Ruthless (def) without pity or compassion; cruel; merciless. (That is the dictionary definition. I didn’t make it up to push a political point.)
Pragmatism (def) a philosophical movement or system having various forms, but generally stressing practical consequences as constituting the essential criterion in determining meaning, truth, or value.
From The Bloomberg Report on April 29, 2009
President Barack Obama said his grandmother’s hip-replacement surgery during the final weeks of her life made him wonder whether expensive procedures for the terminally ill reflect a “sustainable model” for health care.
The president’s grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, had a hip replaced after she was diagnosed with cancer, Obama said in an interview with the New York Times magazine that was published today. Dunham, who lived in Honolulu, died at the age of 86 on Nov. 2, 2008, two days before her grandson’s election victory.
“I don’t know how much that hip replacement cost,” Obama said in the interview. “I would have paid out of pocket for that hip replacement just because she’s my grandmother.”
Obama said “you just get into some very difficult moral issues” when considering whether “to give my grandmother, or everybody else’s aging grandparents or parents, a hip replacement when they’re terminally ill. (My comment: some terminally ill people actually live a long time. Elizabeth Edwards is a prime example of this.)
“That’s where I think you just get into some very difficult moral issues,” he said in the April 14 interview. “The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health- care bill out here.” …
Obama also said his economic advisers aren’t constrained by ideology or connections to former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. “What I’ve been constantly searching for is a ruthless pragmatism when it comes to economic policy,” he said, in the interview…
When I read this today I thought of the Roman Christians in 165AD. When plague swept the country, the Roman’s, who thought illness was caused by evil spirits, left the sick to fend for themselves, not wanting to risk the spirits attacking them. While this is an understandable human response during that time, the Christians had other ideas. They took care of the sick and dying. They were more concerned with treating people with dignity and compassion, risking death themselves, rather than going the “ruthlessly pragmatic” way of the Romans.
None of us, even the Congress or the President, really knows what the consequences of the Health Care bill will end up being. No one knows what form it will eventually take. No matter what happens we have to remember that as Christians we are called to follow the example of Christ in all we do. The Church today could do a much better job caring for today’s infirm and dying. Perhaps we should be practically showing compassion now so that if things get more dire, we will be experienced at meeting the needs of a sick and dying humanity.
Yes! This is very good.
Also, it sounds like he's saying that he would have been willing to pay for his own grandmother's surgery out of pocket, but he doesn't know if others, or the government, should do the same for other people's grandmothers.
I don't want to put words in his mouth, but that is kinda what it sounds like to me.
Posted by: Eleanor | September 01, 2009 at 03:46 PM