PBS has committed four hours of broadcast time in the next month to a project called “Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?” The series looks at official statistics showing that the richest 20% of Americans have a life expectancy  4 years longer than the poorest Americans. Both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have spoken out on these disparities and introduced legislation requiring that they be reduced. Actually, the biggest reasons for wealthier people living longer lives reflect healthier habits: less smoking, better diet, more regular exercise, less divorce, fewer sexually transmitted diseases, and so forth. Educated and privileged people also get more and better information about protecting their own health, as well as more access to preventive care. The “inequalities” in life expectancy don’t indicate some profound injustice – in fact, it would be unjust and illogical if people who had created more wealth were unable to use those resources to secure better health outcomes. Alarmists who overreact to the new figures also ignore the old sociological principle that “correlation does not equal causation.” In other words, more money may contribute to good health, but it’s also undoubtedly true that good health helps produce more money: people with serious illnesses or chronic conditions will always find it more difficult to compete in a free market economy. In the final analysis, it’s actually the same set of habits and attitudes – deferred gratification, focusing on long-term goals, self-discipline, avoiding destructive addictions – that contribute to both long life and financial success. Meanwhile, rather than wringing our hands at the fact the people who’ve succeeded in life enjoy better health than those who’ve faced frustration and tragedy, we ought to congratulate ourselves on the improvement in life expectancy for every American at every income level. In the last twenty years, it’s true that the life spans of the richest group went up most sharply (3.4 years) but even among the poorest Americans there was a notable rise – from 73 years to 74.7 years. Despite the concerns of PBS and the Democratic presidential candidates, there’s nothing unnatural about a connection between wealth and health.

For more than ten years, medical science has provided mounting evidence that circumcision brings substantial health benefits. Last week, the release of data from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) made worldwide headlines and gave new impetus for an ancient practice.

“Circumcision’s Anti-AIDS Effect Found Greater Than First Thought,” the New York Times declared, updating the results of clinical trials involving 8,000 men in Kenya and Uganda. In December, initial analysis showed that circumcision reduced the risk of HIV transmission through heterosexual sex by at least 50%. The latest figures in The Lancet, the British medical journal, show that the actual risk reduction is closer to 65%.

“Look,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which financed the trials. “This is a one-time, permanent intervention that’s safe when done under the appropriate medical conditions. If we had an AIDS vaccine that was performing as well as this, it would be the talk of the town.”

He said that the $15 billion U.S. AIDS initiative and the World Health Organization were considering paying for circumcisions in high-risk countries. Daniel Halperin, an AIDS specialist at Harvard, cited a positive trend leading to greater acceptance of circumcision among African men. A review of 13 surveys in different African communities showed that 29 percent to 87 percent of uncircumcised men said they would be willing to be circumcised as protection against AIDS.

For religious Jews, these developments look intriguing, but neither startling nor particularly significant. We’ve been circumcising our baby boys for 3,000 years because of holiness, not health. Some research may suggest medical benefits from this sacred rite, just as the Biblical dietary laws may (or may not) confer health advantages to keeping kosher. The point of both practices, however, isn’t physical, it’s spiritual: making distinctions in behavior (and even in the most intimate part of the anatomy) based on a covenant with God. Of course, we welcome the good news about using a timeless procedure to protect against a modern pandemic, but encouraging studies in the Lancet won’t alter our basic commitment to circumcision any more than some prior research eagerly trumpeted by circumcision’s opponents who deny the utility of the practice.

Meanwhile, there are various factors about this horrible plague of AIDS that deserve special attention from all those who take Scripture seriously.

For many years, we’ve known that the best way to contract AIDS is to engage in a practice (male homosexual “intercourse”) strictly prohibited by the Bible.

Now we learn that one of the best ways to protect against the disease is to follow a procedure solemnly commanded in the Bible (circumcision).

These observations in no way prove that AIDS represents some sort of divine scourge, or that a supernatural God goes out of his way to reward those who are circumcised.

The emerging facts, however, provide haunting reminders that the Bible doesn’t outline the way the world should work in some Messianic future, so much as it describes, with sometimes uncanny accuracy, the way the world does work in the painful and imperfect present.

PLEASE, MR. PRESIDENT: Don’t Say “Health Care” When You Mean “Insurance”

 

Two days ago I expressed my general support for the President’s State of the Union Address, but one brief passage annoyed me deeply.

 

As he prepared to introduce the most publicized and innovative proposal of his speech, the President of the United States declared: “A future of opportunity requires that all our citizens have affordable and available health care.”

 

Mr. President, please! Don’t fall into the Democratic trap of using the term “health care” when you really mean “health insurance.”

 

In truth, all Americans already have access to “affordable and available health care”--- in fact, millions of us (including millions of illegal aliens, by the way) get their “health care” without cost. There is no evidence – none – that Americans fail to receive medical treatment when they need it and seek it. Our country boasts a gigantic network of overburdened emergency rooms, county hospitals, Medicaid, free clinics and other compassionate institutions that exist to provide health care to people who might otherwise be unable to afford it.

 

When Democrats rail about “47 million Americans without health care” it sounds like a sixth of the country doesn’t get to see doctors or manage to visit hospitals for necessary procedures. In fact, many (if not most) of that famous47 million pay for the health care they receive (what a concept!) because they’re in generally good health and they’ve decided that it’s cheaper to cough up the money directly to the docs than to fork over the funds needed for the “protection” of insurance. Some studies suggest that at least half of the uninsured earn family incomes of $50,000 or more – making it clear that they could acquire low cost, high deductible insurance if they chose to do so.

 

The President’s plan actually makes great sense as a means of encouraging such individuals and families to buy the insurance policies they might need to protect them from health catastrophes, while continuing to pay their own way when it comes to regular doctor visits and preventive care. For nearly all Americans, the tax deduction the administration proposes ($15,000 per couple) will save far money (because it’s also provides a deduction from payroll/social security expenses) than the cost of a high deductible insurance policy.

 

I know one family of five, for instance, where the yearly cost of catastrophic protection (despite the over-fifty status of both parents) comes to less than $6,000 a year, The tax saving through the proposed tax deduction – only available if one buys an appropriate policy – would more than cover the cost of such insurance. Rather than punishing those who don’t get insurance, the President’s plan rewards those who do. That’s usually a better way to encourage people to behave as the government wants them to behave.

 

Fortunately, Mr. Bush deployed the language more successfully in his speech after his initial, ill-considered, misleading declaration. “Many Americans cannot afford a health insurance policy,” he accurately observed. “And so tonight, I propose two new initiatives to help more Americans afford their own insurance.”

Here, he’s talking sense--- he speaks about affording “insurance,” not about affording “health care.”

 

As this debate unfolds, watch the way the Democrats distort this issue by referring to “millions with no health care” when they’re really talking about people without insurance.

 

Conservatives can’t stop lefties from playing such dishonest games with language but please, Mr. President, don’t make it easier for them by falling into the same pattern yourself.