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By all means complain about the Supreme Court’s recent ruling in the United States that a corporation providing subsidised health insurance for some of its employees is entitled to restrict which drugs that insurance covers based on religious convictions. It is, of course, utterly absurd that a corporation can claim to have religious convictions such that it would be offended by the provision of birth control — especially since, as we’re now discovering, the same corporation invests in companies that produce precisely the drugs it doesn’t want to provide to the women who help generate its profits — but to focus on the absurdity of attributing human beliefs, convictions, opinions to a corporation is to utterly miss the point.

The point is not whether Hobby Lobby should or should not include certain pills in its health plans on religious grounds. Of course it should — it can do anything it damned well wants, because it’s paying. But that’s not the point.

The point — the point that has been almost entirely overlooked in the monstrous hullaballoo and hoopla surrounding this ruling, ignored almost to the point that one might even suspect that said hullaballoo and hoopla could perhaps be a smokescreen — is an altogether more fundamental problem. Hobby Lobby is a chain of arts and crafts shops based in the American midwest. They sell paintbrushes and ceramic frogs and smiley-face plastic toys. So why is Hobby Lobby in the health-care business? The answer is quite simple — America is deeply, deeply fucked up. It really is as simple as that. The United States of America is a country — it’s not, incidentally, “a nation whose god is the Lord,” contrary to insistences on the front page of Hobby Lobby’s website, but then, as I’ll come to as soon as I can write about it calmly enough, founder David Green subscribes to an astonishingly misguided reading of Christianity — and, like all countries, it is, inescapably, inevitably, intrinsically, socialist.

No country can fail to be, at least to a small degree, a socialist undertaking. The country, either at a state or a federal level, takes taxes from its people (and, yes, its corporations; but no, corporations are not people too), and uses that tax revenue to provide services to its people that individuals would be unable to provide individuals. It does this because there is a collective understanding among the citizenry that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. And everyone benefits. Hobby Lobby advertises on the Internet, an infrastructure developed largely by the United States government, funded by all taxpayers. Mr. Green, I’m sure, drives (or, quite possibly, is driven) to his office on roads paid for by his state government by means of taxes paid by all taxpayers. He is part of a socialistic enterprise. As, indeed, are all Americans. Roads, police, Interstates, the national airways system, schools — all are services provided by the state and paid for by taxes collected from the people. This works. But for a reason that nobody has ever explained clearly to me, health care is not part of this system. Education? Socialised in America. Defence? Socialised in America. Roads? Socialised in America. But medicine? Oh, dear Lord, no — we can’t possibly socialise that. To do so would be communist.

But why? What is special about medicine? Why is it only communistic, un-American, wrong, to socialise the provision of health care, but not any of the myriad other essential services that the federal and state governments quite contentedly provide? As long as American citizens are reliant on their employers to provide their health care, as long as the government in Washington refuses to provide health care as a fundamental and essential function of the state, then America simply cannot claim to be a civilised country. Other countries’ governments provide health care, and provide it well.

The usual bollocks objection to a nationalised health system is that the government is so utterly inept that it would be incapable of health-care provision, and, in one area in which the American government does dabble in health-care management, the Veterans’ Administration, this would appear to be the case. But, again, other countries can do it well. Here in New Zealand, the state-funded system works excellently — I’ve benefited from care for everything from carpal tunnel syndrome to an infected spider bite, and the care I have received has been prompt, highly professional and almost free at point of use. The British National Health Service is a source of national pride (and will continue to be, as long as the Conservative government can be dissuaded from dismantling it). The United States of America is, Americans so often tell us, the greatest nation on earth. So why can’t they run a national health service?

It’s certainly not the cost. Here in New Zealand, I pay 20% of my annual income in income tax; if I were making the same salary in the United States, I would pay income tax at a rate of 22% annually. And while my tax bill is lower here, I get significantly better value for my money. Specifically, I get exceptional health care. If I were still living in Florida, I would be paying at least a couple of thousand dollars per year for “coverage” that would see me paying a twelve-thousand-dollar deductible before I received any actual benefit from my payment. My last trip to the doctor was as recently as two days ago; I needed a steroid injection for my CTS. I paid $17. When friends have been hospitalised, for prolonged periods, for such serious — and potentially very expensive — problems as a badly-fractured ankle, or a benign tumour on the brain, or an arachnoid cyst on the brain (not, I would like to stress, the same brain), or a gallbladder in need of removal, all received an exceptionally high level of care, and none received a bill after treatment or had to demonstrate coverage or ability to pay before treatment. They were ill, they were injured, and the community, in the shape of the state, cared for them. This is precisely how a community should work — its most vulnerable, such as the sick, should be able to rely on the larger community. And when the larger community is the size of a country, even a small country such as New Zealand, it can organise itself into structures such as hospitals that can provide very high levels of care.

This is what America should do. This is what America fails to do, and this is why America cannot claim to be a civilised country yet. But many Americans claim to be Christian, and many, including David Green of Hobby Lobby, insist that America is a Christian country. It’s not, of course. A Christian country would ensure that all of its members received comprehensive health care. But too many Christians appear to have a very, very wrong-headed understanding of what Christianity means. Mr. Green claims, apparently, that his company operates on Biblical principles, but he appears to have a selective reading of the Bible that is quite typical of many American Christians. His company, for example, advertises a Hobby Lobby-branded Visa credit card on its website. It’s really hard to reconcile the low, low interest rate of 12.99% per annum — that’s the lowest rate, by the way; it could be as high as 23.99%, depending on your creditworthiness — with Deuteronomy 23:19: You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest. But wait, I hear you say — that’s just one verse, taken out of context, that’s just proof-texting. You’re right. Let’s see what else the Bible has to say. How about Ezekiel 18? If a man is righteous and does what is just and right— if he does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife or approach a woman in her time of menstrual impurity, does not oppress anyone, but restores to the debtor his pledge, commits no robbery, gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, does not lend at interest or take any profit, withholds his hand from injustice, executes true justice between man and man, walks in my statutes, and keeps my rules by acting faithfully—he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord God. If he fathers a son who is violent, a shedder of blood, who does any of these things (though he himself did none of these things), who even eats upon the mountains, defiles his neighbor’s wife, oppresses the poor and needy, commits robbery, does not restore the pledge, lifts up his eyes to the idols, commits abomination, lends at interest, and takes profit; shall he then live? He shall not live. He has done all these abominations; he shall surely die; his blood shall be upon himself. Not quite clear enough yet? Then let’s hear what Jesus had to say: But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great (Luke 6:35).  Picking and choosing what bits of the Bible you want to apply is not Christian. In particular, selecting the bits of the Bible that happen to align with your own prejudices and disregarding those bits of the Bible that, well, wouldn’t suit your business model is not Christian.

What, then, is Christian? Glad you asked. Christian is being compassionate. Christian is caring for everyone, especially those who can’t care for themselves. Christian is putting others before your own profit. Christian is kindness. If you really want to know what Christian is, go and read the Sermon on the Mount. Really, go and read it now — I’ve even linked to it, so you can find it easily. That’s Christian. That’s what Jesus wants. Because Christian isn’t something you be; it’s something you do. And part of being, and doing, Christian is caring for the sick. Most of Jesus’ miracles, after all, were healings — that and turning water into wine.

So if America wants to claim to be a Christian country, if David Green wants to run his business on Christian principles, if Americans want to claim that theirs is the greatest nation on Earth, or even just a tolerably civilised one, then it needs to start looking after its sick, and that means the state providing the best health care it can for all its people without a monstrous profit layer interjected into the middle that makes the whole undertaking so expensive that individuals have to rely on their employers for health coverage. Do that, America, and then we’ll think about letting you into the Civilised Countries’ Club.