Would Rush Limbaugh support Canadian-style, government-run universal health care, if he knew Jack Bauer thought it was "damn well worth fighting for'? Of if he knew that the man who brought universal health care to Canada was Bauer's (a.k.a. Kiefer Sutherland's) grandfather, Tommy Douglas, a Baptist minister who was voted "The Greatest Canadian" in 2004?

Probably not, but it's an interesting side note to the current U.S. health-care reform discussion/debate/Jerry Springer show, especially now that the Canadian Council of Churches has joined the fray.

"Medical needs are too fundamental to be responded to solely on the basis of market forces and for reasons of profit," Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, the CCC's general secretary, wrote in a letter this week to three organizations that represent most major denominations and churches in the U.S -- the U.S. National Council of Churches, the National Evangelical Association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Hamilton said the CCC isn't trying to interfere with U.S. policymaking; it's merely offering it's considerable perspective and experience on the issue from a nation that decided in the 1960s to provide 'Medicare' to all its citizens -- with strong support from the Church.

"Before 1966," Hamilton wrote, "Canada had a health care system that failed to provide over 30% of the population with medical insurance. This created enormous human suffering and ethical problems
for those who believed with Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:26, 'If one member suffers, all suffer together with it . . .' With varying degrees of fervour, Canadian churches publicly began to advocate for the establishment of Medicare. Canadian churches wanted health care for all."

U.S. churches seem to want health care for all, but the Christian consensus seems to end there. Who gets what, who pays for what, who is entitled to what -- as your pastor will tell you, the devil is in the deails -- in this case, the widely (and loudly) disputed details of President Obama's proposals for health-care reform, especially as they relate to abortions and end-of-life decisions as well as the degree of government involvement in general.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops: As The New York Times reported Friday, a growing number of Catholic bishops are speaking out forcefully against some details in Obama's proposals, despite the fact that conference itself "has been lobbying for decades for the federal government to provide universal health insurance, especially for the poor."

Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City, Iowa, expressed the misgivings of his fellow bishops in a recent pastoral letter: "The Church will not accept any legislation that mandates coverage, public or private, for abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research . . . No health care reform is better than the wrong sort of health care reform."

The National Association of Evangelicals: The NAE is just as concerned as Catholic bishops about health-care reform's impact on abortion and end-of-life issues. "Abortion is not health care. Any health care plan which inc1udes coverage for elective abortion should be rejected," the NEA declared in its Aug. 19 statement.

But the NEA is equally concerned about government involvement: "We also call on the President and members of Congress to diligently seek to make health care accessible to all . . . to establish health care provisions that will maximize the creativity of the private sector while minimizing governmental control."

The National Council of Churches: The more liberal side of the Church doesn't seem to be sweating the details at all. In fact, it's Aug. 14 letter urging members to support health-care reform doens't mention abortion, end-of-life counseling, or any other legislative details.

"Christians believe that all human beings are infinitely valued children of God, created in God's image. Adequate health care, therefore, is a matter of preserving what our gracious God has made," NCC officials wrote. "People of faith recognize that health care is not a privilege, reserved for those who can afford it, but a right that should be available to all."

Tommy Douglas would agree with that. "We are all in this world together and the only test of our character that matters is how we look after the least fortunate among us. How we look after each other, not how we look after ourselves," he once said.

If the American followers of Jesus can't agree on how we are to look after each other, what chance to the followers of Limbaugh or Obama have of reaching an agreement?