I went to bed on the night of Friday May 15 feeling fine. At about 1:30 in the morning, I was awakened with painful abdominal cramps and a sinking feeling came over me. My digestive health has not always been optimal. Mental health can play a big role in this with stress and anxiety being contributors to digestive system upset. I’m sure that played a part that night as I was doubled over in pain. All of the tacos I’d eaten that week probably contributed too. I’ll spare everyone the truly gory details, but it was a very long night for yours truly and I had to go to the ER the following morning.

ER visits are expensive. I am fortunate that as a disabled veteran, my health care is covered by the Veteran’s Administration, even if I have to go to a public health care provider like a local ER. Had that not been the case, I shudder to think what might have happened had I not received treatment for the symptoms of infectious colitis. The nursing staff gave me IV fluids, which are critical in cases like this. The attending Physician’s Assistant ordered a scan of my digestive system as well to see what was going on. Without V.A. health care this ER visit would have cost me thousands of dollars and that fact could have prevented me from going at all.

Not getting medical treatment is an all to common occurrence in the US where for-profit health care is inexplicably the norm thanks to almost one hundred years of propaganda against universal health care. America remains the only wealthy nation not to have taxpayer funded universal health care. It’s a gross dereliction of duty from politicians on both sides of the aisle who have refused to listen to the majority of voters who favor a single-payer health care system. They also ignore the data about how much money such a system would save everyone. There is no legitimate ethical argument for for-profit health care. No one should have to avoid getting treatment due to costs.

In MAGA world, they don’t care about people’s health and well being, especially if a person is poor and/or an immigrant. They care about power and profits. You can see this from Speaker Mike Johnson who worships at the altar of “the free market.” He made that plain when he talked about gutting the Affordable Care Act. The ACA did help a lot of people, but it was nowhere near robust enough and left too many people without options. Johnson and his Republican colleagues want health care tied to employment. That only serves those who profit from an immoral system.

This disdain for the health and well being of human beings can also be seen in the way this regime is treating the immigrants who have been detained in concentration camps. These camps delight Pee-Wee German, aka the fascist white nationalist Stephen Miller, who is the architect of much of the regime’s human rights abuses and illegality in regard to immigrants regardless of their status. Nearly 50 people have died in ICE/CBP custody since Trump was inaugurated for this term.

Those being detained, often illegally, have been routinely subjected to horrific overcrowded conditions. Cruelty, abuse, sexual assault, and human rights violations are the norm. Inedible food is being served to detainees and many are being denied medical care despite protestations from this regime of pathological liars. This is not about enforcing immigration laws. It’s about racism, xenophobia, and white nationalism as the social media accounts fro DHS and other agencies has made clear.

These immigrants, who should be well treated according to the Bible, are among those whom Jesus named “the least of these.” Despite this, there are people who claim Christianity as their faith who continue to support this reprehensible regime and the evils it is perpetuating. They are literally denying people health care as a weapon in order to get overwhelmed, traumatized people to self deport. They are spending billions of dollars to commit these heinous human rights abuses.

Health care is a human right. For-profit health care is a massive systemic human rights violation because it prevents people from getting treatment whether it’s because people don’t have insurance and can’t afford treatment, or because health insurers deny coverage. They deny coverage because it eats into their obscene profits causing already rich people to get smaller bonuses. This is precisely the type of profit over people tactic that resulted in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Denying health care to detainees is a human rights violation too. Those being detained are often being detained by a for-profit prison company like the GEO Group. They can only make money by incarcerating as many people as possible while simultaneously cutting all of the costs it takes to incarcerate a human being. Putting profits over people is evil. Putting people in cages for profit is evil. Full stop.

Somewhere in the U.S. as I type this, there is someone skipping a medication that they need to survive because they have to make a choice between the medication and some other expense like food or housing. Somewhere in an ICE detention center there is someone who is experiencing a medical emergency such as a miscarriage who is being denied medical care. At the Delaney Hall concentration camp in New Jersey, conditions are so awful that there is a hunger strike among detainees who are protesting the regime’s treatment of them. ICE responded to the outcry by pepper spraying a sitting US Senator.

To pretend that any of this is sanctioned by the Bible or by Jesus is laughable. Jesus healed people without asking for payment or reciprocity. He didn’t take back the healing when he healed ten lepers and only the Samaritan came back to say thank you. He didn’t even deny the Roman centurion when that centurion asked for healing for his slave. He said very pointedly to “welcome the stranger.” He also said that by one’s fruit’s one would be known. I’d say that goes for systems of oppression as well. Capitalism, as it is evinced by for-profit health care and for-profit prisons, is anti-christ. It’s time that Christians see this garbage for what it is and do whatever they can to dismantle it.

Take it to the streets.