We recently had a situation in our church where a young husband and father of 3 was badly burned (over 80% of his body). They lived paycheck-to-paycheck, with no savings. The church supported the family and medicaid covered the medical bills. He was in the burn unit for 6 months, lost limbs, and can’t work in his field anymore. It is God’s grace that he’s still here. Society has paid dearly to keep him here…don’t know if his youth figured into covering his care, but I know it cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep him alive. It really personalizes the dilemma.

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I had a co-worker once who had all kinds of medical problems. One day the doctor discovered she was a bit anemic. Though anemia was a side effect of one of her medications, he thought there was a remote chance that it was caused by internal bleeding somewhere, so he did a test costing several hundred dollars “just in case.” I rather thought he was covering his tail, and she got the test (1) because the doctor suggested it and (2) because insurance, not she, was paying for it.

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Those who would choose “cheaper” medical options are denied them because of regulation and politics, so each birth around here costs much more than it would “have” to.

Close to this topic is the tendency to test not for information, but rather for protection from lawsuits. Then there is the reluctance to allow v-backs, resulting in expensive c-sections…

I’d guess this holds true in other areas of medicine as well.

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But technology is developing ways to do something for more and more people. Suppose technology were available to save the life of each person for one extra year, at a cost of half of that person’s lifetime earnings. Insurance is no help in that situation, because everyone is going to need the same huge amount. But with technology we’re moving in that direction, where more and more people’s lives can be lengthened at a very high cost.

There’s no easy way to figure out where to draw the lines. But they do have to be drawn somewhere, by someone. The resources to pay for healthcare simply are not unlimited.

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My father was bedridden the last two years of his life, wouldn’t talk to me, looked like a concentration camp survivor, and spent his days watching garbage television. I don’t know how much his full time care cost, my brother handled the money end, but I wondered why God let him live when he obviously was failing.

He was rescuitated several times. As the power of attorney for health care, I allowed a feeding tube to be placed–which he didn’t like. But I knew he was afraid to die and I don’t believe in euthanasia, even if it were legal–because God needs to determine the length of our days.

One day while praying about the above, I asked, “Lord, why don’t you let him die?” No real answer other than a “sense” Dad wasn’t finished yet. But what could he do?

Nothing. Except by living long enough that my brother began to make his peace with him. When he finally did die, “How did that happen?” my brother blurted out when I called with the news, it was okay. A lot of the anger and bitterness which had played such a large role in the relationship had dissipated.

Was all the money we spent worth it? I think so.

But I couldn’t have guessed that when we were in the middle of it. So, I like to leave life in God’s hands–where it’s safer and far more “economical” in a hundred ways anyway.

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And we will have a bureaucracy similar to the DMV or Post Office to deal with on all health matter as well.

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A more important question: What is the value of a human soul?

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