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Archive for the ‘Culture’ Category

Dumping Starbucks

08 May

As a frequent customer and shareholder, I emailed Starbucks last week questioning information I had seen at DumpStarbucks.com , which claims that Starbucks is using their profits to lobby government to re-define marriage. Here’s the correspondence.

My wife and I frequent this Starbucks and several others. We are also shareholders. I’m at one location now and just saw a link to the “Dump Starbucks” website which reads in part:

On January 24th, 2012, Starbucks issued a memorandum declaring that same-sex marriage 'is core to who we are and what we value as a company.Starbucks also used its resources to participate in a legal case seeking to overturn a federal law declaring marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

We are very conscious of where our money goes and we do not support the overturning of laws in the pursuit of redefining millennia-old religious terminology. Is this information accurate? Is every purchase and every stock buy we make a contribution toward efforts to work against some of our core beliefs?

Thank you,

[SecondJon]

I received a response from Victor at Starbucks Customer Service:

Hello,Thank you for contacting Starbucks.

At Starbucks, we deeply respect the views of our customers and partners (employees) and recognize that there is genuine passion surrounding this topic. Starbucks has many constituents, and from time to time we will make decisions that are consistent with our values and heritage but may be inconsistent with the views of a particular group.

From our very earliest days, Starbucks has strived to create a company culture that puts our people first and treats everyone equitably. Our company has a lengthy history of leading on and supporting policies that promote equality and inclusion, and we are proud to be one of several leading Northwest employers that support of Washington State legislation recognizing marriage equality. We made this decision through the lens of humanity and our commitment to embracing diversity.

We have 200,000 people that work for Starbucks around the world and the equity of our brand has been defined by the relationship we have with our partners and the relationship they have with our customers. Put simply, the success we’ve enjoyed and the resulting shareholder value created are directly linked to the pride our partners have for the company they work for and their connection with the communities we serve.

If you have any further questions or concerns that I was unable to address, please feel free to let me know.

Sincerely,

Victor

customer service

2 points:

Victor wrote that “…the success we’ve enjoyed and the resulting shareholder value created” are because of things like lobbying to redefine marriage. If that were the case, why isn’t there a big sign by the register of every Starbucks declaring they’re opposed to the traditional definition of marriage, that “money from every purchase is used to lobby government to redefine marriage?” Because it’s a lie. They benefit only because they hide their activities and hide behind ambiguity.

“Recognizing marriage equality” sounds nice, but also very ambiguous. As G. K. Chesterton wrote in Eugenics and Other Evils (a book I recommend, available online free), “evil always takes advantage of ambiguity,” so I followed up with an email seeking clarity:

Hello Victor,

Thanks for your response. As a frequent purchaser of products and a shareholder, I’m writing back for clarification, recognizing the power of the money I have invested in Starbucks.

What do you mean by “marriage equality”? My understanding is that currently any man and any woman can get married. The restrictions aren’t based on anything except 1) only 2 people and 2) a man and a woman.

There have historically been efforts to redefine marriage to change the legal marrying age, allow polygamy, or even change from gender restriction to discrimination based on sexual orientation, something like “2 same-sex people can be married, but only if they have sex with each other,” seemingly replacing the gender restriction with a sexual orientation or sexual activity restriction.

I’m guessing you aren’t the one who came up with the policy or the one who decided the rational of Starbucks’ using of my investment money to support the policy, but can you give some clarity of what the policy is that is being supported?

Thanks,

[SecondJon],
Customer and Shareholder

This is the crux of the issue in my mind. Currently, marriage is not defined as “a contract a man and a woman who love each other,” nor as “A man and a woman who have sex.” Both of those situations are plentiful outside of marriage. Legally, marriage is a contract between a man and a woman, recognized and encouraged through some limited benefits, such as additional tax filing options, because since Aristotle philosophers and politicians have seen the importance of strong family units. Certainly our perspective of what makes a family is changing.

Perhaps in reaction to their own parents not living out their marriage commitment, increasing numbers of couples are living together, having and raising children together without ever sealing the relationship with the commitment of a marriage certificate; others have a slightly more sophisticated gang mentality, where they see their group of friends as their family. Obama’s re-election campaign, with their Life of Julia, family is defined as one’s self and the government. As Debra J. Saunders, in the San Fransisco Chronicle, pointed out:

Until her son goes to kindergarten, Julia’s cartoon world does not depict any males, except one, as shown in this quote: “Under President Obama: Julia decides to have a child.”

What’s the goal of re-defining the family away from the natural father-mother-children unit? That’s a long and depressing story. For today, my point is just that it’s happening.

Anyway, Starbucks replied:

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Starbucks.

From the current perspective we are using, we are classifying marriage equality as involving 2 consenting adults.

Thanks again for writing us.  If you ever have any questions or concerns in the future, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Sincerely,

Nicholas

customer service

2 consenting adults? Starbucks is lobbying for incest? That’s weird.

Of course they aren’t lobbying for incest. They’re just continuing to be ambiguous.

People cry out “discrimination!” when traditional marriage is upheld, because marriage is defined as:

A commitment of certain things between a man and a women.

What’s the discrimination? There’s nothing in the definition of marriage that explores or restricts based on sexual orientation; there’s nothing in the definition of marriage that restricts based on anything other than gender. One man, one woman. They may not love each other, they may not ever sleep together. The only discrimination is the declaration:

men and women are different.

Why does this drive the Left crazy?

Efforts to re-define marriage are seeking a sort of definition like:

Marriage is a commitment between any two “consenting adults” as long as they have government-approved sexual behavior.

It’s strange. 2 siblings who want the financial benefits of marriage can’t get married if they’re heterosexual. But they could have the financial benefits if they’re homosexual.

Efforts to redefine marriage in favor of gay marriage introduce never before seen discrimination into the definition of marriage.

Efforts to redefine marriage in favor of gay marriage also seek to declare by fiat that these relationships are as beneficial to society as traditional marriage, without any historical reference.

There are so many things we like about Starbucks: the atmosphere; the employees; the employee benefits; double blended java chip frappuccinos with an added pump of white mocha. Unfortunately, they’re using the money we give as customers and shareholders to add to the effort to weaken marriage, the foundation of society as Aristotle pointed out. They say we should be okay with it because our shares have increased in value.

I’m sure many people can be bought that easily. But not us. We’ve stopped spending at Starbucks unless we need to meet with someone there, and we’re selling our shares.

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics

 

Work It! aka, Obedience Excemptions for the Rich

25 Apr

This post is part 3 in a series exploring the biblical principles around retirement and saving for retirement.

We have been trained in our culture and in our Christianity to value retirement. What does it mean to retire? To stop working.

To withdraw from one’s occupation, business, or office; stop working. – American Heritage Dictionary

Leave one’s job and cease to work, especially because one has reached a particular age. – Compact Oxford Dictionary.

Some declare the Bible has anything to say about retirement, thus it’s amoral and anything goes. While our translations of the Bible may not contain the word “retirement,” the Bible has a lot to say about work. Since retirement is simply to cease working, we must understand what the Bible teaches about work.

Why do we work?

Who should work?

How long should we work for?

Are we to cease working, and if so, when?

Work is not a curse. It’s tempting to think so because of the curse in Genesis 3:

    And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
(Genesis 3:17-19 ESV)

Work is referenced here, but Adam had already been put to work.

    The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.
(Genesis 2:15 ESV)

Further, Eve was created to help Adam.

    Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
(Genesis 2:18 ESV)

Work was not the result of the curse. Work is an essential reason we exist. So what was cursed? Adam wasn’t cursed. The ground was.

Conclusion 1: When we choose to stop working, we’re going against how God created us to be.

Work is also one of the 10 commandments:

    “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
(Exodus 20:8-11 ESV)

Humankind’s calling as seen in Adam is reconfirmed as a command here. One of the reasons we work is because it is commanded, as part of loving God. How is it loving God? By modeling our lives after him. God worked for 6 days and rested, so we are commanded to work for 6 days and take 1 day of rest, every day a reminder of God.

So we’ve seen 3 reasons to work from Genesis and Exodus:

  1. It’s how God created us to be.
  2. God commands us to.
  3. It is living a life modeled after God.

Conclusion 2: When we choose to stop working, we are considering ourselves exempt from God’s commands.

Conclusion 3: When we choose to stop working, we cease living a life modeled after God.

The New Testament reiterates the importance of working:

    Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies.
(2 Thessalonians 3:6-11 ESV)

There’s multiple principles here: the importance of paying for what one uses; the importance of toil and labor; the consequence of not working is to become a busybody. The word “busybody” in the Greek is a hapax logomena, that is, a word only used once in the Bible, so the meaning isn’t totally clear. It may mean busying one’s self with non-work, such as a hobby; it may mean meddling in the affairs of others. One thing is certain from the context:

We become bad people when we choose to stop working.

Conclusion 4: When we choose to stop working, we ignore Paul’s warnings of what we will become.

Conclusion 5: When we choose to stop working, Christians should keep away from us. Yikes!

There is no biblical declaration that it is ever ok to choose to stop working. By holding to the idea that saving for a self-sufficient retirement is appropriate, we’re saying the rich can purchase exemption from God’s commands. Would we do this with any of the other 9 commandments? Is it okay for the rich hold another god before God? To steal? To dishonor their parents? To murder?

On passage that is used to justify retirement is the end of Numbers 8, which the ESV even subtitles “Retirement of the Levites:”

    And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “This applies to the Levites: from twenty-five years old and upward they shall come to do duty in the service of the tent of meeting. And from the age of fifty years they shall withdraw from the duty of the service and serve no more. They minister to their brothers in the tent of meeting by keeping guard, but they shall do no service. Thus shall you do to the Levites in assigning their duties.”
(Numbers 8:23-26 ESV)

The Levites were not to stop working! They were to stop doing service in the tent of meeting and change jobs to serve by keeping guard.

It’s quite true that we may not be able to go full pace at our jobs for our entire lives. The biblical response is not to stop working, but to find a new career that we can do well.

Choosing to stop work is in contradiction to the Bible.

Agree or disagree? Let me know in the comment section. I’m just working out what all of this means and am writing up the biblical arguments as I see them. Please feel free to show where I’ve gone wrong.

 
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Posted in Culture, personal, Spirituality

 

“Do not store up:” If He Meant It, Would You Dare?

24 Apr

When Jesus gave the command to not store up on earth, could he have meant we are not to store up on earth?

This question has resulted in a strong backlash and plenty of insults. I thought asking the question of Western Christians might be like kicking a hornets nest, and that suspicion proved true.  Today I was told that I was forcing the idea of saving for the future on this text where Jesus speaks of saving for the future. I was called a socialist for suggesting we obey the biblical commands to take care of one’s elderly family members who can no longer work.

How I have reacted (and now see others reacting) to this text, reminds me of my children. Sometimes my kids pretend they don’t hear me. If they can pretend they didn’t hear or didn’t understand what I told them to do, they have justification, in their little minds, for doing whatever they are doing. We adults do the same thing with scripture. The Bible is crystal clear on some points and vague on others. Sometimes we get those mixed up because it’s more comfortable to be, for example, secure in an age of accountability, and unsure of whether our gossip is really a big problem.

I wonder if it’s worth backing off a bit and thinking about how strong our dedication to Christ is. We know that God is perfectly loving and perfectly just. Within that, God has commanded people to do all sorts of crazy things.  Would you dare obey his commands, whatever they are?

If Jesus commanded you not to save for self-sufficient retirement, but to give away the excess he entrusts to you, would you dare obey?

When the reader responds with “Jesus will never ask me that, so I refuse to answer the question!” the reader is just avoid answering the question because he knows he has the wrong answer. The reader doesn’t trust Jesus enough to even hypothetically obey a command like this. The fear and insecurity we feel drives how we approach the biblical text. Before we open the Bible, we’ve put up limits to say “This far, God, and no farther!” We are willing to obey Jesus to a certain point of discomfort, but this is asking too much!

Only those who can answer the above question affirmatively, with or without trembling, are able to approach the text and consider what it has to say.

I plan to write out some more thoughts as I work through this and other related passages, but if the reader can’t answer even hypothetically obey Jesus, I don’t think it will make much sense – it’s simply outside of the reader’s modified version of Christianity.

 
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Saving for Retirement is Not Biblical.

23 Apr

or is it?

This is one question several friends and I have been wrestling with and arguing over as we study through the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Here’s the passage we’re currently studying:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

This passage, dealt with honestly, is painful. Jesus stands in direct opposition to what our culture teaches about money and things. Jesus stands in direct opposition to many churches who see godliness as a means toward financial gain.

Does Jesus even stand in opposition to our ideas of “financial independence”?

This gets touchy as our own church hosts Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University classes which teaches, after getting out of debt, the importance of storing up on earth for financial independence in retirement.

I’ve found that our knee-jerk reaction is to tame, temper, or even reverse what Jesus says here with a big “but.” Jesus gives one command:

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven…

Jesus says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth” and we instantly respond with:

  • “BUT, I’ll lay up on earth for my old age after I can’t work anymore.”
  • “BUT, I’ll lay up on earth with a good attitude!”
  • “BUT, I’ll lay up on earth so I can delay my giving and give later on!”
  • “BUT, I’ll use my retirement vacation life to be nice to other people!”

 

What if Jesus means what he says? What would it look like to take him at his word?

What if this command is as straight forward as “Do Not Murder”?

What if we’ve got this all wrong, and are living in rebellion of an incredibly clear and basic teaching of Jesus?

 
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On Reading Old Books

04 Apr

With the advice of C. S. Lewis and the help of 25 Books Every Christian Should Read, I’ve begun reading and discussing old books.

Really old books.

old books on a bookshelf

I’ve recently read On the Incarnation by Athanasius (who was born before 300 AD), The Confessions of Augustine (born before 400 AD), and am in the middle of The Sayings of the Desert Fathers who were contemporaries of both Athanasius and Augustine.

The way these men saw the world, the way they thought, the way they followed Christ was very different from how we process the world.

When you give a book recommendation, what do you recommend? What about recommendations for Christian books?

With 2,000 years of church history, why do we tend to recommend only books from the last 100 years?

 
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Posted in Books, Culture, Reason, Spirituality

 

Rick Santorum & Thomas Jefferson

16 Feb

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? ” – Thomas Jefferson

YouTube Preview Image

“The ‘why’ of America, who we are as a people, is the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.” The constitution is there to do one thing: Protect God-given rights. That’s what makes America different than every other country in the world. No other country in the world has it’s rights based in God-given rights. Not government-given rights. And some people say, “Well, Faith has nothing to do with it.” Faith has everything to do with it. If our president believes that our rights come to us form the state, everything government gives you it can take away. The role of the government is to protect rights that cannot be taken away…. Understand where those rights come from, who we are as Americans, and the foundational principles by which we have changed the world.” – Rick Santorum

 
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Occupy Wall Street and The Modern Martyr by Gilbert K. Chesterton

14 Oct

I read this article by G. K. Chesterton some time before the small groups of hookie-playing students and others started living in public parks. Not getting enough attention for their bad behavior, they began seeking to trigger consequences by breaking the law for trespassing (in Boston), pooping on police cars (New York), pretending to be hurt by non-moving police vehicles and damaging police property (also New York), and breaking various other laws.

The goal is to present a false image of suffering hoping to gain sympathy for their cause (being lazy and entitled).

It reminded me of this section from the Chesterton article (entire text linked below) about those fighting for causes that unlike OWS were worthwhile, but were using similar methods to induce small punishment:

I should advise modern agitators, therefore, to give up this particular method: the method of making very big efforts to get a very small punishment. It does not really go down at all; the punishment is too small, and the efforts are too obvious. It has not any of the effectiveness of the old savage martyrdom, because it does not leave the victim absolutely alone with his cause, so that his cause alone can support him. At the same time it has about it that element of the pantomimic and the absurd, which was the cruellest part of the slaying and the mocking of the real prophets. St. Peter was crucified upside down as a huge inhuman joke; but his human seriousness survived the inhuman joke, because, in whatever posture, he had died for his faith. The modern martyr of the Pankhurst type courts the absurdity without making the suffering strong enough to eclipse the absurdity. She is like a St. Peter who should deliberately stand on his head for ten seconds and then expect to be canonised for it.

via All Things Considered : The Modern Martyr by Gilbert K. Chesterton @ Classic Reader.

 
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Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell

23 Sep

image

I’m only 70 100 pages into this 317+ page book by the author of Basic Economics, but I can’t wait to talk about this with others.

Sowell writes about the trends among intellectuals ( those whose occupations – professors, authors, columnists, many politicians – are in dealing with ideas rather than the mundane things of business or the application if ideas) and how they influence society.

I highly recommend this book. It is supremely helpful in understanding the truth obscured by politicians, professors and the media, and also contains enough to be formed into the prescription for how to combat bad ideas ( like the Obama job killing jobs act that was just advertised in Pandora through my ear buds).

 
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Posted in Books, Culture, Politics, Reason

 

Health Care: When facts don’t matter

22 Jun
I’ve found it difficult to engage in this conversation because most people, from any perspective, have built their argument on a foundation of ignorance. Having worked in medical management, I’ve got a perspective that most medical professionals and patients don’t have. I understand contracts between medical providers and insurance companies. I understand how Medicare and Medicaid work. I understand medical billing.  Having citizenship in two countries I also have a perspective that most people don’t share. Having had family members uninsured, on COBRA, personal insurance, group insurance, and government insurance, I have experience most people don’t.
Here’s some facts if you’d like to transition to a different foundation.
money and a stethescope
It’s a lie that only super wealthy can afford health care.
It’s simply not true. It may be that a doctor’s appointment cost someone $100. Now, we’re willing to pay that $100 to the cable company or the cell phone company. We’re willing to pay $100 to movie studios to watch and buy movies. Doctor’s visits are only for the elite in the same way that cell phones are for the elite: Not at all.
Here in Denver there’s a lot of offices geared specifically to those without a lot of money. The goal is to cut costs and ensure that everyone can get medical treatment. Offices that aren’t geared toward that provide discounts of cash patients, payment plans, and service those who are on Medicaid – tax-funded payment for medical services for the poor.
Cost of care in America
Those with insurance typically see the Explanation of Benefits (EOB) from their insurance company and are shocked at the original bill from the medical provider. A typical EOB reads something like:
Lab work. Billed: $3,000. Insurance discount: $2,994. Insurance paid: $6.
We walk away with the assumption that if we didn’t have insurance, we’d have to pay the list price of $3,000. It’s not true. Here’s a secret about how insurance payments work. Bureaucrats behind Medicare (tax-funded medical payments for the elderly and disabled) have a list of accepted medical procedures and how much the government will pay for those procedures. Each accepted procedure has an associated Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) code.  The base Medicare payment rates are so low, they don’t even cover the doctor’s expenses in seeing the patient. Medicaid (tax-funded medical payments for the poor) pay even less. Medical practices enter into contracts with insurance providers, that boil down to something like: “For covered procedures, we’ll pay you Medicare rates plus 15%.”
When the government or insurance payer receives a bill of CPT codes and associated charges, they validate whether the CPT codes are covered, and then pay the contracted rate or the billed rate: whichever is less. Because of this, it doesn’t matter whether they get billed $10 or $10,000 for a blood draw, they’ll only pay the contracted $9.54. The problem is if the billed amount is lower, say, $8, they’ll just pay that. So medical offices mark up the price of everything really high to prevent under-billing.
Cash-paying patients often can pay even less than insurance if they’re up-front. Insurance doesn’t need to be billed, the doctor doesn’t have to wait weeks or months for payment.
Sometimes our medical bills are still high. I recently heard someone angry that they paid over $100 and only saw the doctor for a few minutes. They whined. A lot. But  here’s what that $100 likely paid for:
  • receptionist (scheduling the appointment, placing reminder calls, etc.)
  • nurse and/or medical assistant (the person who checks your vitals before you see the doctor)
  • filing clerk (there’s a lot of laws about how medical records are handled, filing clerks track the files and have to go through training on how to handle records – that training is another expense paid for)
  • doctor (the doc only saw the patient for a few minutes, but spent time reviewing the patient’s history, writing up notes for the medical records, possibly writing referrals and prescriptions, etc.)
  • medical malpractice insurance
  • facility rent
  • medical equipment
  • lab work
  • the debt created by taking on Medicaid and Medicare patients
  • medical disposal costs (there’s special ways – that all cost money – to dispose of various things)
  • billing staff, especially if the patient didn’t say he was cash-only and pay up-front.
Cost of care in other countries
Meanwhile we have experiences or hear stories of cheap health care in other countries. A friend of mine recently went to a hospital in Asia and paid $5.  Reviewing the list above of what has to be paid for, did the hospital really provide all those services for $5? That would be less than 50 cents for each item on the list. $.50 for the receptionist, $.50 for the medical assistant. $.50 for the doctor. $.50 for lab work.
No. The doctors are not living off 50-cents per-patient. The medical bills are just being paid for by another source, and the patient has no idea what the actual cost-of-care was. In many countries, that payer is the government.
  • The government decides what treatment you can have.
  • The government decides when you can have the treatment.
  • The government simply raises taxes to pay for the treatment.

This then makes a legal requirement that someone else pay for your medical expenses. When it’s all paid for through tax revenue, the implication is that tax payers are required to give their hard-earned money to pay for your medical bills. If they don’t? They’ll take away the tax payer property, or take the money forcibly from their paycheck, and in some countries put the citizen in prison for not paying their taxes.

The demand that someone else be required to pay your medical bills or go to prison is immoral.

International Medical Tourism

But what about all those people going to other countries for health care? What about Americans going to Canada for prescription drugs?

I used to live minutes away from the border of Canada. We took trips to Canada to buy certain things cheaper, and my relatives in Canada took trips to the US for certain things that were cheaper. Not only that, but it is normal behavior in Canada to go to the US if you need better or faster health care, and the Canadian healthcare system routinely sends patients to the US. American health care is part of the Canadian health care system, because America does certain things better/faster. It goes both ways.

Americans are traveling to India, Thailand, and other countries for significant medical treatments that are too costly in America. This is simple economics. Trousers in India may be significantly cheaper than in America. The cost of living is lower. They may have less government regulation to comply with. For various reasons, economies are different, and this has no necessary connection to the quality or accessibility of health care. Or pants.

These are the real problems with American health care

I do think America has the best health care – at least better than any other place I’ve had medical care, which is only about 5 countries on 3 continents. Here’s what the basic problems are that could be fixed very quickly:

  1. It’s easy to sue doctors. This means the cost of being a doctor goes up to may for malpractice insurance. This also means that doctors frequently do more tests and treatments than are necessary as an attempt to prevent a lawsuit claiming they didn’t do enough.
  2. It’s easy to collect big bills and then go bankrupt. It is the law that no hospital can turn a patient away. A Physician Assistant I know told me about working in a New York hospital where the same drunk homeless men would come into the E.R. complaining of chest pain every night. They were legally required to give a lot of costly treatment when the guys just wanted a warm place for the night. Others aren’t homeless, but purposely avoid paying for health care to later declare bankruptcy or otherwise avoid payment. This is equivalent of shoplifting, not paying for what you’re taking, and our legislators are the enablers. On the medical side, it’s costly to collect money that hasn’t been paid, and can take years.
  3. Insurance billing is screwed up. The insurance has a set dollar amount they’ll pay the doctor, but the doctor is still required to bill them with a dollar amount. The only reason why the doctor needs to bill a dollar amount is so the payer (government or insurance) can try to under-pay the doctor if the doctor pays less than the agreed payment amount. If this was not the arrangement, doctors and hospitals wouldn’t have to sky-rocket the list price of services, which is what causes people to stress about the cost of care.
  4. We need to take personal responsibility. I ought to be responsible for figuring out how my medical bills are paid. I ought not be responsible for figuring out how yours are paid. The majority of uninsured people already qualify for government insurance, but have never taken responsibility to sign up for it. We have a total aversion to personal responsibility and rejoice when we only have to pay $5 for a doctor’s visit. We’re simply rejoicing that we’re making a sucker of someone else who will be suck with the bill.
  5. Government regulation costs money. And everything medical is regulated. While payments to doctors aren’t increasing, regulations on medical practices increase ever year.

 

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics

 

Is your faith a matter of taste or truth? [quote]

22 Apr

image

As American Christians, we celebrate the idea that “all men are created equal.” This statement from our Declaration of Independence is grounded in the biblical teaching that every person in the world has been formed in the image of God and therefore has intrinsic worth. It’s a beautiful idea.

Subtly however this equality of persons shifts into an equality of ideas. Just as every person is equally valued, so every idea is equally valid. Applied to faith, this means that in a world where different people have different religious views, all such views should be treated as fundamentally equal.

In this system of thinking, faith is a matter of taste, not of truth. The cardinal sin, therefore, is to claim that one person’s belief is true and another person’s belief is false. The honorable route is to rest quietly in what you believe and resist the urge to share your beliefs with someone else.

– David Platt, Radical. Chapter 7.

 
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