The Kingdom Possibilities of Public Option Healthcare

Healthcare in America is, in the words of David Brooks, "the insane spawn of a team of evil geniuses from an alien power."  The system is broken and it needs to be fixed.  The fixing is the difficult part, and words start flying, flags start waving, peole get angry, and the poor Canadians and Brits get dragged into a tug-of-war of greed and power between political forces and special interests groups.  I am here to represent the Kingdom’s special interest!

When I imagine the financial difficulties of Christians serving in this country the paramount issue is probably healthcare.  Healthcare is an enormous financial burden, one that can easily take up $1,000 per month of the support for a full time Christian worker.  The economics of Christian vocation in America necessitate the giving of money to full time Christian workers to cover the significant private costs of doing ministry in this country, with healthcare being the largest percentage of support.  A survey done last year by the National Association of Evangelicals found that the lack of health insurance for full time pastors is at a inappropriately high level.  As reported in Christianity Today last year, Leigh Anderson, president of the NAE, commented: "It’s really a crisis. If things stay as they are, there is going to be a significant loss of pastors from the ministry" ("Blessed Insurance" by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra).

To take a Kingdom stance on this issue we must divorce healthcare from politics for a moment.  If we remove concerns for costs or taxes or "fairness" for a few seconds, take off the American caps and put on our Kingdom rally caps, we must agree that if health insurance is in such a state of crisis that it will lead to a significant loss of pastors and other full time Christian workers then we must consider public option healthcare a benefit for the Kingdom.

This is a political stance, but one for the Kingdom and not one for America.  I am not espousing a specific plan and confess that any health care system will have flaws, but we must look at health care coverage for all Americans as a tremendous opportunity for the advancement of the Kingdom that cannot be ignored.

Not only would health care for all lead to a removal of the crisis that threatens the workforce of full time Christian workers, public option health insurance would open up tremendous opportunities for Christians to serve in new, dynamic ways for the Kingdom.  One of the roadblocks for many individuals, including me (I must confess), to serving in ways that may lead to personal poverty is the astounding cost of healthcare.  I can deal with a penance for a salary.  I cannot deal with paying over one thousand dollars a month to insure the health of my family.  That is an economic burden on the vocation of the full time Christian worker and on the organization and supporters.  When we support Christian ministries we indirectly supporting the burueaucracy of the insurance industry.  This has been a necessary evil and one that could not be helped until now.  With the average amount of health care coverage for a family at $12,680 in 2008, a crucial amount of money that could be used in more meaningful areas of ministry is instead filling the coffers of health care companies.
Public option helathcare is not "the answer," and we certainly shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that this is helping to accomplish the work of the Kingdom by proxy.  Only the Church can do the work of the Kingdom, yet this is one way in the complex American govermental system that we should think critically about how this can be a healthy opportunity for the advancement of the Kingdom.