OPINION

Unrealistic, Unsustainable, Unaffordable

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Townhall.com.

From now until Nov. 1, many Americans will see an unwelcome surprise in their mailboxes—a notice that their Obamacare premiums will climb an average of 25 percent. In fact, those in Arizona will see it skyrocket from $196 to $422 a month.

Hillary Clinton is now considering bailing out insurance companies to lure them back into the exchange, increasing subsidies and opening up the Medicare option. (By the way, Medicare will be broken in 12 years.) Bailouts, of course, seem to be the first thing out of the government’s mouth to continue alliances with corporate America—yes, the same corporate America it’s been demonizing for the past eight years.

It’s time to change the way health care works. It’s lunacy to throw any more money down this rat hole of inefficient and effective management that is nothing more than a gigantic drain on the economy. This design-as-you-go program is typical of a government bureaucracy that can’t seem to manage its way out of a paper bag. Yet liberals will continue to insist that only the government is capable of managing our health care.

As someone who is intricately familiar with the workings of health sharing ministries, such as Samaritan Ministries and others, it is amazing to me that organizations like these, for less than half the monthly cost, seem to have no issues whatsoever in meeting people’s health care needs. My wife and I decided several years ago to research Samaritan Ministries and save ourselves more than $1,000 a month.

I looked at many aspects of health sharing ministries; they can seem very complex, yet at the same time, are incredibly transparent and simple. These are not programs that took a boardroom full of intellectuals to plan and execute. In the case of Samaritan Ministries, one man had a vision more than 23 years ago to take health care back to where it was 2,000 years ago—back to the premise outlined in book of Acts in the Bible—the very simple notion of Christians sharing with other Christians to help them cover their needs, and it works extraordinarily well, likely because of the Designer.

Health sharing allows us as patients, and our doctors, to totally decide the best course of action for the best possible care. Not all that complicated, right? Obamacare has been designed to put more power into the hands of the government to eventually give the government control over every aspect of our lives. And more government control means larger government, which makes Americans more dependent on the government and politicians. This dependency will grow like an addiction to government power that will be guaranteed for generations to come.

It’s now or never. We must turn back socialized medicine before we are trapped in a single-payer like our European brothers and sisters. Through health sharing ministries, Americans are afforded health care freedom, but insurance companies must return to a competitive free market health care system to allow us to be home to the best health care system in the world.

Changes are far overdue—changes that will be good for patients, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies—but the government needs only to institute regulation in and around Medicare and Medicaid, making it easier for every low-income family and child to have some sort of coverage, as it’s been for the past 30 years with accountability and as much fraud protection as possible.