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Pastors: Help Your People Understand Obamacare
11/6/2013
Many Republican lawmakers are elected by people who claim to be "Christian". You would think those people and the lawmakers themselves would take seriously the ten commandments, specifically the eighth commandment which in Martin Luther's Small Catechism reads: "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor." Luther goes on to give an explanation of this commandment: "We are to fear and love God so that we do not betray, slander, or lie about our neighbor, but defend him, speak well of him, and explain his actions in the kindest way."
I would like to speak well of Republican lawmakers but I have been listening to how they speak about the president's new health care bill as it is now being implemented and I just cannot believe the terrible distortions they are making. I heard Marco Rubio on Fox News, for example, Senator from Florida since January, 2011. He said millions were losing their insurance under the president's bill. He said the bill was removing free choice for people, they can no longer choose the health insurance they want. Former presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Meet the Press Sunday that Obama has lied to the American people about being able to keep their insurance. The president has been so dishonest that the entire second term of the president must now be questioned.
At hearings I watched on C-Span Republicans have been repeating over and over stories of how their constituents are being hurt by Obamacare. And they are encouraging people not to sign up for it.
If people listen to these politicians they may well not explore their options for health insurance and thus expose themselves and their families to terrible consequences should they get sick or have an accident. It is a hugely irresponsible act for these politicians to lie about the health care bill in these ways. It is possible to oppose the health care bill, of course, but it is breaking the eighth commandment to lie about it.
It would be good for pastors to inform members of their congregations about the bill through newsletter articles or public forums. Here are some facts.
The vast majority of Americans do, indeed, keep their health care as the president said, through government programs such as Medicare or through health insurance where they work, some eighty percent of Americans. Others who have purchased individual plans from health insurance companies are allowed to keep their current plans, even if these do not meet the guidelines of the new bill; they are "grandfathered" in if the health insurance companies allow it. But many are not allowing it, they are sending letters saying the government is forcing them to change the plans. This is a lie, but it appears many companies are doing this. And they are blaming it on Obama. Republican lawmakers know this, but they can't resist a chance to blame Obama too.
Rubio claims Obamacare removes choice for people. In the clip I saw he repeated this several times. He said he wanted people to be free to choose the plan they wanted, not be forced by the government to buy a government-approved plan. But let's think about this. Let's think about what kind of "freedom" Rubio is talking about.
Many individuals under the old system bought cheap insurance thinking they were covered enough. But what they didn't realize is that if they actually got sick or had a serious accident their junk insurance policy may be cancelled or would not cover their particular problem or had such high deductibles that it wasn't very helpful at all. But individuals didn't know this unless they actually had a problem.
And here's the thing: Obamacare doesn't allow these junk policies. Part of the "regulation" of the health care industry under Obamacare is to make sure companies offer policies that actually do something, that actually provide protections to people. Here government is doing what it should do, protect people from being exploited by companies who put their profit over everything else.
Marco Rubio wants people to be "free" to be abused by companies selling junk insurance. I hate that the word freedom is so much misused by politicians, it is a very important word. People deserve to be free from being manipulated when it comes to something as important and personal as their health care. It would sure help if politicians would take the eighth commandment even a little bit more seriously.
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