The Health Care Crunch
This is not a news flash, but it needs repeating: The health-care system in America is leaving out tens of millions of people, whose health and financial solvency are at grave risk. Take three examples from the news media:
• Waitress Katie Salas has worked 20 different jobs, mostly as a waitress, in the last eight years, and none of her nearly two dozen employers provided health insurance. When she was hurt in a bicycle accident, Salas went to the emergency room for care. She was told to go home and ice her bruises—and then was billed for $2,000.
• A working mom of three, Deborah Shank was left permanently brain-damaged and confined to a wheelchair after a collision with a semitrailer. After legal expenses, the court awarded her $417,000 to provide for her ongoing medical needs. But the health plan for Wal-Mart, where she worked, sued successfully for the award as reimbursement for medical expenses it had already shelled out. The fine print in her health plan made that perfectly legal.
• An oil company salesman, Jim Dawson, deathly ill with a staph infection, spent five months in intensive care. After he returned home, his hospital billed him for $1.2 million. He referred it to his insurer, who just told him they had already paid $1.5 million, Dawson's lifetime cap, and would pay no more. (These lifetime caps have remained unchanged for 30 years.)
It's no wonder all the presidential candidates say they have a national health-care plan.
Four Principles
This problem can no longer be a back-burner issue for evangelicals. All through our history, Christians have been leaders in caring for the sick—in founding hospitals, clinics, and other health services. It is time to spend our energies helping create a better ...
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Arek
Why do we Christians trust government so blindly? Prayer for our leaders does not require trust in their integrity. Is not the love of money the root of all kinds of evils? Is a politician exempt from this truth? By no stretch of the imagination! So what makes us think that politicians or political groups would set aside their own personal gain for mine or yours? In a centrally planned healthcare system someone will decide how to limit access by pharamaceutical and other healthcare companies, and I am willing to guess that the highest bidder wins, although we may never find out. Healthcare is already being crushed in the tentacles of big government, and we feel the pain. Why are so many clamoring for more tentacles, more regulation, more government involvement? If advocacy for a national health-care system is added to Christian virtue then let the government steal my earnings since I am so rich, and I will try to be charitable with the remaining ten cents I have.
Doug Tidwell
It is virtuous and Christ-like for me to donate my own resources to help provide for medical help for a person in need. It is theft and very un-Christ-like to forcibly take money from a stranger (we call it taxation) to accomplish the same purpose. Liberalism is the art of being generous with OPM (other people's money). That's why I'm not only a social conservative, but also a fiscal conservative. The best way to improve the American health care system is to increase competition and get the government out of it. I'm amazed by the number of unnecessary medical tests our local clinic performs on my 76-year-old inlaws every year simply because Medicaire pays for it. My Bible college professor said, "Capitalism is the worst economic system in the world....except for all the other systems." Personal responsibility, deregulation, and free market forces will to more to improve our nation's healtcare system than any government program in the long run.
Michael
Great article. And thank you for keeping it at the fore-front of our conscience. America has a serious problem. If you don't see it or agree, go to any major or minor metropolitan area and visit and ER. Ask the people about their wait. These people are sick, hurting, have broken bones, etc. and they have to wait anywhere from 2-7 hrs to be seen by a physician that went to school for 4+4+3 years. And the article points out that its not just an issue of access, its also an issue of affordability. Many people have access to Health Care but can not afford to use it because of the cost. And the idea of being cost-effective, (spreadsheets) deny this procedure, but approve this procedure is border-line immoral. If you don't understand this portion of the issue, ask anyone that has a terminal illness, cancer, or genetic disorder about the many procedures a/o medicines that are 'available' but 'unaffordable w/o insurance.