The Narrow Path Ministries

Steve,

I have thought long and hard about your position on receiving health care from the government and I respectfully disagree.

The cost of healthcare today has been made artificially exorbitant through legislative policy. No one who has any persistant or chronic health issue can actually afford it on their own. Even those who have the option of purchasing insurance through their work (and who happen to have higher medical expenses) benefit from others paying into it (who might rather not see prices increase). Why should one party (healthy) have to suffer financially for the misfortune of another (unhealthy)? Because the system is broken and irreparable.

Thirty years ago one may have been able to go to the doctor for a visit and pay $20. Everything except very serious conditions could be covered for a reasonable price. Well, the day of reasonable healthcare costs is no more. Hospitals, drug companies, insurance companies. and (some) doctors are the real culprits in this affair through their efforts to jack up what should be a reasonably priced solution to people's heatlh problems.

Someone working with their two hands (i.e., not abusing the system), who is an honest taxpayer, should feel no reservations for using available resources that may help insure his/her family. The alternative is to reject insurance and work for mammon (80 hrs/week not too much of a stretch: because this is what would be needed to pay for even the slightest bit of health coverage for the average family).

Just my opinion.

Brian

It is perhaps too easy for me to take the position that I hold, because I have been blessed, along with my entire family, with very good health, and an almost total lack of need for institutional physician care. On the other hand, I sometimes wonder if these benefits might not have accrued as a result of our determination to trust God for both health and finances. I am sure that there are others who have trusted the Lord as much or more as have I, and who have been tried in this area more than I have up to this point.

It would try my faith considerably were I to have a child who would die without expensive health care. Perhaps I would feel differently in such a case. As things are, I am able to look at the situation more dispassionately, and from the standpoint of justice as well as mercy. I believe that modern Christians have actually borne a stronger witness for mercy than they have for justice. I do not think that these two ideals are at odds with each other, and I believe that a witness for justice is what is sorely needed in our time (and at all times!).

I think that the body of Christ should come to the rescue of Christian families and individuals who are strapped with expensive misfortunes. While we often hear that the Christian support network is not adequate, and that Christians are not sufficiently generous to cover all expenses, I can't help but wonder what the body of Christ might do in such cases if there were not government safety net (as there is today). Christians have sometimes been known to show remarkable generosity and compassion. Christian doctors might even volunteer their services, as the needs required. We have not yet seen, in our time, how God might come through for the Christian community, if every Christian were to trust only in Him, providing through His people, for their well-being.

Some years ago I was in the local hospital for a test as an outpatient. The test took some time, and as I talked with the technician performing the test he said that approximately 40% of all treatment costs per year at this hospital were written off, that is, the people who could not pay had their bills paid by overcharging those with insurance or money to pay! And the government does not pick up its share of this because it refuses to pay for medicare patients what the hospital charges those with insurance or money. Thus we wind up with a system where the sick, or their employers, pay for the treatment of those who can not pay, and those who are blessed with good health contribute little or nothing as long as they do not get sick.

When our grandaughter was hospitalized for twelve weeks, a good part of it in intensive care, one bill was for approximately $750,000, and she was still hospitalized for a while after that. Our son, her father, had very good insurance through his employer, a major corporation. It only cost about $200 out of pocket; insurance paid the rest, which no doubt paid for treatment of a number of indigent patients. It is easy to see how the system, as it is, has become a vicious circle where employers drop insurance coverage due to the high cost of this unfair burden, thus forcing fewer and fewer to pay for even more without insurance.

While I am very sceptical of some of what is being proposed, which appears likely to make things worse for those who have medicare or insurance now, something needs to be done.

Homer

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Steve, I also heard this conversation on the air and liked what you had to say. Any solution that's simple and involves trusting God appeals to me! I do have one question though. You said you wouldn't refuse to take your children to the doctor if they needed urgent care like some of the cults do. Someone might easily ask, "What's the difference? Why can't you trust God in that respect too?"

For me, insurance is a stewardship question and not a lack of faith (though I have frequently questioned this of myself). Things DO happen, and this is the most financially prudent way I know to take care of them. My wife would likely not be alive today (without supernatural intervention), and I have spent thousands of dollars per year on our family even WITH insurance.

Why should we "put God to the test" or "require supernatural intervention" of Him when we have the means to manage the risk?

I could stand naked on the street corner without shelter and expect God to feed and clothe me supernaturally, but I don't do that either.

Darin,

Well said!

Homer-

just out of curiosity, how would your daughter's $750,000 medical bill have been paid without insurance?

If a person belonged to a church of 500 members, and if everyone contributed $1500, it would cover the bill. Of course, there is everyone else's bills to consider, as well.

I work in insurance claims, and emergency room bills keep rising and rising--- I am convinced that certain hospitals run every (unnecessary) diagnostic test in the book (for relatively minor injuries) because they know that there is likely insurance to pay the bill. This "makes up" for the cases where they must provide treatment much more cheaply. It is no longer surprising to see a $12,000 emergency room bill for someone who has sustained only a whiplash type injury.

TK

My wife started a new Federal job last year that provided our family with great insurance. I have never had insurance and was very blessed to have a Dr.(a Muslim man BTW)who used to give me samples of the meds that I needed, so I would not have to buy them.

I also see the insurance thing as a stewardship issue. Healthcare is very important, and I have seen personally the negative impact that medical bills have had on peoples lives.

Jason wrote:

Steve...You said you wouldn't refuse to take your children to the doctor if they needed urgent care like some of the cults do. Someone might easily ask, "What's the difference? Why can't you trust God in that respect too?"

I have never seen fit to reduce "trusting God" to a set of rules, woodenly adhered to. I personally have adopted some rules, or policies, that I have established for my own life of faith, which keep me "on-mission" in this area, but which I have never advocated as laws or Christian duties. To me, trusting God simply means doing what God wants you to do, and trusting Him with outcomes. Determining the part, "what God wants you to do," is itself a guidance issue, not a faith issue.

Thus, if I believe it would please God for me to trust Him, without the intervention of a doctor, to keep me (or those for whom I am responsible) healthy, then I must trust either that God will keep us healthy or that He will personally deal with whatever health issues He may allow to arise. None but God can say how many of the health crises were averted by God's intervention to prevent health issues that would otherwise have arisen?

On the other hand, if I believe that God has provided (or intends to provide) competent and ethical options for healing though medical intervention, then I will be inclined to place myself or family members under a physician's care, when there is a health need that physicians are able to helpfully treat or cure. In such a case, I still must trust God to provide both the healing (albeit through the physician) and also the financial resources to pay for the treatment.

If my child were to face a medical emergency that could be helped by available medical intervention, then, after prayer for supernatural healing had been denied, I would normally conclude that God intends for me to avail myself of whatever assistance mortals can provide. Doing this would seem to be a no-brainer, unless there was some ethical compromise involved in taking that particular option. The fact that money was not on hand to pay immediately for the services would not automatically convince me that I should forego the treatment. If, on other considerations, I was convinced that the treatment was the will of God, I would have to trust that the same God who ordered the treatment will see to it that the bills are somehow paid.

This is all, in my case, largely hypothetical, since I have only encountered the need of medical intervention for a family member one time in three decades. On this occasion, I paid for cash at the time of the services rendered (it was through someone in this discussing that God provided for this bill to be paid, though the party was unaware of the need at the time of mailing the check to me—and I was unaware of the need until a day after I received the check). If I were to use my own case as a model, I would have to conclude that my policies are appropriate ones, and would be equally appropriate for anyone else whom God directs to adopt them. There may be others who live with such policies, but who, unlike myself, have found God not pleased to honor them, but I would be surprised to hear of it.

Darin wrote:

For me, insurance is a stewardship question and not a lack of faith (though I have frequently questioned this of myself). Things DO happen, and this is the most financially prudent way I know to take care of them. My wife would likely not be alive today (without supernatural intervention), and I have spent thousands of dollars per year on our family even WITH insurance.

True. Of course, the caveat "(without supernatural intervention)" must be acknowledged to introduce a wild card the likelihood of which none can quantify. In your case, it is clear that God has provided for your health care through the instrument of health insurance—and no one should think there to be any reason to criticize Him for doing so. I also believe that, if you could not have obtained health insurance, and there were no other financial options open to you, there might (for all any of us can say) have been a similar good outcome to your wife's crisis. The fact that God provided through insurance is just another way of saying that God came through for you in this circumstance through that means, but would also have been capable of coming through for you by other means, if this one were not an option.

Why should we "put God to the test" or "require supernatural intervention" of Him when we have the means to manage the risk?

Having means to solve (or to circumvent) a problem does not always mean that the solution we can afford is the best one—nor even a good one. Of course, it might be, and I would obviously leave it to the individual's conscience to decide for himself such stewardship questions.

In my own case, I would not feel comfortable trusting in unbelievers to finance or to manage my healthcare options, nor to steward the large premiums that I would have to pay them—which might be put to better use for the kingdom of God, if left to my discretionary responsibility for distribution. In my view, this choice would involve me in a sort of unequal yoking. On the other hand, I have no problem with the idea that, in an emergency, the Lord might provide for me through the generosity of the Body of Christ—just as He has done for the past 40 years, and just as I, as a member of the Body, presently without unmet needs, currently cover such expenses for Christians more needy than myself. This is simply allowing the Body of Christ to perform the function for which God created it and which He commands it to do!

There are two ways in which the Body can take on this responsibility: 1) spontaneously, trusting God to lead specific individuals to help at specific times, which is what I have heretofore chosen to do, or 2) organizationally, where a number of Christians organize and manage a Christian heathcare expense co-op. Fortunately, for those who have a need for some form of "back-up" from other believers to shoulder crushing healthcare burdens, there are now Christian healthcare communities (like Medi-Share—www.Medi-Share.org) that can take the place of institutional health insurance. If I were to join one of these (and I might someday do so) I would see my "premiums" paid each month as direct contributions from me to other believers currently encountering health crises, rather than as simply a means of making some corporate execs fatter.

I could stand naked on the street corner without shelter and expect God to feed and clothe me supernaturally, but I don't do that either.

But this would not be an example of following the policies I recommend—unless, of course, standing naked on the corner was the thing that God instructed you to do (I know of only one similar case in scripture—Isaiah 20:2). For most of us, standing on the street corner and doing nothing productive would constitute the neglect of whatever things God actually has in mind for us to be doing—so that, by my definitions, we would not be living by faith, but by presumption.