Christian Charity

[ysabetwordsmith]

My partner Doug tipped me to an article about real Christian charity.

St. Bede’s Episcopal Church in Santa Fe, NM is reaching out to families crushed by medical debt through a big gift and a big partnership. Through donations, the parish wiped out nearly $1.4 million of medical debt for 782 households. [...] That includes all the available debt in New Mexico, plus Apache, Gila, Graham, Mohave, Navajo, and part of Maricopa County in Arizona.

This demonstrate that it is possible for society to fund health care, and it doesn't require the government. Buying up medical debt at a huge discount and writing it off would be much cheaper than paying full price.

And of course, I'm pleased to see that somebody actually read the Book. Things like "Give all that you have to the poor and follow Me" and "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do also to Me."

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Reminds me of something I read on the internet the other day, which was essentially:

The people who sincerely believe the tenants of the church are the ones who leave...because they actually follow the teachings of Jesus. And the church doesn't.

Also, I wonder

A) what effect this will have on the local economy, and

B) how complicated it would be to anonymously pay off hospital Bill's pr set up a PayPal to buy medical debt or something?

[thewayne]

Very nice!

Today I'm going to be paying off the last of our current medical debt. We got clobbered with $2k in one month, it's taken me two or three months to clear that because the State made a change in how it treats my antibody med. Now they're charging it as a pharmacy drug against my insurance instead of a major medical expense as it had been done for the prev decade. Makes a huge difference to those of us with immune disorders who work for universities and other roles directly and indirectly for the State.

[(Anonymous)]

Ongoing medical maintenance is ... pricier ... than most people would think.

[thewayne]

Most definitely!  My ENT shocked me: he moved his practice and used to use Quest for sinus cultures, which were very inexpensive, typically less than $100, the latest culture was done by the hospital that he's now on their campus and it came in at over $700!!!  On top of that, my wife was getting worked up for a non-specific problem that's been plaguing here, and we received a bill for $1,000 for an EKG and echo!  Getting whomped like that in one month was kinda ugly.  But what really galls me is people objecting to single-payer health care.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

In theory, single-payer health care would be an improvement because the larger the pool, the farther the costs can be spread out. In practice, I note the following grievous flaws with America's approach to that:

* Nobody is talking about surveying other countries with better health systems to cherry-pick the best ideas from each. They want to do it the American way. But America has a dismal health system.

* All the proposals are variations on the theme of government health care. But most people distrust government. If you make government and health care the same thing, people will hate and fear the health system more than they already do. As the health system already has a disgraceful 33% approval rating, while the government runs even lower, this is likely to plummet further.

Furthermore, look at the systems the government already manages such as those for veterans, Native Americans, the poor, and the elderly. These are all notorious for long delays, terrible care, and just plain letting people suffer and die. People are forced to wait months or years for attention while problems go untreated, and are often outright denied help. Sometimes the "help" makes matters worse. "Care" that is worse than useless is not worth having. It not only runs up the rate of misery, harm, and death but also obscures the fact that some people aren't getting care because they avoid the hazard and have no better alternative, along with the fact that some will continue to exhaust family resources to buy private care if they can find any (which is likely to become much less available and more expensive).

* Proposals consistently talk about health insurance, not health care. And in America, it's really "Insurance" now -- not a safety net, but money you pay so powerful thugs don't hurt you. They don't get rich by paying for your health care; they get rich by denying it. The government would much rather buy missiles than pills, so that's no improvement. Any time the patient is not also the paying customer, it creates an inherent conflict of interest between the person who wants to receive care and the person who wants to pocket the pocket the money instead of paying for that care.

* Lack of choice is a bad problem in any market, but can be downright deadly in health care. If there is only one system available to people, those who are not well served by it will be out of luck. Consider that society and the government hate people who are poor, female, disabled, anything other than white, queer, etc. and this is a very large problem.

* The health system is so soul-destroying that it kills its own kind; suicide is a high risk among doctors, EMTs, etc. This does not speak well to the fixability of the system, so long as it has a guild lock on training, licensing, and working.


While I observe that some countries have constructed much better health systems, I do not believe that America is willing or able to do so. Based on my experiences and observations, I think the flailing attempts are more likely to make matters worse than better. Good options do exist, but not enough Americans know about or want them, let alone have the power to enact them. In an oligarchy/plutocracy (both terms apply to America based on statistical analysis) a tiny number of rich people decide what happens, so it doesn't matter what the masses want or need. An even more fundamental problem is that people simply care more about money than human lives.

The closest thing I see as feasible from here is that large groups can negotiate for better rates with insurance companies. That means, for instance, that any town which wants a public policy could set one up -- and most towns are bigger than most corporations, except the megacorps, so they'd be able to get better rates on average. The plan could adapt to local needs and resources, the people running it would be at least somewhat in reach of others in the pool, it's a smaller and more accessible level of government, and precisely because it's not universal people should still have access to some other options elsewhere. It's not ideal, but has some hope of improvement.

I've also described a health nexus, which is more like a subscription.