized the effects of unrestricted capitalism. Ironically, many of the same Catholics who hail Rerum Novarum as a milestone in Catholic social teaching were instrumental in electing President Obama and continue to support his agenda including his health care plan.
What they miss however is that Pope Leo also warned against unrestricted government. I believe that death panels are the inevitable fruit of ignoring the principle of subsidiarity. Ignoring this important principle is a two-edged sword and we are about to get cut by the other side of the blade.
Think unrestricted capitalism was cold-blooded? We are about to meet its much nastier older brother.
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While I agree with your conclusion in this piece that the principle of subsidiarity would indicate that more local (and, generally, more privatized) entities are the proper locus for the provision and regulation of health care, I have to object to your presentation of the principle of subsidiarity. The Wikipedia definition of subsidiarity as “an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority” is at best a very thin understanding of subsidiarity. At worst, it is an easy vehicle for the perversion of the principle in the service of a misguided animus toward government as such.
Your oversimplified presentation of subsidiarity as the principle of ‘government at the lowest possible level’ carries with it the implication that large sociopolitical entities—especially large governmental entities—are de facto less good or less necessary than smaller ones. On the contrary, subsidiarity properly understood affirms the value of every individual person, group and institution, at every level of social organization. In a manner very similar to St. Paul’s discussion of the different roles within the Church, subsidiarity acknowledges the particular character of each human institution and argues that each, by virtue of its nature, is best suited to the accomplishment of some particular task. Thus, where your understanding of subsidiarity recognizes a societal need and asks “What is the lowest level at which this job can be done?,” a more accurate understanding of subsidiarity sees the same need and asks “Which, of this great richness and variety of human institutions, is best equipped to accomplish this task?”
As I have already stated, as is the case with health care, these two approaches will often yield the same result. Nevertheless, an accurate and full understanding of the meaning of subsidiarity is crucial for a properly ordered society, because the Wikipedia understanding of subsidiarity will incline us to disfavor and downplay the role of larger and more centralized institutions even in the situations that those institutions are best equipped to handle. Subsidiarity is not a servant of smallness; it is the servant of man’s true good—which requires the recognition and preservation of the legitimate role each individual and institution plays within the sociopolitical order.
To this end, it has become a moral imperative to revoke, repeal, rescind Obamacare. The Church must unequivocally proclaim that duty to every Catholic or person of conscience. Othewise, “too much care” can be extended even to the very act of survival then we have “euthanasia” or to having too many children then we will have forced sterilizations. This is what we get from shying away to calling out the sinfulness of supporting Obama last elections.
May I please offer this?
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201004260056
Sue Lowden’s plan of bartering chickens for healthcare fits right in with this meme of subsidiarity!
Here’s a handy-dandy calculator for those who want to start right away:
http://lowdenplan.com/
Honestly, I’m unsure of Lowden’s proposal. Bartering would sound very plausible if the economic system weren’t so dependent on chasing money and baying bills.
I have been telling my Christian Social Teaching class about the Principle of Subsidiarity all semester, especially in answer to their questions about what the Church would say to Obamacare. It’s not just the abortion issue or the conscience clause issue. The whole fundamental idea of this degree of government intervention in things that should be handled in families and local communities is a terrible injustice. It’s really no surprise that our society is increasingly self-centered and less focused on the family when the person is under attack and the highest levels of government are seeking to usurp the roles of family, neighborhood, and local government.
It is ironic that the Solidarity which brought down Communist Poland is matched by its complementary brother Subsidiarity as the only thing, in Christ, which can bring down socialism in the United States.
What could one say about Subsidiarity when looking at the Church?
Thank you, Brian. The article you posted was the voice of sanity.
We as Americans have a THROUGH AWAY mentality. Once we are done with what ever or it becomes to much to deal with we through it away and get something new. Now we are using that same attitude with human beings. That says a lot for the GREAT EXPERIMENT aka INDEPENDANT DEMOCRACY of the UNITED STATES. Why else was the Health Care Professionals right to conscience repealed? I repent of my sins that has brough sich things into being.
There’s needless panic in this “death panel” report. All government projects require restraint. Any responsible citizen on such a committee would vote for restrictions. The alternative is uncontrolled abuse.
Medical insurance providers know this well. That’s why they place occasionally unconscionable restrictions on their coverage, restrictions imposed by unelected committees.
Where exactly would subsidiarity place decision-making authority in medical matters? A private matter between the patient and the doctor? That’s the abortion argument. An elected medicare advisory committee? It would break the budget at its first meeting.
We may not approve of the composition of the committee. But that’s a different matter.
Hi, Friends..I think, ” Bye,bye Miss American Pie “. It’s over…!
The official end of responsibility. Christianity, virtue..!
You believe he will not be elected again..? Hahahaha. YOU WATCH..!
Americans LOVE what he is selling to them…
But, they forget..They are buying now..and will pay later..!
The price is too high..
I am not buying.
” What fools we mortals be ” (Puck)
Excerpt from the Catholic Catechism.
2209 The family must be helped and defended by appropriate social measures. Where families cannot fulfill their responsibilities, other social bodies have the duty of helping them and of supporting the institution of the family. Following the principle of subsidiarity, larger communities should take care not to usurp the family’s prerogatives or interfere in its life.
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