When my youngest daughter was born prematurely in 1977, it was a very frightening time. Her early months were one roller coaster after another of wondering if she would survive. There was more than one Code Blue called on her. In the midst of that difficult time though, one of the gifts was to have health insurance which covered almost everything. Her three-month initial stint in the hospital, and several others that occurred in the year following, could have wiped us out financially. The $70,000 plus dollars of that time in medical inflation dollars today would be around *$570,000. But fortunately we had good coverage. Our out of pocket costs were hard to meet, but something we could manage.

With the Senate set to vote on yet another of the most unpopular bills ever to hit their building, I’m left mystified by the way the entire health care debate of 2017 has been held. I know way too many people, among the working poor, who would be negatively affected if the current bill passes. Creating a health care bill without input from people who work in the field confuses me. Why would anyone create a bill without knowing the consequences of their actions? Especially, given the impact passage of that bill will have on millions of lives.

When the framers of the constitution met to determine what form of government we would have, I’m pretty sure they thought we would send our best people to Washington to represent us. They were expecting we would send the wise to do the work of the people. Knowing human nature well, they sent up a process where one house would be elected every two years and the other six. They felt that those who would be in office for six years would not feel pressured to act foolishly in the moment, but would use the wisdom they had acquired to judge and evaluate bills wisely. Our founders could never have envisioned the world of today, when news spreads in an instant and groups put pressure immediately, to vote a certain way. They would not have known how much influence donations to elected officials would have, or how that money would undermine working for the common good. They couldn’t have known that today’s Senators and Congressmen and women would be constantly running for office. Always fearful that they not upset a big donor.

These last months have seen us going through one cycle of votes after another trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act without a well-thought-out replacement. Meanwhile, I find myself growing anxious with every new bill that undoes the good for people who live on the edge. What I have hoped for from the beginning was for congress to fix the broken parts of the law, just as they did when Medicare became the law of the land. Instead we have had this long  battle which has done none of us any good.

I keep asking God to work in the hearts of God’s people in Washington to make wise and good decisions about health care. I pray that they will let God lead them beyond their political party and into the truth God wants them to know. Imagine, how much good they could do together, if they really did put God above their respective political party and paid more attention to the one who told us that “Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” Matthew 25:40 NRSV