The call for health care reform is so urgent, President Obama had no time even to draft a new speech to address his supporters at George Mason University. Walking into literally tens of people chanting, “Yes, we can!” or demanding “Health Care now,” he remarked how welcome he felt to be surrounded by a “bunch of patriots.” They were patriotic because, not only had they waited in line for an hour to stand and pay homage to our Pharaoh, but believed in his message of change to make “the city across the river work for the American people.”

                Like the Spring Offensive, he has a three point plan as part of his “Patient’s Bill of Rights on Steroids.” His choice of words is ironic, since steroids are as illegal as the parliamentary tricks the Democrats will employ to pass their legislation. No longer willing to accept a system that works better for the insurance industry than the American people, Obama enumerated his bill to make the industry work for the American people.

                First, ban insurance companies from their worst practices, like denying those with preexisting conditions. While it sounds better and more humane in theory, taking on the worst financial risks will destroy the insurance industry’s ability to survive as a corporate entity and would not be around much longer. He put a warning out to lobbyists stalking the halls of Congress, trying to bar the bill from being passed. I suppose Andy Seirs is hiding in the White House bowling alley.

                The second of his “common sense reforms” entails free preventive care. A nice carefree slide into freewheeling France, as people will frequent their doctors for anything they think is wrong with them since it’s free anyway. My grandmother would see her doctor two or three times every week because Medicare reimbursed her for it.

                The last is that small business owners can team up, share resources, and form a pool of customers to give them more bargaining power when dealing with insurance companies. He urges the employees of every small business in America, to join together and vote as a group against the interest of their uncaring, unfeeling, money-hungry “bosses” of the insurance industry.  He wants to unionize them.

                He calls to eliminate the fraud and waste from Medicare and Medicaid, saving across a wasteful system some 1.2 trillion dollars. With those kinds of numbers, not only can we afford the biggest entitlement program for a generation already far too-entitled, but “we can’t afford not to do it.” An angry sea of health care enthusiasm erupted, at the thought of the toughest insurance reforms in history “to give the people the chance to afford health care.”  

                He went on a whirlwind tour across the U.S., from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, citing numerous stories of single individuals struggling to pay for health insurance that call for reform now. Some of them were lying in hospital beds, suffering tremendously while Obama supporters ate popcorn and Chik-fil-A while neglecting their real jobs, and those people were counting on us to pass health care. He stressed he didn’t care about poll numbers or his legacy, but that this legislation was the right thing to do for the American people struggling to afford health insurance. The right thing to do is to explode the size of government, reward these campaign supporters with jobs in the new agencies the bill creates, then have them oversee the problem while those poor ladies die miserably alone in their hospital beds.

                In the line to enter the Patriot Center, an economist professor casually mocked a conservative handing out pamphlets over what this legislation really calls for. I stuck up for the conservative, and he began to scoff at me and my fears of the explosion of the Democratic political machine.

                I explained my nightmares of China’s premier speaking at a nationalist rally, standing in front of a pyramid of U.S. hundred dollar bills, trillions of dollars of our debt, and he’s burning it. He condemns the U.S. for our irresponsibility, because these entitlement programs have made our currency worthless. When I explained these fears to him, his students called him back, because they know deep down what their dreams for America will do to the average American, and they don’t want to face that reality. They just don’t care.

                I’ve recently returned from the East African nation of Malawi, wherein I spent two months teaching English and leading devotionals at an orphanage in a very poor, rural village. Malaria is still a constant threat in sub-Saharan Africa, and would rip through the orphanage periodically and afflict the children with fevers, swells, and fears of death. 

I led devotionals one evening, when several of the young children left abruptly, having voted with their feet, I thought, at a poor sermon I had given from the Psalms. They returned carrying the nigh-lifeless bodies of the children stricken with malaria, and left them before me to pray over them. I prayed everything I could to inspire the children to believe that God alone has the power over our afflictions and can heal us of them. I went to bed thinking I had failed, but when the children awoke the next morning, they had been healed, miraculously, and carried no signs of ever having the disease. I found them in a tree at dawn, eating mangos.  

                Malawi is a nation of self-subsistence farmers, with virtually no purchasing power except to buy seed and fertilizer. Their chief concerns, when coming to the Lord in prayer, was the money for school fees and medication, and they clearly saw the hand of God in providing for them. They told me many stories of well-wishers and church members arriving on their doorsteps with envelopes full of money, having been moved by the Spirit to answer their prayers.

                In America, this would never happen. No one prays for an education, with free, tax-supported public schools and the purchasing power to put our kids into private ones, if we so choose.  The nationalization of the country’s student loan programs will only make it easier for people to obtain a university education, without ever having to struggle for it.

                 When faced with overwhelming medical bills, our first response has been to write our congressmen and demand they expand health care coverage so all Americans can benefit from socialized medicine. God has been as absent in the debate over health care as He has been in the hearts of those demanding the government provide it for free. The Democratic Party is, in effect, taking over the charitable functions of the Church in providing free health care, promising that the State will take care of anyone who cares nothing for the grace and power of God.

When Jesus Christ shared our suffering and saw the crippled, the lame, and the blind languishing in the streets of Jerusalem, He did not write the civil government in Rome. He did not demand of Caesar to send more doctors to Jerusalem to care for the sick. He just healed them, because just He has the power to do that.  

There is no better time to witness than right now, in the midst of the health care debate. Though the Church and State have long been separated in America, the American people now have to choose sides, between the universal body of believers that make up the body of Christ, His Church, or with the overextended, corrupt, and inefficient bureaucracy of the State. The Democratic Party controls most media outlets, so it’s always been easier for them to swell their numbers, so we, everyone who believes, will have to witness and give testimony to the healing power of God.We will have to tell them what God will do for America, when America awakens with her need for God. 

So if you know someone who needs healing, tell them about the God who heals; if you know someone who can’t walk, tell them about the God who strengthens the weak so they can walk and not faint; and if you know someone who needs saving, and we all do, tell them about the God who saves, Jesus Christ.