Patheos (& Other) Peeps: LaVonne Neff on Healthcare Rationing

On Fridays, I publicize work by other writers. I focus often but not exclusively on writers affiliated with Patheos, the religion and spirituality web portal that hosts my blog. Please share the love by reading these writers’ blog posts and books, sharing them via Facebook, Twitter, etc., and/or participating in online conversations with them.

Although we have yet to meet in person, I consider LaVonne Neff to be one of my mentors, in both writing and trying to figure out what our Christian faith has to do with our daily lives as mothers and daughters, writers and citizens. Also, as LaVonne pointed out last week, as writers, she and I both “go between neuralgic [that is, painful] ethical topics and fuzzy little dogs!” She took this as evidence that “We are clearly very well-balanced women.” If she says so….

LaVonne blogs at Lively Dust and with her husband, David Neff, at the Neff Review. One of LaVonne’s strengths is her ability to write about current policy debates from a faith angle, and to do so convincingly without being strident. In response to a Facebook conversation that I was part of concerning the rationing of healthcare, she wrote a useful post suggesting some broad ways that a national healthcare system could use rationing to keep costs down while ensuring that people have access to necessary medical care. I admitted to her that the idea of rationing frightens me, because I don’t completely trust all doctors to make rational decisions about what is and is not necessary for me to live a full and active life with my bone disorder. But, as LaVonne points out in her post, American healthcare is already rationed, just not for the right reasons.

Here is LaVonne’s healthcare post, and while you’re visiting, I suggest you peruse some of her other posts on topics including abortion, money, and food.