Can Christians show the world how to handle escalating medical costs?

Comment by Marshall Diakon on June 17, 2012 at 9:11am

insurance planning only has the appearance of controlling medical costs; a band-aide for what is in fact a festering and septic condition.

Jesus brings wisdom and He is just. He well knows that in the USA this year 800,000+ people will die from "medical practice"; that the operation of medicine in the western world has become bizarre --- a definite risk to the health of anyone coming into contact with it. The marketplace is not efficacious or prepared for hosting medical services; neither is the State (or any other human agency) prepared to manage/oversee medicine. Related, the FDA admits that they are unable to carry out their legally required function. Like the church system, medical care continues to degrade while more people are taking to other options.

Little has changed since a certain women who had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse, came to Jesus. As His followers, we cannot be sending people back into a medical mess, putting their life and hope at risk.

Comment by Tony Dale on June 19, 2012 at 8:40am

You are certainly right when you say that little has changed since the time when the woman with the "issue of blood," came to Jesus.  This is why it is all the more vital that Christians get engaged, and come up with solutions based on the word of God.  I don't think we have any perfect solutions yet, but many of us are trying to point people in the right direction.  You might like to look at At http://portal.sliderocket.com/BIGWD/The-Health-Co-Op-Presentation and see what I have been working on.  Every blessing,  Tony

Comment by Marshall Diakon on June 19, 2012 at 10:18am

Thank you for your reply, Tony.

Yesterday, I was shown a hospital billing that illustrates the perverse course of medical care regarding fees:

Emergency Room visit:   $1,185.00

Radiology:   $297.00

Total Patient Services:    $1482.00

Insurance payment 6/11/2012       $229.70-

Insurance Discount         $1,417.00-

Current Balance:       $65.00

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In the above example, an 80% discount is furnished only because an insurance company was involved in the payment process. Why are physicians and hospitals billing families & individuals 5 times what they are actually willing to take in payment for services? This practice is not just.

Many folks have a tough time just to say "No" to their doctor when they are truly not at peace about what is being offered or prescribed. Can you imagine, if fear governs our actions... if we did not have the courage or sense to selectively decline the car dealer, vacuum salesman, or travel agent? The car, vacuum and travel plans are being offered with some warranty, while physicians & surgeons are prepared to bill you in full --- regardless the quality or consequence of their services. What man or woman is able to negotiate or maintain a sound mind under a private tyranny of fear? In truth, all who would follow Jesus have given up their right to place their lives in the hands of "medical professionals" who comprehend relatively little in truth of human physiology while having learned to act as if they are quite capable in understanding our condition. result: 800,000+ needless deaths in the USA each year. Until we can address our relationship with medical people and bring that relationship under submission to Christ, cost sharing or co-ops or insurance or Medicare's supplementals will be leaving us at this door to fear, disability & death.

Comment by David Gerry Hallowell on December 19, 2012 at 1:06am

I am new on this site so please correct me if I am out of bounds here but reading about the woman with the issue of blood reminded me of the first medical condition I encountered when I got to the hot dry dessert this fall. I was at Lowes shopping for parts to fix a lamp when I got a nose bleed,,,a real gusher, a fountain of a nose bleed. I rushed outside and someone in the store took the lid off a trash can so I could bleed where I didn't mess up the sidewalk. I was brought paper towels and someone called 911. Two fire engines and an ambulance showed up. The paramedics asked me on board the ambulance. I asked how much but nobody answered. we were less than half a mile from the Hospital. I was offloaded at the ER. I also asked them how much while they asked me if I have insurance. I do not. I have been overseas, My mission had the privilege of distributing over 30 sea-land containers of hospital supplies and other goods to hospitals and orphanages in Crimea. Hospitals there would be embarrassed to ask me for payment for their service. I was left in the ER, never touched and eventually abandoned in a back corner with a small plastic bucket, some gauze pads and a small towel...no personal attention. After about an hour my nosebleed stopped. remembering my father had been mishandled in an ER and died, I asked a young lady walking by for advice on how to sneak out. I did just that. Later I got a $1300.- bill from the ambulance service and a $450.- bill from the hospital!!! I applied for a poor person's status on the hospital after an old high school chum who has been supporting out mission gave me money for the ambulance. I cannot afford American health care but I can pray. The miraculous thing about the nose bleed which continued intermittently for a few days until I found some ordinary $3 ointment and applied it to my mucous membranes. The bleeding stopped and I noticed that some floaters that were apparently blood that had been floating around in my right eye for months were gone!  Romans 8:28!!! I also had a front tooth cap fall out. I remembered the last time I had a dentist glue one back in for me it ran $200. and included some unnecessary x-rays. So I went online and bought some zinc phosphate dental cement. It cost me $12. I mixed up a little with water and glued my tooth back in. It is staying put. The medical establishment is bamboozling us. 

Comment by Tony Dale on December 19, 2012 at 7:44am

The two examples above given by Marshall and David are absolutely typical of why the current health system costs so much.  I laud both of you for having the courage to challenge the system, and to be willing to personally engage in finding answers.  That is not dissimilar to what we have tried to do in The Health Co-Op.  We have taken our experiences of handling the craziness that is the current health economic system, tied it to the wonderful work done by Samaritan Ministries, one of the large Christian health care sharing groups, and then surrounded that with other services that do genuinely provide value for money.  Not perfect, but moving in the same direction as the comments above; i.e. teaching people how to take personal responsibility and how to plan against the unexpected and high medical costs that anyone could incur in a serious illness.  Keep up the good work to both of you, and others who are learning to stand up for what is appropriate in medical costs.

Comment by Marshall Diakon on December 19, 2012 at 8:24am

David, I also have been exploring do-it-yourself, as well as community medical care. In 2009, I visited an inspiring example of this in California, where families shared their skills (including medical) to take care of such as teeth, nosebleeds, common injuries & illness that children experience, wellness adjustments, and much more. Applying community skills is surely more fitting in what the ekklesia would do by caring for one another.

It does seem ironic, how such a vast medical empire in the west could be so unprepared to provide needed medical services, so well-prepared to provide unneeded services, while being so heavily burdened in "negative outcome" [treatments or procedures that harm, kill, or simply don't help]. There are many physicians aware of the problem, but what can they do? The system is ill, and this affects people who come in contact with it.

Give the Ambulance company $13 for their $1300 billing? If the quality of service be no better than a taxi cab company, why pay more?

Comment by David Gerry Hallowell on December 19, 2012 at 11:39am

Part of my problem lies in the (dare I say avant guarde and not sound prideful?) nature of my ministry. I was called out of a denomination to work for Jesus,,,check John 17:20-23 for a clue as to why. When I answered that call He sent me to Ukraine. The former Soviet Union had fallen, Ukraine had declared her independence that year (1991)...and I was called sovereignly and miraculously to go to the land I had always thought of as THE ENEMY, or THE DARK SIDE. He pointed me to 2 Peter 3:9b. I was made to understand that I was not to hook up with any denom. but go and do what God told me to do and he would provide. The story amazes me all over again each time I recall it. I was 48 years old, just approaching my prime so far as career and money making. I gave up a good paying job with a medical products company in Santa Barbara at His command.  I had been consulting with doctors all over America for 8 years. That is when I began to lose respect for many of them. After I got going Father God has always guided and provided through thick and thin and I have never regretted that decision. needless to say I found no big help in organized church but money did come in in drips and drabs, often from unexpected sources. It was mostly small donations and most were not regular...some were and that was nice but the Lord expects me to wait on Him. I took my SS retirement early at the age of 62 because donations were drying up as people were selling frightening apocalyptic books advising everyone to hoard. Since then there have been some months when I had to pay the salaries of our help out of my Soc Sec or CC's which I still have thanks to my excellent credit rating which with God's help I was somehow able to maintain. I haven't even got around to telling the best parts, but suffice it to say here that there have been many travel miracles, healings, and hard decisions. God has taught me how to fight our common enemy, Satan and his band of fallen angels. Mother (She is 89 yrs old) and some others have thought I should maybe quit before my health goes bad and do something more profitable here in the States. God called me there specifically and clearly. I can only obey Him. So now I am trying to get a new visa and get back. If I should die before I fly, I'll be yet closer to the sky. Meanwhile I am on the alert for professional health care golfers who poison us wuth big pharma's so called cures, play on our fears to allow excessive exams to cover their malpractice, and have never even remotelythought of taking the Hippocratic oath. Excuse me now...going for today's apple.

Comment by Steven and Aiphing Sheung on January 23, 2013 at 3:21pm

It is good to do something to take care of medical cost. The current medical cost mess is so huge that no matter what we do, it will stay that way. Obamacare will not fix it. It is just a bandage and eventually will fail. Medical cost involve Physician cost, Nurse cost, equipment cost, facility cost, business and overhead cost and training cost, etc. One day stay at a hospital average cost is $5000. Reasonable or not reasonable, yes and no. It is yes because it cost 20 million, for example to set up this hospital, and the investor wants its investment return. It is no, because, not thing in that one day stay will cost $5000 if no care execute on that day that use the $5000 worth of services. To fix the problem, we need have a great savings plan for helping future medical needs. The Christian medic share is a good start. Second, we need to have the Hospital and medical personnel willing to get paid at a respectable but not so high rate for the service they provided, what is that, I have no way to guess it.

A good heart surgery cost can cost 200,000. or 50,000. How do we set a price? 

I have a friend whose husband had medical insurance. He had a plugged up big intestine and decided to trust in the Lord instead of having an expensive surgery. So He lives out his day in hospice care at home. After he past away. After all bills had been paid by insurance, his wife had to reverse mortgage their home  to pay some  left over medical bill. What can we do to in this case to avoid this? Case by case, scenario by scenario, the medical cost is not just about cost, it also involve situations.

So much for now, I would like to share more thoughts later. God bless and may Jesus be lifted up!

Comment by Tony Dale on January 23, 2013 at 5:05pm

Yes, the stories you tell are sad but true.  That is why we have started The Health Co-Op.  We greatly value all help in getting the word out.  We are helping most people cut their insurance costs by more than 50%.  Blessings,  Tony

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