Commentary About Healthcare

Notes:

 ~  I wrote this on August 31st but am just now able to get it posted.

~  This post is reflective of my frustration and disgust with not only our healthcare system, but also the point of view of so many of my fellow Christians.  

~  If you are not a Christian, nor hold any religious beliefs, this post should still not offend you.  In fact, if you are as baffled by and as sick of us Christians as I am, read on!

Sunday morning and I’m ironing a blouse for church.  I recall that just a few years ago Trista spent one summer cleaning houses and for one extremely wealthy family, doing the ironing.  I think back on the various types of work she has done and a recent experience when she was ill that I found especially frustrating. 

Her first job was during her senior year of high school, working at a local pharmacy.  Since that start, before getting more permanent jobs and in between, she did tutoring, taught part-time  at 3 different colleges around the Cincinnati area, provided all day childcare, worked as a waitress, and taught summer classes.  I feel like I am forgetting some job that should be part of that list, but my point is made, I think. 

She worked hard enough during her college years to be offered a fellowship.  So she spent two years completing her master’s degree while teaching classes, and working weekends at Pedro’s Restaurant.  

She spent years teaching at Cape Fear Community College.  Currently, in addition to teaching her own Zumba classes, she is also a Zumba Jammer, meaning she trains Zumba instructors.  She teaches a number of different types of fitness classes at the YMCA and the Hospital Employees’ Fitness Center, has personal training clients, and if necessary, fills in at the desk of the Health Center.

Even if she were not my daughter I would call the person who has been willing to do all this as a hard worker.  So the fact that not long ago she was turned away from an Urgent Care center because her type of medical insurance was not accepted and had to go searching for a facility that would accept her insurance I had found particularly exasperating. 

But not wanting to begin my day on a frustrating note and having finished ironing my blouse, I let it go and discipline myself to stop thinking about what I see as the unfairness of it all.

My small group at church are all younger than I.  We begin “class” with prayer, asking if anyone has a particular prayer request.  Oddly enough, medical benefits are mentioned.  One group member has been offered a new job she would like to take.  But, she is concerned about medical benefits.  Her husband is currently the victim of downsizing and is looking for a new position.  Both she and he are most worried about having medical insurance; the income being secondary. 

Yet another young woman went through a fairly recent employment change.  For her also, the source of anxiety had been medical benefits.  Although literally a “small” group, at least five in the group have been in the same dilemma at some point in time. 

The Small Group ends and I go to the sanctuary to attend service.  While waiting, I once again, like I have so frequently in the past, question the current assertion that we are a Christian nation, built on Christian principles.  I deliberately set aside the instances of hard working people I personally know who have been apprehensive about being without medical coverage.  Likewise, I refuse to consider the man I know, still working after 45+ years, whose contractually provided medical insurance was simply taken away.  He had to withdraw $26,000 from retirement savings for medical expenses. 

I focus instead on just what “Christian” is.  I look around at the symbols of the Christian faith: the cross, the stained glass windows depicting Jesus interacting with others, the Bible alongside the hymnal on the back of the pew in front of me.  I contemplate the words associated with the Christian belief and concentrate on the one most often used to define this religion, “grace”.    When speaking of “grace” we emphasize that it is “undeserved”.  Grace absolutely excludes “merit”. 

On their own, my thoughts drift back to fears of some in Small Group and to Trista’s experience.  I think on the fact that I hear universal healthcare is unfair because some do not pay taxes.  So, if I understand correctly, we, the Christian nation, determine a basic human need on merit, on what a person contributes.  I look back at the cross in front of the sanctuary.  Thinking of our society outside the church, I see, superimposed on that cross, the faces of America’s founding fathers; and the U.S. Constitution.  My thoughts shift quickly to another principle of Christianity; that of our sinfulness.  I get confused. 

We, as a “Christian” nation, rather than use the person of Jesus and the foundational principle of grace to define Christianity, we use the persons who founded our country and the document they conceived, to determine our actions.  And in wanting to punish those we judge and perceive to be undeserving, we also mistreat those we probably would count as worthy and eligible were we not so busy pridefully touting our Christianity and using as proof our heritage born from men; men who Jesus, when looking down from that cross, saw them just as He sees us, as flawed and sinful people totally undeserving of anything.  

I’m still confused.  But I am glad to be in church where I can glimpse what true Christianity looks like; every human equally loved and appreciated, everyone being of equal status and our realization of the truth that God does not categorize any of us as deserving.