Dear Editor:
Well we certainly can't have Dr. Binks walking about St. Croix "deeply offended". So in the spirit of comity, I'll attempt to allay the good doctor's misconceptions about the health care system in these Virgin Islands specifically and the United States generally: it is up to you to pay for your health care.
Apparently this is somehow lost on Dr. Binks as he writes, "Health care benefits are not luxuries to us to be doled out by the chosen few based on religious values (and not that it is anyone's business but we are believing Christians); rather, health care benefits are critical to our survival."
Who knew the Religious Right would oppress Dr. Binks even here? Is there no end to their reach or depravity? I'll concede him one point: health benefits are critical to one's survival. This is, of course, why most responsible people make arrangements for these selfsame services. To wait for someone to "dole out" something this important (as Dr. Binks seems perfectly willing to do, so long as someone else pays for it) is to become infantilized – i.e., a passive man-child of the state.
As a clinical psychologist at prestigious DC hospital, you'd think Dr. Binks: A) has access to health benefits; B) has the financial wherewithal to afford coverage and care; C) has had to endure more than his fair share of hyper-sensitive egoists and thus would be less inclined to air these sentiments himself.
But apparently not. By his own admission, Dr. Binks can afford to purchase (and rehab) four properties here in St. Croix. I guess he and his partner shall alight on St. Croix as wards of the state and hope that someone – anyone! – will step forth with health care based on their notion of togetherness. Perhaps with the money they will save by having someone else pick up the tab for their health insurance, they can add a fifth property to their portfolio.
My reading of the bill seems to indicate that private companies would be forced to provide coverage to domestic partners, whatever that definition may turn out to be. That this compulsion would be a substantial burden on private companies (and ultimately to the people who own them) seems not to have entered into Dr. Binks' internal deliberations. It should.
It should also dawn on Dr. Binks that there are principled arguments to be made on both sides of this issue and that some business owners may find it objectionable to fund (and thus support) an arrangement that they find odious by force of law. To magisterially dismiss such concerns is to become narrow-minded oneself.
Certainly Dr. Binks is capable of such mental gymnastics for he is doubtless an erudite man. Instead, his thought process seems to have degenerated along these lines: I need something and I don't want to pay for it, so give it to me or else I'll brand you as a homophobic, Pat Roberson loving, white slacks wearing in winter, philistine.
As a practicing Christian, perhaps he will recognize this admonishment in Luke: "Physician, heal thyself". Get to it Dr. Binks. It's late in the day.
Jay Craft
St. Croix
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