Healthcare in America, most agree, needs change and reform. The Supreme Court upholding the divisive "Obamacare" has brought this issue to the forefront of public and social discourse. A couple of years ago I read The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care where the journalist T.R.Reid goes on a quest to the world's other first world market based countries seeking answers to America's problems. It is a wonderful unbiased read that I will draw from heavily in this post in examining the financial, health, and moral issues facing our country.
We live in a country where 700,000 people (in 2009 numbers) go bankrupt every year due to medical expenses. In Britain, France, Japan, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, and Switzerland this does not happen. Zero. Twenty two thousand people die from treatable illnesses in our wonderful country due to lack of available care. In other countries once again this is nonexistent.
Out of all of the first world market based economies we are the most unhappy, when surveyed, with our health insurance. A huge part of this is that we are the only country in which health insurance is a profit driven enterprise. Where every time care is actually paid for and provided it is considered a "loss". In others insurance plans, sometimes run by government sometimes private entities, exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to provide dividends for investors. We are the only country in which citizens under 65 cannot get permanent health insurance. If you leave a job, whether voluntary or otherwise, you lose insurance precisely when it is often needed the most.
Each of us as Americans must ask ourselves if we really want to be a part of a society that lets tens of thousands of our neighbors, brothers and sisters, die each year, and hundreds of thousands face financial ruin, because they can't afford medical care when they're sick?
We live in a country where 700,000 people (in 2009 numbers) go bankrupt every year due to medical expenses. In Britain, France, Japan, Germany, Canada, Netherlands, and Switzerland this does not happen. Zero. Twenty two thousand people die from treatable illnesses in our wonderful country due to lack of available care. In other countries once again this is nonexistent.
Out of all of the first world market based economies we are the most unhappy, when surveyed, with our health insurance. A huge part of this is that we are the only country in which health insurance is a profit driven enterprise. Where every time care is actually paid for and provided it is considered a "loss". In others insurance plans, sometimes run by government sometimes private entities, exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to provide dividends for investors. We are the only country in which citizens under 65 cannot get permanent health insurance. If you leave a job, whether voluntary or otherwise, you lose insurance precisely when it is often needed the most.
Each of us as Americans must ask ourselves if we really want to be a part of a society that lets tens of thousands of our neighbors, brothers and sisters, die each year, and hundreds of thousands face financial ruin, because they can't afford medical care when they're sick?
Part 1 of a BBC documentary from 2009 on USA health care. Not aired in USA.
Watch foreign health non profits help needy Americans. Links to parts 2 and 3
Watch foreign health non profits help needy Americans. Links to parts 2 and 3
Jesus provides a great example in Mark 5 that can provide a beneficial analysis for the healthcare debate. One of the things that the man of Nazareth was known for were his miraculous healings, for sayings such as “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.” Of course is he speaking spiritually as well as physically.
In the chapter, two women are healed. One is the twelve year old daughter of a man of prestige and power in the community, Jairus the synagogue leader. The other is an older woman who had been made a community outcast due to an issue of blood lasting twelve years. On the way to Jairus’ daughter the crowd thronged to see the miracle when the older woman reaches out and touches the Lord’s clothing in faith. He stops and spends the time to heal the woman. The outcast, the reject, the unloved... Of course he goes on to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead healing both daughters of God.
In our country Jairus’ daughter would be given the best medical treatment in the entire world. Yea I said it, we do have the best care in the world for those that have insurance and resources to access it. Yet an ever increasing millions of men, women and children are completely left out. The woman with the issue of blood would not be healed in our country...she would not have access to the healers and miracle workers of our wonderful land.
I close with the Christlike words of a French (and yes we can definitely learn from other countries just as they from us) doctor, Dr Valerie Newman.”It would be stupid to say everybody is equal, some are rich and some are poor. Some are beautiful, some aren’t. Some are brilliant, some aren’t. But when we get sick-then, everybody is equal. Everybody must have equal right to the best medical treatment we can provide. That is the basic rule of French health care. Surely that’s the basic rule of health care in every country.”
In the chapter, two women are healed. One is the twelve year old daughter of a man of prestige and power in the community, Jairus the synagogue leader. The other is an older woman who had been made a community outcast due to an issue of blood lasting twelve years. On the way to Jairus’ daughter the crowd thronged to see the miracle when the older woman reaches out and touches the Lord’s clothing in faith. He stops and spends the time to heal the woman. The outcast, the reject, the unloved... Of course he goes on to raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead healing both daughters of God.
In our country Jairus’ daughter would be given the best medical treatment in the entire world. Yea I said it, we do have the best care in the world for those that have insurance and resources to access it. Yet an ever increasing millions of men, women and children are completely left out. The woman with the issue of blood would not be healed in our country...she would not have access to the healers and miracle workers of our wonderful land.
I close with the Christlike words of a French (and yes we can definitely learn from other countries just as they from us) doctor, Dr Valerie Newman.”It would be stupid to say everybody is equal, some are rich and some are poor. Some are beautiful, some aren’t. Some are brilliant, some aren’t. But when we get sick-then, everybody is equal. Everybody must have equal right to the best medical treatment we can provide. That is the basic rule of French health care. Surely that’s the basic rule of health care in every country.”
Enjoy the video of Jesus healing the woman sick for 12 years and please share your comments, thoughts, questions or critiques below or on FB.
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