What Would Jesus Do?
Friday, September 11th, 2009I find myself in a very difficult position these days. Maybe it’s because I was taught at an early age to pay attention to what Jesus would think about and do in the situations I find myself in throughout my life. One of my treasured memories from my relationship with my grandfather is a conversation where he offered me some very sound advice; “stay in the red letters (What Jesus said in the Bible) and you will be fine”. This is where I find myself these days as I listen to the debate on healthcare.
I have looked through the red letters and nowhere do I see that we should live in fear of everything being taken from us, paying taxes or listening to each other. In contrast I read about having a “spirit of love and power”, “give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is Gods” as well as to strive to “love your neighbor”. The fact is Jesus spent the vast majority of his ministry doing three things; teaching, healing and feeding people. I find it somewhat ironic that so many on the righteous right who profess believing in Jesus are not for providing healing for their fellow man. Are we asking what would Jesus do when debating healthcare? From what I am reading the answer is no.
Let’s break down the Health Care Issue
Friday, August 14th, 2009Not until taking a 3-month class on the US Health System, did some things begin to make a little more sense to me. Bottom line, the ‘healthcare system’ is actually not a system at all but a series of fragmented units that fall under one giant umbrella. Experts spend years trying to map out all the connections, fitting all the pieces together, which may not always fit together. It’s a muddy, confusing, complicated, inefficient ‘system’…. and today I found another ‘system’ that we might be able to compare it to at a micro-level, one that we just might be able to get our heads around in a paragraph. That system is the university administration system… at least the university system I just graduated.
It baffles me that within one building there can be so many divisions that have no clue what the other does. I need to make one little correction on a transcript that was an error made by someone in the administrative offices from a previous transcript and I get sent back and forth to two different departments because the other does not know if they are on the same computer systems and update automatically. If it is that hard for a school to have integrated technology, I wonder how long it is going to take for healthcare.
Living with a Broken Back
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009I ran into a old friend this week and was stunned to find out that the back pain he has been experiencing over the last 6 years was due to an undiagnosed broken back! Can you imagine walking around with a broken back for over 6 years! He actually took an old MRI into his new chiropractor and it was the chiropractor who saw and identified the issue. So much for chiropractic care being crack pot medicine; no pun intended.
Instead of the medical community debating the health insurance issue maybe they need to go back to school and learn how to read a x-ray and MRI. This individual has also spent many a dollar trying to get some relief from the pain and has struggled with his health insurance as well. Now that he has someone who has actually been able to help him, can you believe he is having trouble getting his insurance to approve his chiropractor because they have enough chiropractors in the area. So much for being able to choose your own doctors in the current system!