My previous post WHAT'S THE UPROAR has provided some dialogue on the ongoing debate over a national health care plan. I had some comments all against what I posted. However no one offered a solution to the health crisis in America without me first asking them what do they suggest as a solution? The solutions they offered once I asked are not workable solutions in my mind.
I still think a national health care plan is a workable solution to the health care crisis. However let me suggest a Biblical solution to health care costs.
I do not have health insurance. I belong to Christian Healthcare Ministries a faith-based alternative to health insurance. In the past 15 years members of CHM have shared more than $450 million in medical bills. It works like this. Members send a monthly financial gift to the CHM office. Members monthly gifts for gold level is $150.00; silver level is $85.00; bronze level is $45.00. The gifts are then used to meet participants medical bills.
You asked does CHM work? This past spring I had to have 35 radiation treatments for a recurrence of prostate cancer. The bill was over $60,000.00. I told the medical providers I was self pay. When the bills started coming in I begin negotiating with the medical providers as a self pay patient. I was able to get the medical providers to reduce the total bill to around $30,000.00. I then submitted my bill to CHM and they paid all but $500.00, the $500.00 was my gold level deductible. Yes,CHM works!
CHM carries out the command of Galatians 6:2: "Carry each others burdens, and in this way you fulfill the law of Christ." This is the foundation upon which CHM is built. Together, thousands of CHM members support each other in the critical life need of meeting health care costs.
Advantages of CHM:
-No application fee
-No annual fee
-No waiting period for accidents
-Maternity program
-Chose your own health care providers
-No physical required
-No one is dropped because of medical conditions
-The confidence and joy that comes from knowing you are providing for your own health care needs as you also help fellow Christians.
-CHM members pray for one another.
Qualifications for joining are simple:
-be Christians living by Biblical principles
-abstain from the use of tobacco and the use of illegal drugs.
-follow biblical teachings on the use of alcohol
-attend group worship regularly if health permits.
Do some research and you will find CHM was featured August 12, 2009 on the CNN Situation Room. CNN went on the road with the health care debate and CHM was one of their features.
Wouldn't it be great if everyone in America would join CHM? We know they will not and that is why I favor a national health care plan. But for me and possibly for you CHM works. If you would like to have more information about joining CHM send me an email.
1 week ago
I have heard of programs like this in the past and I have always thought they were a great idea. Biblical to the letter! Which I love! You should add a link to their website for those of us who have no insurance who are interested in this program. Thanks Darrell.
ReplyDeletePastor Darrell,
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a great program. This kind of goes to my point. If there are programs out there like this, and they work, why should we let our Communist-leaning President and Congress have the power to control our health care? If we look to history, it never goes well when the government has too much control over people.
You said,
ReplyDelete"Wouldn't it be great if everyone in America joined CHM? We know they will not and that is why I favor a national health care plan."
I find that curiously contradictory. You enjoy the choice you have made. You enjoy the the benefit of negotiating your cost as the end user AND end consumer (as I mentioned in my email), yet you don't necessarily want everyone to have that choice? That's what will happen with a national health care plan. Your example validates everything I said when you asked me for my plan.
I really don't think that you want to deny anyone their choice. But I also think you don't believe that choice will be lost as a result of gov't taking control.
Hope you don't mind, but since I reference my email in my previous comment, I thought it proper to post it (has to be two parts b/c of length restrictions)
ReplyDeleteI think the solution begins with actually identifying who actually needs healthcare. By that I mean clarifying all the various numbers thrown around by people on both sides of the aisle. When Democrats say 47 million who does that include? When Republicans say 12 to 20 million, who does that include? How many of those people do not have health care by choice? I've heard that the estimate is pretty high. However many there are (1 person or 2 million), I do not think they should be required to have it if they have chosen not to. Again, that's my Libertarian leanings.
I'll share some anectdotal stories that match up with some of the scenarios often brought up in this debate. First, the family in poverty who cannot afford to regular check ups or even to take a child to the doctor when the child is sick. I've been in the ER many times, as have you I'm sure, and witnessed families in poverty who were there at midnight with a child who was simply running a fever. The poor child and (usually) mother sit around and wait for hours before being seen and then given a RX for an antibiotic or even just some Tylenol samples to battle the fever. That family has no insurance so Medicaid picks up the tab for an expensive ER visit. Well, actually what happens is Medicaid pays a much lower fee that the hospital cannot dispute and in turn passes off the loss to their insurance paying patients, creating inflated fees for them.
Part of the solution in that scenario would be for the family to use the health clinic during normal operating hours. There are some "re-education" efforts that have to made for families in poverty about these issues. But, there is the chance that Mom can't get the child to the clinic during "normal hours". It would be nice if the County Health Clinic did have extended hours. This would require more tax dollars naturally, but that's one I'm willing to pay for.
Part 2 -
ReplyDeleteCouple such a solution with real involvement by the Church. Tammy and I moved to the inner city of Durham lead by a call to be true "Wesleyans" in the sense of John Wesley, to be real Christians in the Acts 2 sense. If the Church in America were just a little more focused on meeting the needs of the people around them, the government would not have to worry about solving the health care crisis, the banking crisis, and I'm going to say even the auto industry crisis. Idealistic? Yes, but God never deviates from the ideal. Lawndale Community Church (Chicago) is just one such example of a church that is doing such a thing. They have a clinic, housing assitance, job-training, etc.
In terms of a worldly solution where not everyone will look at this through Christian eyes, I firmly believe in the power of the free market to handle these things. A major component of the "health care crisis" stems from the fact that you and I, the end user of health care are not the actual consumers of health care services. The insurance companies (both private and public) have become the consumers. They are driving the market. I remember when I graduated from college 20 years ago. I really wanted a Honda Accord. But I could not afford one. Everyone wanted one and Honda could charge whatever they wanted because people were paying. That market eventually became bloated. Sales went down. So did the price.
What about the people living in poverty? They have more market power than we credit them with. At the risk of sounding racist/classist/stereotypical, folks living in poverty demonstrate their market power in all sorts of goods you and I might characterize as superfluous or merely cultural preference. I'm referring to items such as car accessories, clothing, shoes, music, . . . They simply choose to wield their market power on those things instead of something like health care. We have created an entitlement mentality and literally a new era of social slavery. Many people who claim to mean well have only propogated that mentality. Should we pull the plug on Medicaid, especially for children who have no say so in the matter or the elderly who simply have nothing? No way. But we do have to structure some type of benefit system that will enable people in this category to make wise decisions that include the exercise of market power. BTW, Lawndale's clinic is not a freebie. Everybody pays something.
Dear Darrell,
ReplyDeleteI think it's refreshing to hear another Christian advocate for a national healthcare plan. I think it's compassionate and that Jesus would approve.
I am self-employed and am considering CHM. You seem to have had a positive experience with them. But I looked them up on BBB and they are not members. Does anyone regulate them?
Thanks for any light you can throw on this.