Health Insurance or Health Care?

Congress is all wrapped up trying to solve the wrong problem right now. "Health insurance for everyone!" is the cry as the debate rages on in Washington and across the nation. What we need is health CARE for everyone - a much different proposition. The problem is that we have become secularized to the point that the federal government is assuming roles that used to be performed by family and church. In the great Chicago fire, not one dime of federal money was spent to assist. None was ever expected. No one suggested impeaching the president because he didn't respond fast enough. No one imagined that as a role for the federal government. Now it's expected to fix every little scrape and bruise for everyone in the whole country. The wrong people are in charge of health care: money-grubbers and financial wizards who are focused on dollars instead of patients. We think it's normal to have giant health-care corporations. That's not normal, it's sickening. Hospitals should be non-profit, Christ-centered, people-oriented havens where love and health care are dispensed in equal measure. A trip to the doctor should involve questions like "what's going on in your life?" as a regular and normal part of the examination. The only people who really benefit from health insurance are the insurance companies. There was a time in our existence as a nation when no one had health insurance. Doctor fees were reasonable, treatment was much more careful and specific, drug companies were not in cut-throat competition to push out the latest copycat drug that they could charge outrageously for, and when a family faced medical expenses they could not afford, friends, family, and church gathered their resources to help. I believe that is much closer to the way God intends for us to live than anything being proposed in Washington.

Luke 10:27

"...'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"