Dear Pope: We Protestants Could Use Some Help from You Regarding the Health Insurance Crisis

Gary North

Pope Benedict XVI
Vatican

Dear Sir:

Catholics have a problem. Protestants have a problem. All God's children have a problem. Health insurance is too expensive.

I propose a solution. But I need your help. If you could give a nudge to someone in the Vatican to look into this, it might speed things along.

Most people cannot afford health insurance. But the kind we all need is coverage for catastrophic injuries or diseases. Bills for burn victims can go to $200,000 very fast. Some degenerative diseases are bankrupting.

If we, as members of local churches, could buy catastrophic health insurance coverage through the church, we would not face bankruptcy. If a policy offered full coverage from $25,000 to a million dollars, a family could buy it for a few hundred dollars per person per year. A high-deductible policy offers a way to escape bankruptcy. For families that cannot afford a standard low-deductible policy, this offers a solution to catastrophe.

The local congregation could intervene to help families with part of the first $25,000, depending on the family's resources and the condition of local church finances. Mutual care is basic to every functioning Christian community. But money above $25,000 is not readily available.

If a large denomination could put together a program and then go to the insurance industry in search of a few companies that would see the profitability of such an arrangement, the industry might create such a policy.

It will take a church with a lot of members to persuade an insurance company of the existence of a major opportunity: low marketing costs, lots of sales, a huge mailing list for other insurance products.

I am informed that many priests and nuns are aging. As members of religious orders, they may not have paid into Medicare. This would be a way to protect them.

Laymen need something like this. You are in a position to help.

I suspect that there is a president of an insurance company who is on your rolls. Have one of your bishops chat with him.

If your organization does this, Protestants will feel compelled to meet the competition. Some of our larger congregations offer bowling alleys and basketball courts to meet the competition. Membership eligibility to buy catastrophic health care insurance beats bowling alleys, it seems to me. It's also a lot cheaper to offer.

You are busy. But if one of your bishops should mention this to a cardinal, and if the cardinal mentions it to you, encourage him.