Affordable Health Care Makes a Difference

The stories get told. The images are painted. The judgments are made. The opinions are formed. All of this is happening with bold voices and the heir of absolute certainty. The predictions of catastrophe are so vivid that they seem real sometimes; but are they? Do we have any facts about how Obama Care has affected the lives of people we know? What has really happened so far to real people with a real stake in the outcome? Maybe you don’t know anybody yet that has had to make a decision or a change; or do you?

If you were at the United Methodist Church of Merced’s annual Church Conference last Tuesday, you witnessed Affordable Health Care making a difference. This conference is where the church makes decisions on leadership, celebrates the ministries that God has empowered us to carry out, and votes on the planned compensation for pastors. Lately, churches throughout the country come to these meetings in crisis mode. Pastors are not just given cash for their service. They are also receiving health care coverage.  When the price of pastoral leadership increases faster than the resources of the church grow, the churches need to choose between funding a pastor and funding programs that change lives in our communities. The crisis comes when costs enter the equation that is uncontrollable, unpredictable, and unreasonable. That is a perfect description of health care cost in recent years. It is important to note that if health care was affordable it would make a difference to your pastor, to your church, to your community, and to you.

Over the last ten years, the cost of health care coverage has spiked every year. In the last four years, I have been eligible for the conference health plan.  The price to cover a family of three for one year on the conference plan was $17,000 in 2009. By 2013 the conference plan had increased to over $27,000 and the coverage benefits were significantly reduced. The conference plan in 2014 is going to be $34,000 less ($2000 because the annual conference is committing to spend down its discretionary budget to ease the crisis).  No other expense has doubled over the last five years. No significant numbers of donors have doubled their offerings in the last five years. The economy is growing at a rate close to 2% per year (good news, unless expenses are growing at 10% per year). This spike in costs is the primary reason for crisis at charge conferences throughout our connection, but our charge conference was a joyful celebration; wonder why?

The reason that we had a stress free conference has a lot to do with the fact that affordable health care makes a difference.  We live in California and California has done an excellent job of preparing for the advent of Affordable Health Care. The conference board of pensions was well equipped to guide the pastor and the church leadership to understanding the effects of Obama Care. The Covered California website at https://www.coveredca.com/ is working extremely well – I feel informed about a wide variety of options to purchase health care. I am confident that the coverage is through reputable agencies and that the doctors in the networks are every bit as competent and available as they were last year.  One of the options is to have the exact same plan as I had last year with no increase in price. The facts are that the new program looks like an absolute benefit to me, my family, my church, and my community.

The mainstream news is embracing images of apocalyptic failure; while I am experiencing reasons to celebrate, and by extension, so are you. The subsidy program is significant. It is based on Aggregate Taxable income, which has wonderful incentives. For instance, when aggregate taxable income is reduced, the price of health care is reduced. This means that if your pastor chooses to put pre-tax money away for retirement, the price of the families insurance goes down, so does the tax burden at the end of the year. So the program makes it possible for a real middle class income earner to save money on health care today, save money on taxes at the end of the year, and save money for retirement in the future. Why is this story not in the news? 

 

Church leadership is doing a happy dance too. We were bracing ourselves to take another significant hit to the budget – an $8,000 to $10,000 increase in healthcare expenses. To give you perspective, the total amount budgeted for social concerns and program expenses in 2013 was $9000. This is the money that supports CATCH (our connection with community children), elder services, music, and hospitality ministry. An increase in staff expenses of $10,000 would dramatically affect our ability to either operate our church in the way we are accustomed or our ability to impact our community. Even the wonderful stewardship drive (Committed to Christ) would have the wind removed from its sails. Instead of negotiating this unbearable expense, the church is relying on the new health Insurance exchange to provide next year’s coverage for the pastor at last year’s prices. That’s right; our predicted impact of Obama Care is a net benefit to the church budget for 2014 of an estimated $10,000.

What I am saying is Affordable Health Care makes a difference; positive differences to people that are close to us. We can answer the question, “who has Obama Care helped?” The answer is it has helped my pastor, it has helped my church, it has helped my community, and it has helped me. When we are done answering the questions that demand facts from us, we have every right start asking questions of our own. We need to question the voices that paint our government’s effort at making health care affordable in the color of social abomination. We need to apply facts in the places where speculation is used to create fear. Then, when the facts demonstrate that the truth does not exist in the stories that we are hearing, we need to question the motives of the storytellers. The loudest worldview we are hearing is often the worldview that is fuelled by the most fear not necessarily the worldview that is fuelled by the most compassion, or even the most truth.

Enjoy God,

Pg