You can’t turn around today and not hear talk about the Affordable Care Act. You will hear it referred as the hope of nations all the way to the worst idea in history. Heated arguments from both sides abound.
As a Human Resource Director I am especially buried in the struggle to understand the new law and how it will impact my company and my employees.
We all know the complications that have risen to the surface as the government tries to implement the ACA. It’s the typical “someone thought it was a great idea but then everyone stopped thinking.” All we really know is it’s supposed to cure the ills of the healthcare system, it is going to cost a fortune, nobody has figured out for sure how to make it work and someone has to pay for it and that someone is us.
Oh yes, and one more thing we know – the promises made over the last few years regarding the ACA are being broken right and left.
If only we could wake up and recognize that affordable care isn’t an original idea at all. It’s not new. It’s not a breakthrough plan that has to be implemented at a high cost and mountain of frustration.
God came up with the idea of affordable care long, long ago. Matthew 25:40 outlines that plan. “…Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Galatians 5:22-23 gives us the tools to make it work. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”
1 John 3:17-18 explains how to pay for it in a manner that won’t rob Peter to pay Paul. “If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”
And Galatians 6:9 tells us what to do when it looks like God’s Affordable Care Act isn’t working. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”
Don’t get me wrong. I know there is a problem with out health care system. I know some aren’t getting the care they need and others are squandering the care they get. I just don’t believe any system will work without the principles of Christian love and compassion as the foundation.
We can’t force people to care. We can’t tax people and hope that makes them compassionate. We can’t talk pretty promises and expect people to buy into them blindly.
The only way to fix something that is broken is to first apply the healing ointment of Christ’s love.
We don’t need Obamacare. We need O-God-help-us-care!
