Most people are more concerned about having a good health insurance policy than they are about taking care of their own health — which would negate their need for health insurance in the first place!

Sadly, this is exactly the case for God’s people in our various churches today.

I believe you will agree with me that it is not a pretty sight. Take for example the prayer requests in a typical prayer meeting. Are they not requests for the healing of all those sick people in the church, along with their friends and loved ones? Such requests dominate 90% or even more of all prayer requests in the church!

Next question: Are we seeing the health of God’s people being improved as a result of all these prayers — and if not, why not?

Now for a moment consider what God’s people in our churches do next after prayers have appeared to fail.

Are they not encouraged to go to a doctor?

And what happens next? They end up submitting themselves to toxic drugs, radiation, or the removal of some body part!

Do these medical modalities bring healing… or do they all too often complicate the problem and further damage the person’s health?

Friend, if we keep doing what we have always done, we will keep getting the same results.

Have you ever considered the cost involved in going to doctors with our all-too-many health problems? I am sure you have noticed that it is extremely expensive – often bankrupting a person without health insurance.

And for those with insurance, have you considered the cost of that insurance?

Figures just released by the Keiser Foundation reveal that annual health insurance premiums increased last year by 9%. This increase brings the annual cost for health insurance, for family coverage, to more than $15,000 annually.

This sum is either paid for by the family directly to the insurance company or indirectly by an employer.

Most people do not realize that, even if paid indirectly by an employer, the employee still pays for health insurance by receiving a lower salary. Insurance premiums must be paid for by someone, either directly or indirectly.

Now let’s put the cost of Health insurance into perspective.

In some areas of the country the median price of a home is $150,000 and for many it takes 30 years to pay off the mortgage. Add at least another $150,000 for the interest paid on that mortgage and a person ends up paying over $300,000 for their $150,000 home.

Yet in that same 30 years, a family pays $450,000 in health insurance premiums. That is nearly a half-million dollars!

I have a pastor friend who is paying $12,000 annually in health insurance premiums for just he and his wife. He pastors a small country church and if it wasn’t for the church providing their home, there is no way they could afford that insurance.

Let’s Summarize…

When a person gets sick we ask God in prayer to remove the sickness. When prayers appear to have failed, we go to a doctor who uses medical modalities that often complicate the problem and make matters worse. We have also learned that all of these medical modalities cost an exorbitant amount in both money and state of health.

Yet in spite of all these negatives, people have such fear of becoming sick (especially developing cancer), that they are willing to spend huge amounts for so-called health insurance for use in the event they do get sick.

But is this huge expense necessary or a huge waste of our money and hindrance to our health?

How I Have Dealt With My Health and Health Insurance

Thirty-six years ago, after being told I had cancer at the age of 42 (and after refusing all medical treatments for that cancer), I turned to Evangelist Lester Roloff for help.

He confirmed that I had done the right thing in refusing medical treatments. He said that if I wanted to get well I needed to go a different route – I needed to change my diet.

Thankfully I listened to Brother Roloff and eliminated the Standard American Diet (SAD) he said had caused of my cancer. Next, I adopted God’s Genesis 1:29 diet which he said would restore my health.

As a result of making that diet change, healing began immediately. Within a year, my cancer was gone.

It wasn’t long after that experience I realized I could control my health by eating a healthy diet and living a healthy lifestyle. That led me ask why I should continue to pay for an extremely expensive health insurance policy I didn’t need.

That is when I dropped my health insurance coverage.

In fact, I have not had any form of health insurance for the past 36 years — nor have I had any need for any.

You may think that a crazy thing to do, but I figure my savings by not carrying health insurance these past 36 years to be in the $150,000 to $200,000 range.

Is Health Insurance A Good Investment?

Health Insurance is not an investment in good health, because it has absolutely nothing to do with “health”.

Rather it has everything to do with “disease” and sickness. Here’s the proof… You won’t collect a dime from that health insurance policy as long as you remain in health.

It would really be much more appropriate to call it “disease insurance.”

Health Insurance has nothing to do with preventing disease. It only kicks in when a person gets sick — and then it rarely pays the whole bill!

Our nation’s new health care policy will not change this scenario. All it will do is force everyone, whether they want health insurance coverage or not (or have need of it or not) into a system that has utterly failed to bring health in the past.

Not to mention, under this new system, the cost of health care will continue to rise.

Health Insurance is consuming an ever-larger share of employer costs, forcing many companies to eliminate pay raises and pass on more of the medical costs to workers. These costs are forcing some companies to stop providing coverage for their employees altogether.

What is causing health insurance costs to rise so dramatically? Mandates associated with America’s new health care policy! It requires that insurance companies pay for pre-existing conditions and requires insurance companies to extend coverage to children (really adults) until the age of 26.

This additional coverage, the expenses involved in paying for this coverage, and the ever-increasing cost of health care and the increasing amount of sickness people are experiencing are all causing insurance premiums to skyrocket.

Eventually, it will bankrupt our nation.

Some Solutions

1. Few people know that from 1980 until 1986 I sold a health insurance policy for the National Association for the Self-Employed (NASE). Of the 1,200 insurance agents selling this policy for the NASE, most years I was the lead salesman.

I did it by showing the business owner that by taking a higher deductible, they could more than pay the cost of that higher deductible if they got sick, with the amount they were saving by a lower premium. Where most insurance agents were pushing a $100 deductible, I was suggesting a $1,000 or even higher deductible.

That made sense to the small business owner then, and I believe makes sense today. In the event of a catastrophic health problem, most small business owners can come up with the deductible as long as the policy picks up and pays for the potential catastrophic bill. In today’s dollars, the $1,000 deductible I was promoting would probably be $10,000.

2. Others, though risky in the beginning, could take that $15,000 insurance premium (or whatever the premium amount might be) and place it in an interest bearing account (An untouchable account except for medical expenses). If they went the first year without any sickness or injury, they would have $15,000 in that account to pay medical expenses.

After two years without sickness the amount in that account would increase to $30,000 and each year the amount would grow – $45,000 by the third year, $60,000 by the fourth year, and in ten years it would grow to $150,000. Now I already said that this is risky, but younger people and couples are not considered high risk.

If a person chooses this route, it is important to have some kind of accident insurance as accidents are something we have no control over as we do with disease. Sadly, strictly accident policies are hard to find. If you know of a policy that has no limits on accident claims after a deductible, please let me know about it.

However, I would not ever consider going the route of no health insurance if I and my family were not on a health promoting and disease preventing diet and lifestyle similar to The Hallelujah Diet. Prevention is the key to outstanding health! An optimal diet and lifestyle will almost totally eliminate the risk of disease.

A Better Way

Next week, “Lord willing and if the creeks don’t rise too high”, we will deal with the subject: How To Restore Your Health God’s Way.