Health Care

We are having an unhealthy year!  Daniel broke his arm (a compound open fracture) in November, so had surgery on Thanksgiving Day and follow-up visits in January, February and March.  Pete discovered a blind spot in his eye and an examination revealed retinal bleeding.  In January he received the first shot in his eye; a drug has almost stopped the bleeding and the doctor thinks it will heal completely.  It may or may not stay healed.  You can imagine the cost of a visit to a retina specialist; Pete has been there 3 or 4 times now.  Sarah had an appendectomy on Palm Sunday.  I have been to the chiropractor 5-10 times recently for a "frozen shoulder" or possibly just inflammation - the treatment is the same.  Now I've started physical therapy.

This will cost us our $5500 deductible for last year and this year; it will cost our insurance company a lot more.  But think of the results - a healed arm, a healed eye, a removed appendix with very little "down time," and (Lord willing) a healed shoulder.  A hundred years ago Daniel would probably have a crooked arm; Pete would have a blind spot and maybe lose his sight completely in that eye; Sarah could have died when her appendix ruptured; and I would have a painful shoulder for who-knows-how-long.

We complain a lot about the high and rising cost of health care.  But consider what we get!  If we choose to do all this stuff to make our lives longer, healthier or pain-free, shouldn't we expect to pay for it?  Remember the tragic story of the woman who had spent her life savings on doctors trying to heal her hemorrhaging?  Turned out not to be a tragic story, because Jesus healed her for free.  But the pathos of the initial introduction is not because she spent her life savings but because it didn't work.  If she had spent her life savings and gotten well, it would have been worth it to her.

I don't know when we'll (as a nation) run out of money to spend on health care.  I don't know if it's right for us to have treatments for retinal bleeding and frozen shoulders when children across the globe die for lack of a simple antibiotic.  But I do know that I'm not going to complain about the money aspect of health care, because it's worth every penny.