Tag Archives: Healthcare

Jesus Healed

Living in the Spirit
July 22, 2018

Scripture Reading: Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the market-places, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed. – Mark 6:53-56

The USA is in a healthcare crisis resulting in a tug of war between meeting the basic health care needs of its citizens and supporting a financially thriving for-profit healthcare industry. Forcing we the people to struggle with the answer to the question: Is healthcare a right or a privilege? The situation is much more complicated than that.

In the USA hospitals are mandated to provide at least a minimum level of care to people who present to their emergency rooms with life-threatening conditions. Such care is the most expensive care available. Every one of those admittances contributes to the cost of everyone’s health insurance whether they ever use it or not. Every patient who arrives at the hospital in the throes of a major heart attack or stroke as his or her first contact with health care for many years, costs each of us far more than assuring people have affordable, accessible preventive care perhaps taking a baby aspirin each day or being prescribed medication for high blood pressure. Every woman whose first medical contact during their pregnancies is coming to the ER in labor has a much higher risk of problems with the birth and ongoing problems for the baby.

Our health is dependent in many ways on the good health of others. Can you imagine living in a world like Jesus did where the sick are outcasts on the streets possibly spreading contagion, dying leaving rotting corpses? I do not think any of us want that, but it is still a reality in parts of our world today.

Jesus devoted much of his time to healing. Our healing as the Body of Christ in the world today comes through our assuring that health care is available and affordable to all, that there are adequate well-trained professionals to offer care, and that we can contribute compassion and care as needed.

Prayer: Lord, help us identify our roles as healers today as we work toward health justice for all. Amen.

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

Plumb Line of Love

Living in the Spirit
July 8, 2017

Scripture Reading: Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another,
“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
   we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’ –Matthew 11:16-19

“WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US.”—Pogo*

As true as Pogo’s wisdom may be, it is really hard to accept. If we want to know what is wrong with our government, for example, we need only look in the mirror. We can’t have the best of all worlds or as Jesus put it ‘No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. (Matthew 6:24)

Health care represents one-sixth of the USA economy. The U.S. spent 17.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health care in 2013. This was almost 50 percent more than the next-highest spender (France, 11.6% of GDP) and almost double what was spent in the U.K. (8.8%). U.S. spending per person was equivalent to $9,086 (not adjusted for inflation).** Some of our people are not getting any health care at all. Those other nations have some form of universal coverage providing accessible, affordable healthcare for all their citizens.

The word no one uses when addressing the problems of our failure to have accessible, affordable health care is profit. Profit is the leading contender for causing the higher cost of health care in the USA. Even the Affordable Care Act could not escape the tentacles of profit. ACA requires insurance companies to spend 80% of their premiums on health care resulting in a 20% allowance for insurance companies to cover their costs of providing coverage. Administrative costs for the Medicare program is somewhere around 2 or 3%***.

These administrative costs are just the start of profit’s influence of the cost of health care. For-Profit businesses provide much of our health care, including pharmaceuticals. The irony of this dilemma is profit making companies benefit the most from a healthy workforce that is why 80% of them provide insurance for their employees.

Of course, everything I have said above is refuted by some think tank or another. We do not know who to believe. I do know we are offspring of a loving God who wants the very best for us. The plumb line by which we evaluate our choices must be God’s love and concern for all God’s children. Changing our trajectory as a people starts with us.

Prayer: Lord, hang your plumb line of love next to every consideration we make and make sure we see it. Amen.

*http://www.thisdayinquotes.com/2011/04/we-have-met-enemy-and-he-is-us.html
**http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2015/oct/us-health-care-from-a-global-perspective
***http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2011/09/20/medicare-is-more-efficient-than-private-insurance/

All scriptures are quoted from the new Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.