{"id":38793,"date":"2018-10-15T08:28:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T12:28:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/?p=38793"},"modified":"2018-10-15T08:28:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T12:28:25","slug":"holding-medical-aid-hostage-join-a-religion-or-die-of-cancer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/10\/holding-medical-aid-hostage-join-a-religion-or-die-of-cancer.html","title":{"rendered":"Holding Medical Aid Hostage: Join a Religion or Die of Cancer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Last month, Republican state senator Mark Green of Tennessee explained his opposition to expanding Medicaid<\/a> as follows:<\/p>\n

[E]very person who came to Christ came to Christ with a physical need .\u2026 People go to God because of a physical need and they walk away with a spiritual need met. That\u2019s the story of the Gospels. And so government has stepped in, at least in this country, and done all the work for the church. And so the person who\u2019s in need \u2014 they look to the government for the answer. Not God. And I think, in that way, government has done an injustice that\u2019s even bigger than just the entitlement \u2014 creation of an entitlement welfare state. I think it\u2019s even bigger .\u2026 I think it interrupts the opportunity for people to come to a saving knowledge of who God is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have a question for Green: is the church ready to pay its parishioners medical bills? Because let\u2019s be real, we\u2019re not just talking about people who might come to<\/em> the church if they had a medical need (more about that in a moment), we\u2019re also talking about people who are already in the church<\/em> who may have a medical need. Does Green\u2019s<\/em> church pay its parishioners\u2019 medical bills?<\/p>\n

How exactly is this supposed to work? If you can\u2019t afford health insurance, are you supposed to walk into a church and tell them that and they\u2019ll pay for it for you? Presumably, though, Green is referring not to inability to afford insurance but to inability to pay for a specific medical need.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say someone just discovered a lump in their breast and they\u2019re worried it could be breast cancer, but they don\u2019t have money to go to a doctor. How does this work? Do they walk into a church and say \u201chey, would you pay for me to go to the doctor to get this lump in my breast checked out?\u201d I\u2019m tempted to try that, perhaps at Green\u2019s church, and record the results.<\/p>\n

Belonging to a church does come with benefits, but being part of a church is a process. You can\u2019t just walk into a church and access the benefits longtime, well loved members receive. Having access to the\u00a0resources a church offers\u2014say, having someone organize a meal train when you\u2019re recovering from a surgery\u2014frequently depends on your having built relationships there.<\/p>\n

Even there, there are limitations. Let\u2019s say that our fictional woman who has discovered a lump in her breast is already part of a church. She might be able to go to a few friends and ask for money to go to the doctor to have her lump checked for cancer. In fact, if she\u2019s particularly well loved, the pastor might pass the plate for her during service. But what next? What if it is<\/em> cancer?<\/p>\n

Most churches\u2014particularly small churches\u2014do not have the ability to pay for their members\u2019 longterm, severe medical needs. Churches can pass a plate for smaller needs\u2014if a well-loved parishioner is affected\u2014but medical costs have ballooned such that passing the plate won\u2019t suffice.<\/p>\n

So, what then? What if Sister Cindy has breast cancer and her church can\u2019t help her with the full cost? Should she leave her church and go looking for a larger church that can? No good\u2014she\u2019d have to take the time to build relationships there all over from scratch, while her cancer grows.<\/p>\n

Sure, there\u2019s this church in Texas<\/a> that payed off $10,000,000 worth of local families\u2019 medical debt. That church also spends $30,000 a month advertising its Sunday services, so we\u2019re back to my question about Sister Cindy switching churches. Besides, that was medical debt already accrued\u2014the Medicaid expansion promises to cover expenses on the front end.<\/p>\n

Some of you may be shaking your heads over this long discussion of whether churches can replace the services provided by the Medicaid expansion. Even if churches could<\/em>\u00a0provide everything that the Medicaid expansion does, after all, why should we rely on a system that forces individuals to join a religion if they want to survive cancer?<\/strong> For Green, the cancer is what gets a person in the door so that they can learn the \u201csaving knowledge of who God is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only reason I\u2019m actually exploring how Green\u2019s system would work is because his promises are also hollow. Churches are communities and as such can offer some cost sharing, but I\u2019m not aware of any church that covers its parishioners\u2019 medical expenses as a matter of course, as Green\u2019s claims would suggest: Join a church, and your medical needs will be met, no need for Medicaid.<\/p>\n

Um. No.<\/p>\n

Government is simply an extension of humans\u2019 penchant for building communities. Green\u2019s objection to government-funded medical aid in the form of Medicaid appears to be that this aid does not come with religious strings attached. That is not a reasonable objection.<\/em>\u00a0\u201cI don\u2019t like that this program helps people without making them join my religion first\u201d is a terrible<\/em> argument.<\/p>\n

I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Government is simply an extension of humans’ penchant for building communities. Green’s objection to government-funded medical aid in the form of Medicaid appears to be that this aid does not come with religious strings attached. That is not a reasonable objection.\u00a0“I don’t like that this program helps people without making them join my religion first” is a terrible argument.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":39300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-evangelicalism-fundamentalism"],"yoast_head":"\nHolding Medical Aid Hostage: Join a Religion or Die of Cancer<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even if churches could\u00a0provide everything that the Medicaid expansion does, after all, why should we rely on a system that forces individuals to join a religion if they want to survive cancer?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/lovejoyfeminism\/2018\/10\/holding-medical-aid-hostage-join-a-religion-or-die-of-cancer.html\" 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