Essay - Medical Ethics of Providing Healthcare to Illegal Immigrants Providing Healthcare...

Medical Ethics of Providing Healthcare to Illegal Immigrants

Providing healthcare for illegal immigrants has become a major *****pic of ethical debate and an issue of increasing financial concern in the United States.

Religious institutions are deeply embedded in both health care delivery ***** health care lobby*****g, and each activity is consciously driven by understandings of the imperatives of Christian social thought and by institutional missions formulated with ***** intention of realizing commitments that flow from Christian faith (Cochran pp). Since ***** care ***** is shaped by public policies at the federal ***** state levels, religious leaders, *****ologians, and institutions such as hospitals have been forced to reflect on and ***** deliver health care within a c*****text powerfully political and public (Cochran pp).

American health care ***** a disaster from the perspective ***** Catholic social though, because the system violates principles of justice, stewardship, and care of the poor, and moreover, violates human dignity and the common good ***** creating a m*****rket commodity from what should be a ***** good (Cochran pp).

***** conundrum is that the Catholic Church and Catholic health care are ***** planted in ***** very system that violates their pr*****ciples, and ***** a version ***** the Constantinian dilemma faced by Christians for the last millennium ***** a h*****lf (***** pp). As Bryan Hehir said, "When you try to he both an actor and an advocate, to represent both effective, efficient action ***** t***** vision and voice of *****he prophets, you have introduced significant tension" (Cochran pp).

***** care analysts use three large criteria for assessing a health care system: "the degree of access of citizens to health care; the financial cost of ***** *****; ***** the quality of care provided" (***** pp). E***** modern, democratic nation in the world provides universal access to ***** care for its citizens at a cost lower than the United ***** and with a high qu*****lity of ***** (Cochran pp). However, Clarke Cochran writes in a 1999 ***** of "Journal of ***** and St*****e," ***** the American health care system fails on two out of three criteria (Cochran pp). Access to care for milli*****s of citizens is severely limited, and the ***** of health care is by far the highest in the *****, "absolutely, per capita, ***** as a percent of GDP" (***** pp). Health care resources are squandered, and the excess social resources flowing into the ***** c***** ***** stymie other social responsibilities (Cochran *****). Only on the st*****ard of quality does the United States look strong, and yet quality of care falls very short in certain respects (Cochran pp). For example, inappropriate care ***** too often given, particularly close tot he end of life, and millions of persons cannot afford quality care (Cochran pp).

Cochran ********** that religious voices ***** a necessary and creative role to play in ***** discourse, and summarizes in five guidelines:

***** communities themselves should be communities of moral-conversation;

***** communities need to develop specific politico-theological vocabularies reflecting ***** own traditions;

***** communities should be prophetic