Commentary: Healing Can Be Viewed As Good

There's a story in John's gospel where Jesus and his disciples come across a man born blind. The disciples fall into a theological debate of blame. Whose fault is it that he is blind? His fault or his parents? Blaming the victim. It's not uncommon.

No blame, Jesus said. His disability is an opportunity for God's glory.

Isn't any misfortune an opportunity for God's glory? An opportunity for kindness, charity, generosity and healing. An opportunity for the community to love our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus acted. He simply acted to heal the man, to restore health to his eyes.

The man's neighbors were skeptical. They doubted that he was really the same man whom they had known as blind. They took the man to some religious authorities who didn't like Jesus and were looking for ways to discredit him.

The religious authorities weren't impressed with the fact that Jesus had healed a blind man. Jesus had healed the man on the Sabbath. They objected. Then they started picking at Jesus' healing, looking for every excuse they could find to criticize it and to condemn him. They doubted the man was really born blind. They threatened to throw the blind man and his parents out of the community. They scared the parents into virtual silence.

Then they cross-examined the formerly blind man. But he just stuck to the facts. "Jesus put mud on my eyes. Then I washed, and now I see." But facts aren't persuasive to partisans dealing in polemic. "We know this man is a sinner," they said of Jesus, and they refused to accept the man's story of his new sight. "You were born entirely in sins, and are you trying to teach us?" they accused the fact teller. They drove him from the community.

I thought about this story as I rejoiced at the news that more than 10 million people had signed up for health coverage under the Affordable Care Act's Marketplace or through Medicaid since October. In Arkansas, 150,000 of our low-income neighbors are confirmed as eligible and now covered by the Private Option. More than 5,000 of these are our Washington and Benton County neighbors. And many others (40,000 plus) enrolled in sliding-scale affordable insurance plans through the healthcare.gov marketplace.

Yet some people are blind to these benefits. Some object to any government program. It's like healing on the Sabbath. (Although they don't seem to resent the security they enjoy when they reach Medicare age.) Others don't like the initiator. Obama is a sinner. Whatever he does is bad. Some blame the victim. Who sinned that this person's job with health care was eliminated? Who sinned because they work for hourly wages without benefits?

And facts can be in short supply when political polemic fills our airwaves.

But health care coverage is a Godsend for my former parishioner Hope Smith. Hope had a pre-existing condition and insurance was beyond her means as a self-employed entrepreneur just starting out as a small-business owner. "I can keep my doctor. I can keep my hospital. I can keep taking my medication and improving my health, and building my small business. And it's going to give me and my husband some peace of mind." The Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families posted a brief video with Hope at http://is.gd/HopeSmith.

When I got my haircut last week, my friend Robert James said he was able to save more than $800 a month in premiums for his three employees and lowered their deductable from $2,000 to $1,000 each. A private contractor who rents a chair from Robert hasn't been able to afford insurance until this new plan. She's a single mother with three children. Now she has insurance.

One of the goals of the Affordable Care Act was to stop the escalating costs of health care. Our church is on a private plan, our own denominational policy. Our costs went down this year. My administrator can remember only once in the previous 25 years when that happened.

Costs contained and reduced. Millions with new access to health care that is affordable, high quality, portable if they change jobs, and not subject to the old cancellations. You'd think everyone would rejoice. But some folks just can't see.

The new system has flaws and needs some tweaks to improve it. Not everyone who is eligible has signed up. The biggest flaw -- it is still far from universal coverage. But what a good step in the right direction. Maybe before long America's overall health outcomes will approach first-world standing.

Commentary on 04/13/2014

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