American Pastors Network: Health Care Should Be Biblical, Too

Many Christians are careful to ensure that their giving, spending, investing and even shopping aligns with their biblical values. But what about their health care?

The American Pastors Network says this major component of the American culture and the political sphere should also be in concert with God’s Word.

To discuss the biblical ties to health care, APN President Sam Rohrer recently welcomed a director for one of the nation’s leading health care sharing ministries.

Rohrer and his “Stand in the Gap TV” co-host, millennial pastor Isaac Crockett, spoke with Anthony Hopp, vice president of external relations for Samaritan Ministries, through which more than a quarter of a million Christians worldwide engage in health care sharing—a God-honoring model of health care whereby members directly share in each other’s health care needs through monthly financial shares, while also sending encouraging notes and lifting up their brothers and sisters in Christ in prayer.

“The American health care system is being dismantled, yet the provision for health care sharing is growing,” Rohrer said on the program. “Socialistic policies are replacing what should be a Bible-based system of health care. The issue of health care in America is important to each of us. When we need quality care at an affordable price, we’ve come to expect that we can get it nearly immediately. We’ve become accustomed to the finest of care and the most professional of physicians. Steeped in a Judeo-Christian mindset of compassion, health care and helping those in need has become the norm both on the part of the patient and the provider. Yet, the push for socialized healthcare with less care, higher costs and diminished doctor-patient relationships is increasing, with many people believing it will somehow be better.”

The co-hosts and Hopp discussed, however, that the socialization of health care is one of the major problems in the field, along with growing costs, greater government involvement, a lack of price transparency and heightened third-party interference. Health care sharing through Samaritan Ministries, Hopp said, addresses these concerns by enabling members to pay less for quality health care, move away from government involvement and intrusive third parties, and experience price transparency and even discounts.

Additionally, Rohrer and Hopp noted, members of Christian health care sharing ministries do not pay for abortions or gender reassignment procedures/treatment with their financial shares.

Rohrer also detailed America’s health care spending problems by the numbers.

• According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), as a percentage of the total U.S. economy in 2017, health care represented 17.9%, reaching $3.5 trillion or $10,739 per person.
• National health spending is projected to grow at an average rate of 5.5% per year for 2018-2027 and reach nearly $6 trillion by 2027, Reuters reported, raising the health care total percentage of the U.S. economy from 17.9% to 19.4%.

“These numbers are almost too large to understand, especially when we realize that Congress recently voted to increase U.S. spending by $320 billion and remove the debt ceiling cap until 2021,” Rohrer said. “The size and scope of spending, be it on health care or anything is else, is out of control and increasing. But rising health care costs and spending can be curbed with health care sharing. Certainly, not every problem with the current health care controversy in this nation can be solved by health care sharing, but for Christian people who choose this legal option and who want to as much as possible follow biblical principles and models, it can be a welcome, God-sent path.”

Rohrer added that with the passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, the drive toward socialized medicine and destruction of the American health care system was greatly accelerated.

“The ongoing presidential debates are also focusing much of the discussion on health care, with nearly every candidate trying to out-promise the others from the standpoint of who and what will be covered by a universal, single-payer government plan,” he said. “Yet in the midst of all this is a bright spot in health care sharing. It is growing and flourishing, as more families are finding affordable health care, biblical community and are able to continue being treating by the doctors they trust—all while they honor God.”

View the two “Stand in the Gap TV” programs on health care sharing below:

• The Health Care Controversy: A Health Care Solution—Part I (aired Aug. 25)
• The Health Care Controversy: A Health Care Solution—Part II (will air Sept. 1)

Photo by Hush Naidoo on Unsplash