No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So, governments’ programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth. — Ronald Reagan (click here for the audio clip)

I’d say with precious few exceptions, Reagan’s words express a truism for any government instituted by man. 

Given this, it simply doesn’t make sense to make huge changes to our health insurance system, putting so much under the purview of the government, all at once.  Once it’s there, no matter how poorly it work, those who benefit from the programs (or believe they do) will make up such a constituency that no politician will dare cross them.  It’ll become yet another 3rd rail that no one wants to touch.  The only option will be to throw good (borrowed) money after bad.

I can say this with confidence because that tracks with history.  It has happened time and time again, and there’s not one thing to indicate that if this doesn’t do what it claims to do, it’ll be scrapped.  Instead, there’s plenty of evidence to suggest that government, regardless of which party’s in charge, will constantly try to "fix it", usually by giving the federal government more control and taking that control and freedom away from the individual. 

The better way to do this is incrementally, but the same problems can plague even these smaller items unless these items increase public freedoms.  For example, allowing health insurance to be purchased across state line is something that would give individuals more choices and hence drive down costs.  When you can only by apples from one  vendor, he can charge what he likes, and it doesn’t matter how good his apples are; where else are you going to go?  When there are 20 vendors, competition ensues and vendors compete on cost and quality.  Allowing this would have immediate results, and the results could be determined to be good or bad.  Actually, I see no real downside to this particular proposal from the Republicans, but if there were, it’s easier to repeal a small law than a huge, intertwined, governmental system. 

[One might ask, doesn’t the proposed public option increase competition?  Well yes, but by 1 rather than by hundreds.  But the general problem with getting the government into the market is that the government makes the market’s rules as well and can undercut competition because it doesn’t have to pay its costs from charging for the service; it can tax everyone on the side, hiding its true price on your 1040 form.]

A massive overhaul of any industry is not something government should be doing.  That’s another reason why I oppose the Democrat’s health care reform bill.

Good morning.

1. When to read.
2. A defence of market, in a word, it sucks less.
3. Theology and the cross.
4. Casting.
5. Examining incentives and stimulus.
6. Speaking of incentives …
7. Immigration fail.
8. Pay/Go.
9. Balkanization.
10. Abortion and stigma.
11. Tech as art.
12. Why scare quotes on “skeptics?“
13. Amusing verse for a Friday.
14. The fundamental truth of political discourse … now for homework apply that to the healthcare debate.
15. And another fundamental problem with the healthcare bill exposed.

[I am working on a project that may become a book on the most influential evangelicals leaders of our generation, since 1976, and the impact they’ve had on the church and their times. I will introduce them briefly on this blog from time to time. Who should be on this list?]

#1 Carl F. H. Henry. Senior theologian 1913-2003

Formidable evangelical theologian and founding editor of Christianity Today magazine Carl F. H. Henry stole his first Bible from a church. Later, when God opened his heart and convicted him of his sins (not just the Bible stealing), Henry knelt down by his car on Long Island and prayed the Lord’s Prayer, the only way he knew how to speak to God. His actions and his communication improved dramatically. In 1947 he contended in The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism for evangelical positions against the prevailing liberalism of the mainline church, and pushed his conservative brethren for more cultural engagement than prescribed by the fundamentalists of the day, led by Carl McIntyre, a writer, radio preacher, and rabble-rousing symbol of Presbyterian fundamentalism.

It was Henry and his contemporaries Harold J. Ockenga and Billy Graham who propelled the modern evangelical movement as a vital societal force and set the stage for it to soar past theological liberalism as the prominent Protestant force of the time. From the beginning of his academic career Henry aspired to lead Protestant fundamentalism to greater intellectual and social engagement with the larger American culture.

Henry was born to German immigrant parents just before the outbreak of World War I. Raised on Long Island, Henry became interested in journalism, and by age 19 he edited a weekly newspaper in New York’s Nassau county. After his conversion to Christianity, Henry attended Wheaton College, obtaining his bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

Bent on pursuing an academic career in theology, he completed doctoral studies at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary (1942) and later at Boston University (1949). He was ordained in the Northern Baptist Convention,and taught theology and philosophy of religion at Northern Baptist Seminary. In 1947, he accepted Ockenga’s call to become the first professor of theology at the new Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California.

In 1955, Henry became the first editor of Christianity Today, a publication conceived by Billy Graham and L. Nelson Bell and financed by Sun Oil magnate, J. Howard Pew, as an evangelical alternative to the Christian Century. Under Henry’s guidance, Christianity Today became the leading journalistic mouthpiece for evangelicalism and provided the movement intellectual respectability. He resigned his position at Christianity Today in 1968, after conflicts with Pew and Bell over editorial issues and criticism from evangelicalism’s fundamentalist wing.

After a year of studies at Cambridge University, Henry became professor of theology at Eastern Baptist Seminary (1969-74) and visiting professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1971). After 1974, he served stints as lecturer-at-large for World Vision International (1974-87) and Prison Fellowship Ministries (1990-2003).

Henry’s six-volume theological tome God, Revelation and Authority is one of the most important evangelical theological works of the twentieth century. Published between 1976 and 1983, it shaped the evangelical movement in countless ways and is still widely read, studied as a clear statement of evangelical beliefs contra liberalism and neo-orthodoxy. The New York Times called it “The most important work of evangelical theology in modern times.”