Taking every thought captive for obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10.5)

Vision
Health Care
Government has a role to play in our lives. It is God’s servant for good (Rom. 13.1-4). God has appointed civil government to serve His good purposes in preserving peace and justice in society, and allowing individual freedoms to flourish within a framework of divinely-revealed Law (for more on this, download the free PDF study, “God’s Servant for Good”).

Governments go wrong, and veer from God’s purposes, when, not content with the role of “servant” they aspire to that of “fixer” – as in, “Let’s see if we can’t fix the health care crisis in this country.”

The current Administration has been especially fond of overreaching its calling in this particular area. The Affordable Care Act has not demonstrated the ability to do neither very well – affordable or care – and yet this has not deterred the President from launching into new initiatives with just as much muscle (as reported in the July 12-18, 2015 issue of The Week).

President Obama’s latest initiative, on precision medicine, is coming under attack, as reported by Jeneen Interlandi in the April 2016 issue of Scientific American (“The Paradox of Precision Medicine”).

The project involves a core sample of one million participants, from whom data of every sort – not just medical and health histories but social and other activities as well – is being gathered, stored, and shared among various government agencies. The idea is that ultimately, doctors will be better able to target medical treatment. The goal is more precise, personalized health care, and the federal government is driving the bus to that destination.

But it’s a bumpy road with, apparently, many unnecessary turns and detours.

For example, drug treatments touted to validate the multi-million dollar government-funded precision medicine program are turning out to be prohibitively expensive and not as effective as cheaper, more readily-available therapies. In addition, the information required for those less expensive therapies is merely that which physicians have traditionally gathered from their patients. This raises the question of why there is a need for the kind of more comprehensive, personal, and varied information required by the initiative, as well as why we should invest in therapies no one can afford when cheaper, more accessible solutions already exist.

As long as government money is available to feed drug research, researchers will find ways of spending it. As long as government agencies can insert an information syphon into the electorate, they will do so. And since the precision medicine initiative supports both these thrusts, it’s legitimate to question the legitimacy of such an effort.

Ms. Interlandi explains, “In theory, personalized medicine could work like Netflix and Amazon. They know every book and movie you have bought in the past few years, and armed with that information, they can predict what you are likely to purchase next. If your doctors had that kind of information at their fingertips – not about your purchase history but about how you live, where you work, what your genetic predispositions are, and which microbes are populating you skin and gut – then maybe cures could finally come like movie recommendations do.”

But Ms. Interlandi doubts the expense of this program will provide any more beneficial outcomes than are already being realized by continuing along the traditional research trajectory.

The precision medicine initiative is yet another attempt on the part of government to insert itself into public life as close as possible to where the public lives, moves, and has its being. The result is predictable: increased costs, growing inefficiencies, greater dependence on government – on the part of researchers, drug manufacturers, physicians, and patients – and the shoring-up of a mindset that clamors for more of the same.

None of this is likely to improve health care in general. About all that will be improved is the reach of government influence into arenas where, Biblically, it simply does not belong.

For reflection
1.  What should we expect from government? What is government supposed to do for us?

2.  How can you tell when some government program is going beyond what God mandated for civil government? Is this a bad thing?

3.  Is ever-growing civil government simply inevitable? Explain.

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The Week features insights from a wide range of topics and issues, with a view to equipping the followers of Christ to take every thought captive for Jesus. Please prayerfully consider supporting The Fellowship of Ailbe by sending a gift to The Fellowship of Ailbe, 19 Tyler Drive, Essex Junction, VT 05452.