HEALTH INSURANCE

Quoting the doctors: "I hate to see you use your own money." So quite naturally, if you have insurance, the doctors don't mind seeing you pay lots of money since it's not yours. This insurance thing has obviously gotten out of hand and I think we know why the premiums are so high. It is an on going game of leapfrog between the doctors/hospitals and the insurance companies. Who are the real losers? The people. Both those without insurance and the ones that have to buy it on their own. For those without, because the hospital costs are artificially high, and those that buy their own because the companies raise their rates due to the high hospital costs. We, the consumer, lose because the companies that have individual or family coverage plans charge more for their product to cover the high cost of those plans.
It is a game of semantics. People don’t mind spending “their” money on vacations, gambling, investments in the markets, the arts or whatever else, so long as it makes them feel good. They want someone else to pay the medical bills that make them feel well so they can spend money on things that make them feel good. And those things, whether excessive food, alcohol, tobacco or dangerous forms of recreation, that in turn cause the people to feel bad and therefore need to be treated by the doctors so they can feel good again.

The people that abuse their bodies the worst, are the ones that have the most to gain from such a system. They will truly need much more money than they have “paid in,” to get the treatments that will cure the medical problems they will more than likely get with such a life style.

This never-ending cycle is upon us because we are betting that we are going to have problems while the insurance company is betting we won't. While we are making bets with the insurance companies, the insurance companies are playing leapfrog with the medical people. We are not only playing the betting game but we wind up paying in advance for something that hasn't gone wrong yet, and may not. There is nothing wrong with having something set aside for unforeseen circumstances, but $200.00 to $500.00 per month or more for something that hasn't happened is a heavy tax. Even figuring $2,400.00 per year for twenty years would add up to quite a lot of money. Figuring 5% simple interest would nearly be $60,000; compounded daily would be all the more. Buying insurance makes about as much sense as renting a house. After 20 years you not only don't own the house but you are out $60,000.

There are no easy solutions, but one plan could be similar to social security. If people were made to save while they are young, they would have quite a lot of money after about 40 years of work. If you figure an average of $200 per month= $2400 per year X 40 years= $96,000. This is not counting compounded interest. If instead of giving the parents of children a $1000 tax deduction, they put it in an account; the children would have $20,000 (not counting interest) in that account when they started their 40 years of work. I also think if a person stays healthy they should get back money that they have put into the system. Say, $200 per month after the age of 60. If one dies early, their spouse and children would get the payment until the kids are 20 years old. The non-working housewife would acquire her husband's benefits. The husband and a working house wife would each get their monthly payment back.

Big business is threatened by the health issue and they are the ones to blame. After WW2 they used health care as incentive to attract workers instead of giving them higher wages. Little did they know just how out-of-hand it would become. As the doctors, hospitals and insurance companies started playing leapfrog, medical costs started their rise to what we have today. A liberal senator tried to blame the health care crisis on people with no insurance. That makes about as much sense as throwing a bucket of water on a fire that is already out. To the uninsured people who pay their bills, this is a very unfair statement. It is the people who consume their financial resources with wasteful living and have none available for emergencies that are causing the problem. The other part of the problem is the people that buy insurance; as mentioned before, they have played leapfrog with the medical establishment for so many years that the costs of treatments for various medical procedures have gone through the roof. Therefore, anyone without insurance now catches the blame for things being out of balance.

If the government is ever going to go to national health care I would like to see a plan where you could get a no, or low interest loan, from the government to pay the bill. Then pay back the government from the future wages. As far as the truly disabled and long-termed illnesses are concerned, that's where welfare comes in. It's high time we realize that there are no free rides; someone has to pay for those that don't, and if everybody gets on that bandwagon the country won't make it.

Another plan that may work even better would be where the people would own their own hospital. If say, you had a local hospital that had an annual budget of three million dollars, it would take a membership of 15,000 people paying $200.00 per year to cover that budget. A similar size hospital would probably have about 14-17,000 outpatients per year. It seems kind of wasteful to me to pay the insurance companies $200-$500 per month, just to have them dole out money when you get sick. What do they do with all that money while you're not using it for payment of hospital bills? They are building huge skyscrapers, building shopping malls, buying land, investing in stocks and bonds, buying multi-national corporations, and who knows what else. If the government is going to put a gun to my head, so-to-speak, let me give the money to a hospital so they can build a big building with lots of beds, a complete lab, C.A.T. and M.R.I. scanners and all the other latest equipment that will enable people everywhere to get expert medical care at very reasonable costs.

Just think of the health club facilities and wellness centers the members could build with all the money that they are sending to insurance companies and getting no actual benefit from, unless they get sick. I would rather have the hospitals get that extra money so the workers from the doctors right down to the janitors would be able to get top dollar in wages no matter where they worked in this country (city or rural). This would also have an effect of making sure that the big cities weren't getting all the choice doctors and nurses. I’m sure a lot of doctors and nurses would like to live in smaller communities but because of the big dollars, they bite the bullet and put up with the headaches that "big city" living causes.

This brings us to the bottom line. Who are we trusting to get us through the ups and downs of this life? Jeremiah 17:5 says, "Thus saith the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. This perfectly describes the role of insurance in the world today. Man trusting in man.

On December 31, 1977, I saw a Farm Bureau Insurance commercial on TV that said, "You never know when your luck will run out." If you don't have God, you'll need all the luck you can get, not to mention lots of insurance. God's curses can take many forms. High taxes and other oppressive governmental policies and institutions can and will rob us blind.

Are we in fact, trying to side step God's judgment by using insurance? Will insurance companies grow and prosper the more a nation lives outside the will of God? Make no mistake about it, there isn't enough money in all the world to get you out of what God may put you through if He is trying to make a point with you. He is truly the bottom line because He not only gives us every breath of life we breathe; He gives us the government and various institutions we deserve.

At this point I would like to add to the bowing to other gods aspect - insurance seems to me, to be like what other gods meant to the early pagan people. Why does someone worship something that is not God? They must feel that they derive some tangible benefit, or why would they do something that has such a groundless basis? I think God’s “conspiracy of judgment” enters into the picture at, or along this point. When the people draw away from God He sends them “bad luck” and feeling forsaken, they look to other means of restoring God’s blessing. In the case of early Israel, the pagan neighbors must have had better fortune or at least more fun (to whatever degree) so Israel felt compelled to follow along-figuring, what could it hurt? Its kind-of-like an episode of Sanford and Son - Fred was going to take a flight somewhere and to make sure he was safe, he had a star of David, a crescent moon and a cross hanging around his neck. I think this is what insurance is all about.

Insurance is a serpent. Hath God said He will take care of you? What of health, tornado, flood, lightening, hail, drought, pestilence, and any other act of God? When we think of the loss, we start to get shaky. Please bear with the following excerpts from the Nelson Bible Dictionary. I think they very well serve to back up my concern about the roll of insurance in our society. The following excerpts in reference to gods is going to show that we, who are too sophisticated to bow down to other gods, for protection from loss and ruin, have substituted insurance for idolatry. No matter how you look at it, it is trusting in the strong arm of man (flesh) and not the God of creation.

“All forces of nature that could not be controlled or understood were considered supernatural power to be worshipped and feared.”

Why? Because some of those forces meant death and monetary loss. So to stop this loss they took out an insurance policy of worship and bringing offerings (today we call premiums) so they could be covered against loss.

“Rain was essential to life in an agricultural society.” They prayed and sacrificed to the rain god for rain. Why? For financial and survival reasons. No rain - no food. No food - starve.

“The most prominent myth to cross cultural lines was that of the fertility cycle. Many pagan cultures believe that the god of fertility died each winter but was reborn each year in spring.”

Why is this important? Fertility of the wife meant many kids, which is not only a status symbol but also more help on the farm and fertility among crops and animals means ample food and income. Prayers and sacrifices to fertility gods was meant to INSURE success in both areas.

“There were gods of heaven, air, and earth. Others - the Sun, moon, stars and the planet Venus. As Mesopotamian religion developed, each god had his own star, and worship of stars became popular with the development of ASTROLOGY.”

“The god Adad represented the storm. Either beneficial rain or destructive storms and hurricanes. The god Adramelech - of the Sepharvites worshipped by child sacrifice. The Canaannite god Baal was identified with gods that provide fertility to crops and livestock. Baal-Zebub, “lord of the fly,” produced flies and could also defend against them.”

It seems like the space program uses a lot of these paganistic gods. Are they using them for safe flights just like Fred Sanford did?

If some churches and church doctrines are the, or part of the Babylon we are suppose to “come out of,” in Rev. 18:4 - I think the same can be said of the insurance industry. They are not to be blamed as though they have set out to overthrow God. They are not the enemy. As Pogo said many years ago, “we have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.” Whether it is drugs or insurance, they will come to where the demand is.

The NLT, Isa 17:8 states; “They will no longer ask their idols for help or worship what their own hands have made.”

We buy the policy that covers us in any given situation. Unger’s Bible Dictionary: “The term idolatry is used to designate covetousness which takes mammon for its god.” See UBD p. 514 (5.)

Also concerning the word sorcery - I would like you to consider Rev. 9:21. 21. “Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.” The word, sorceries comes from “pharmakeus (far-mak-yoos'); 5332, in the Strong’s Concordance. from pharmakon (a drug, i.e. spell-giving potion); a druggist ("pharmacist") or poisoner, i.e. (by extension) a magician: sorcerer.” Other than the mandrakes (of Gen. 30:14 and Song of Solomon 7:13) as an aphrodisiac I never really put the words sorceries and fornication together before until I considered them in the form of Viagra. There is a drug that enables one to commit fornication long after a person is past the stage of physical arousal.

The Great Wall of China is a big example of the fleshy arm of man. A forerunner of insurance.

People today don’t bow down to idols because they have insurance instead. They used to sacrifice an animal they bought or owned but today they pay money to someone who can give them money back if needed. If not needed, the guy getting all the money comes out on the long end of the stick.

If you go to the doctor for every little ache or pain, you’ll go broke or be forced to buy insurance.

Concerning Ahaz: 2 Chr 28:22-23 22. And in the time of his distress did he trespass yet more against the LORD: this is that king Ahaz. 23. For he sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him: and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel.

Ahaz was shopping for insurance. He did not want to go to the God that gave him every breath and heart beat. This backs up my theory of insurance and how Israel stooped to serving gods “(IN CASE” it would help.)

Instead of bowing down to other gods we are looking to medical science and insurance to give us health, wealth and kids, protect us from loss, or make sure we can get what we want.

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