The Healthcare Bill – Some Thoughts
Well, the Congress critters did it – at least some of them did. They maneuvered and connived and double dealt and underhandedly passed the so called “Obamacare” “Health Reform Bill”. If it is such a good idea – why was there so much opposition to the bill by common folks? And if it’s such a good idea, why do they not obligate Congress and the President to sign on to it – rather than providing their own first class service that is not available to the “great unwashed masses”?
But what surprises me are the voices lifted in thankfulness for the passage of the bill. Voices of some who’s opinions I thought were carefully thought out. How can a bill that is this expensive and which puts our nation at greater risk of bankruptcy be a good thing? God teaches us to be careful of our finances and to spend wisely – this does not seem to be a wise thing at all.
Some Christian leaders are touting this as “The Bill Jesus Would Love” – or something to that effect, because it supposedly addresses the needs of the poor. But does it? And even if it does – is this the way? When Peter asked about paying the temple tax, Jesus didn’t send him out to beg, nor did He send him out to steal. He sent him out to catch a fish – and allow God to provide for his needs.
Now, the question is – WHY would government even be interested in health care? What is the history of health care in the first place? Did you ever think about that? Health care began when early Christians stayed behind in plague torn cities to take care of the sick and the dying. They provided for those in need and established the first hospitals. In fact, around the world we find hospitals that were established by medical missionaries. People who felt the call to reach out to the sick and needy of the world – and did so with God’s help and provision. So why is it that we now turn to government as the source of taking care of our health care needs? Is it not because the Church has become irrelevant in many ways – turning over her work to secular government? Schools in the US – started by churches. Health care – started by Churches. Shucks, even the militia was run from the church. (Look it up – folks carried their muskets to church and practiced drilling and shooting after services) So why do we now turn those things over to secular government?
And why are we in the mess we are in? Back in the 60′s a stay in the hospital cost less than $100 a night (in fact, if I recall correctly it cost less than $50). So why do we now have such exorbitant costs? Can you spell “lawyer” and “medical malpractice”? Check out how high medical malpractice insurance is these days. A huge portion of any doctor, anesthesiologist, nurse, hospital, dentist, etc bill goes to pay for medical malpractice insurance. We’ve become such a sue happy nation that even negligence on the patient’s part can result in a multimillion dollar suit being settled against the doctor. Tort reform would do a lot more for us than “health care reform”.
So, what’s the solution? Is taking from the “haves” to give to the “have nots” really justice? No, it is not. True social justice comes when society reaches out in love to the hurt and the needy – to give them a hand, not a handout. We have raised whole generations of people who depend on government from the cradle to the grave. A look at the map of the districts represented by the congress critters who voted for the recent health care bill reveals that they all come from urban settings. In my home state the largest city is the ONLY congressional district of either party to vote in favor. Somehow I’m not surprised that this person voted in the interests of the feed trough mentality constituents – against the rights of the rest of society.
If the church would be the church, reaching out to the poor and helpless in true love – we could kiss such asinine legislation as that which our government foisted upon us goodbye. But as long as the church remains content to limit herself to “worship services” and “praise services” and the four walls so many identify as the church – she will remain irrelevant and our culture will continue down the slippery slope towards servitude.
The problem isn’t that our nation voted in favor of socialism (a system geared for failure), the problem is that the church sees taking from one at the point of a gun to give to another as a way of showing the love of the Savior.
Posted in
This didn’t happen because the church stopped being the church. This happened because the secular humanists are jealous of what makes the church effective, so they use government to force from us the resources to provide education, charity to the poor, and health care from the churches through high taxes and onerous regulation and then give these out in their own name instead of God’s.
Think about history a bit. Who controlled government, charities and hospitals for the first 100 years of our nation’s existence? The church did. Not a specific denomination, but all these institutions were run by churches in one way or another. Our founding fathers ALL had a belief in God because that is how people thought in those days. BUT the church took some heavy blows over the years and did not know how to fight back effectively. This is not a sudden problem, it’s been building up over time. Darwin’s theories gave a lot of people cause to drift even further away from the core beliefs that founded our nation. Interaction with France had already allowed their humanist ideas (look at the differences between the French Revolution and the American Revolution) to permeate our land. German philosophies and the notion that the Bible is only “yet another ancient, fallible document” permeated our churches from the pulpit. Harvard, Yale, Princeton – they drifted from institutions founded to produce Bible teaching preachers to generators of liberal minded deniers of anything divine. All these things laid the grownd work for the fiasco now known as “Healt Care Reform” or “Obamacare”. The humanists did not force the churches to give up their control of the social aspects of our nation – the churches gave them over to them freely over the last century. It is time for the church to start being the church again and to become the hands and the feet of our Savior. For example – this next Saturday we are having a medical day for poor folks, right here “in the church” as some would say. It is our first such effort, but Lord willing it will not be our last. We’re still just a small congregation but we’re doing our best with the limited resources we have, because God has everything we need to carry out His commandments.