We need spend [on medicine] only at most about one-third what we now spend in order to enjoy about all that medical science can offer us. It is interesting to me that that is the amount we are already paying out of our pockets. From our charitably-informed pockets. If the church or charitable organizations, which once abounded in American, try to solve the problem by funding the same idolatrous game, we will only bankrupt the church or the charitable organizations or individuals.
Excerpt from talk given at Westminster Presbyterian Church
Monday, April 29, 2013
Monday, April 22, 2013
Making Insurance Better
The human body, as the temple of the Holy Spirit, is an important part of who and what we are. We are a complex folding together of a non-material part – the spirit – and a material part – the body. I Corinthians 3:16-17 says, “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.” Ecclesiastes 12:3 speaks of “the keepers of the house” meaning our hands, as they tend to our bodies, which is the “house.” There are many other like passages which make it clear to all Bible-believers that our bodies are important not only to us, but to God, and that we are charged with taking care of our bodies.
Self-care is what we largely do not have today. Of all payments made for medical care today in the U.S., only about a third come out of our own pocket directly. The remainder comes from the pockets of others, almost exclusively from the pockets of others who neither know us nor who give willingly – from insurance plans and taxes. Now, the third that we do pay is so formidable that we imagine that we cannot possibly pay more, and that basic medical insurance is somehow the only answer. Quite wrong. Basic medical insurance is incapable of being a workable proposition. Insurance is okay, but only for insurable risks.
Basic medical costs are not an insurable risk, and legislation cannot change that fact. One thing, then, that we would need, is for all insurance to be:
(1) bought by the recipient for himself/herself and dependents,
(2) paid only to the purchaser, not to hospitals or doctors. Individuals would then become shoppers, making risk to benefit decisions. If a person, for example, could find $1000 deductible insurance, he/she would find that the premiums are lower than for $250 deductible. If the person is willing and able to take the extra $750 risk, a savings can be achieved. If the person is willing to save the difference in premium, then, if the person "wins" on the risk (most will), the difference can be added to the money saved to handle the risk. It is a basic form of self-insurance, or money saved for a rainy day. (See Prov. 6:6 and 30:25 regarding the way the lowly ant makes provisions for times of want.) A few years of such return of savings on premium to a self-insurance pool and most families which are now insured through their employer might be able to achieve $5000 to $10,000 deductible insurance, which is very cheap indeed. After that, the money saved might be spent on true biblical charity or other goals of the church.
Excerpt from talk given at Westminster Presbyterian Church
Self-care is what we largely do not have today. Of all payments made for medical care today in the U.S., only about a third come out of our own pocket directly. The remainder comes from the pockets of others, almost exclusively from the pockets of others who neither know us nor who give willingly – from insurance plans and taxes. Now, the third that we do pay is so formidable that we imagine that we cannot possibly pay more, and that basic medical insurance is somehow the only answer. Quite wrong. Basic medical insurance is incapable of being a workable proposition. Insurance is okay, but only for insurable risks.
Basic medical costs are not an insurable risk, and legislation cannot change that fact. One thing, then, that we would need, is for all insurance to be:
(1) bought by the recipient for himself/herself and dependents,
(2) paid only to the purchaser, not to hospitals or doctors. Individuals would then become shoppers, making risk to benefit decisions. If a person, for example, could find $1000 deductible insurance, he/she would find that the premiums are lower than for $250 deductible. If the person is willing and able to take the extra $750 risk, a savings can be achieved. If the person is willing to save the difference in premium, then, if the person "wins" on the risk (most will), the difference can be added to the money saved to handle the risk. It is a basic form of self-insurance, or money saved for a rainy day. (See Prov. 6:6 and 30:25 regarding the way the lowly ant makes provisions for times of want.) A few years of such return of savings on premium to a self-insurance pool and most families which are now insured through their employer might be able to achieve $5000 to $10,000 deductible insurance, which is very cheap indeed. After that, the money saved might be spent on true biblical charity or other goals of the church.
Excerpt from talk given at Westminster Presbyterian Church
Monday, April 15, 2013
Healthy Godliness
1 Timothy 4:7, 8 “But reject profane and old wives' fables, and exercise yourself rather to godliness. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.”
Sometime in the early 1980's I was asked to teach a series to a special class on prevention. I was asked by some folks who were, by my definition of the time, fitness freaks. The clear expectation of me was that I would expound on the Scriptures as they relate to prevention of disease, as they relate to “health maintenance.” This passage from 1 Timothy was to be the key verse, of course, buttressed by the nutritional test that the “four Hebrew children” – Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego – proposed in Daniel 1. They were offered, you may recall the king's wine and delicacies, but preferred vegetables and water, and were found “ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers” who were in the kingdom.
Since that time, I have gone back to the 1 Timothy 4 passage and looked at it more carefully. The way this passage is used – in support of the modern concepts of physical exercise for Christians – is exactly the opposite of the Biblical emphasis. It is setting up a comparison in which bodily exercise comes off second best.
We live in a time of a tyranny of experts. My profession of medicine is, I am sad to say, tyrannizing the population in several ways. We have gradually come to believe in the U.S. that health is something that is in the power of medical experts. We scurry around watching our cholesterol, exercising, having prostate specific antigen blood tests done, Pap smears, and the like. The authorities, after all, have told us that these are the important things. They aren't really, in general, very important. The scientific evidence upon which such procedures as these stand as powerful for the maintenance of life is tissue thin. Yet, we have in this nation sold ourselves into slavery as far as our health is concerned.
That which is more important for health, godliness, has been traded off for that which is not very powerful at all. The death rate is one apiece.
Excerpt from Westminster PCA talk
Sometime in the early 1980's I was asked to teach a series to a special class on prevention. I was asked by some folks who were, by my definition of the time, fitness freaks. The clear expectation of me was that I would expound on the Scriptures as they relate to prevention of disease, as they relate to “health maintenance.” This passage from 1 Timothy was to be the key verse, of course, buttressed by the nutritional test that the “four Hebrew children” – Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego – proposed in Daniel 1. They were offered, you may recall the king's wine and delicacies, but preferred vegetables and water, and were found “ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers” who were in the kingdom.
Since that time, I have gone back to the 1 Timothy 4 passage and looked at it more carefully. The way this passage is used – in support of the modern concepts of physical exercise for Christians – is exactly the opposite of the Biblical emphasis. It is setting up a comparison in which bodily exercise comes off second best.
We live in a time of a tyranny of experts. My profession of medicine is, I am sad to say, tyrannizing the population in several ways. We have gradually come to believe in the U.S. that health is something that is in the power of medical experts. We scurry around watching our cholesterol, exercising, having prostate specific antigen blood tests done, Pap smears, and the like. The authorities, after all, have told us that these are the important things. They aren't really, in general, very important. The scientific evidence upon which such procedures as these stand as powerful for the maintenance of life is tissue thin. Yet, we have in this nation sold ourselves into slavery as far as our health is concerned.
That which is more important for health, godliness, has been traded off for that which is not very powerful at all. The death rate is one apiece.
Excerpt from Westminster PCA talk
Monday, April 8, 2013
Life is Risk
Life is risk. Elimination of risk is called "death." Our job, therefore, is not to eliminate risk but to adjust risks to benefits. Since both "risk" and "benefit" are calculated idiosyncratically to the patient, the family physician is in a potentially good position to help the patient. For example, I will not ride in a car without a lap and chest belt in place, but I will travel far to sea in a small boat. Someone could calculate the risks of either relatively independent of me, but not the benefits. Even the risks involve experience, judgment, sobriety, equipment, etc.
Excerpt from "Not Exposed, Sick"
Excerpt from "Not Exposed, Sick"
Monday, April 1, 2013
On Borrowing and Lending
Isaiah 24:2 “And it shall be:
As with the people, so with the priest;
As with the servant, so with his master;
As with the maid, so with her mistress;
As with the buyer, so with the seller;
As with the lender, so with the borrower;
As with the creditor, so with the debtor.”
Part of an enigmatic prophetic passage which seems to point to a future judgment of God which entails a leveling of previously important distinctions. Perhaps part of the burden of this is to put lending and indebtedness into a greater perspective lest either borrowing or lending achieve too much prominence in our thinking.
As with the people, so with the priest;
As with the servant, so with his master;
As with the maid, so with her mistress;
As with the buyer, so with the seller;
As with the lender, so with the borrower;
As with the creditor, so with the debtor.”
Part of an enigmatic prophetic passage which seems to point to a future judgment of God which entails a leveling of previously important distinctions. Perhaps part of the burden of this is to put lending and indebtedness into a greater perspective lest either borrowing or lending achieve too much prominence in our thinking.
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