A "Right" to Health Care?

How would you deal with the more fundamental statist argument that underlies this socialized approach to medicine? The argument goes that “Everyone has a right to health care, and it is the duty of the federal government to provide health care.”

I’d question on a presuppositional basis, first, where does this right emanate, and how do we know that we have it. I don’t think I could get an adequate Biblical answer. Secondly, it treats health care as something that is applied to people, like clothing to our backs, or roofs over our heads. Health is something that is intimately tied up with what we think, and therefore what we do. It is not something to be applied to people as a stamp is applied to an envelope. And the system we are headed for treats health care as some sort of commodity, which it is absolutely not, and cannot be…. It can’t be provided like a commodity. People that say they have a right to health care could say that they have a right to a certain amount of money, without engaging in any of the activities to acquire and preserve and increase it. It’s preposterous. It’s not going to be handed out that way. Which is why I am confident it is going to fail. A lot earlier in this country than in the more cohesive countries of Europe.


Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Terrell

Unecessary Mammograms?

Dr. Terrell was not a fan of mammograms, and it seems that a larger medical community may now agree with him. Recently, The American Conservative posted an article stating,

"In a randomized controlled study (the gold standard of medical research), women who received regular mammograms were no less likely to die of breast cancer than those who went without. Although they received no additional protection, women who were screened paid an additional price. One in five of the cancers or abnormalities identified by mammography were ultimately harmless, but the women went through biopsies in order to be sure. Even worse, one out of every 424 women who were screened received treatment for a nonexistent cancer, enduring needless and debilitating radiation, chemotherapy, or surgery."

Read the rest of The American Conservative article here.

The Population vs. the Patient

Just as we [physicians] cannot serve two masters in the form of multiple [clinical practice] guidelines covering the same issues, so also we cannot serve the "population" in the abstract instead of the patient before us. It is Doublespeak to maintain otherwise.


Excerpt from "Practice Guidelines"

Unknown Risks

Dr. Terrell used to say that the danger in medicine was not always what we know, but what we don't know. What we don't know can get us. For a current example, read the recent news regarding Europe's Pandemrix swine flu shot.

A Personal Religion

Our Christian religion is a personal one.  The Bible may be described as a book of tragedies, which it is, though victory is woven all through it and triumphs at the end. It may also be described as a book of names. It is not abstract principles only, it is flesh.


Excerpt from "Notes on Ephesians"