Member Spotlight: Shalom Sanchez and Great Commission Ministries/Students Run L.A.

August 2nd, 2010

Shalom Sanchez, right, and a student she mentors.

By Michael Miller

Shalom Sanchez didn’t run away from her calling.

She ran to it.

Go to the notoriously violent neighborhood of South Los Angeles, the subject of movies like Boyz n the Hood? A far cry from Sterling College in Kansas, but … OK.

Serve as a mentor to young people at the local high school while training them to run a marathon? She had never been the athletic type before, but … OK.

Share young people’s lives and share with them the Good News of Jesus Christ? No problem.

“Coming out to Los Angeles was definitely something from the Lord,” says the 32-year-old New Mexico native and Samaritan Ministries member. Before she started helping with a Great Commission Ministries church plant in East Hollywood in 2002, “I never had any desire to be here.”

Now her desire is to work with at-risk youth through Students Run L.A., a running and mentoring program that works informally with high school students from James A. Foshay Learning Center.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted in Member Spotlight, Members |

Oregon Medicaid and Government Health Care

July 30th, 2010

Last week I was able to work the Samaritan booth and speak at the American Vision Worldview Conference and I mentioned a news story I’d seen about Oregon Medicaid denying certain treatments and encouraging physician assisted suicide.

I told the attendees that I’d post the video on the blog here.  It’s a reminder that whoever pays for health care gets to control the access and decisions, and why we favor patient centered models like Samaritan Ministries. Here you go:

Posted in Government health care, government control |

Boston doc streamlines appointments

July 29th, 2010

Last year, we wrote about primary care physicians making creative changes to how they practice medicine, changes that benefit both them and their patients. Here’s another doc who has made a change, Dr. Dennis Dmitri of Boston. Dr. Dmitri doesn’t take advance appointments. You need to see him that day? You call that day and get a time. Waiting time is slim.

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Posted in New practices, Uncategorized |

The Massachusetts health care mess – coming soon to the rest of America?

July 28th, 2010

In this month’s newsletter cover story, health care analyst Sally Pipes points out many problems with Massachusetts’s mandatory health insurance program that could now affect us all as we move closer to a national health care system totally controlled by the federal government. She shows that we could end up with a burdensome trifecta: higher taxes and higher medical costs, yet lower quality care. This is to say nothing of ethical dilemmas. It is not encouraging reading, but it provides a much needed assessment of our situation that does not receive much coverage in the mainstream media.

Here’s the link.

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Posted in Health care bill, Newsletter, government control, health care costs, health care freedom |

Capretta: Health care consumers need choice, power

July 15th, 2010

Jim Capretta, speaking at today’s Galen Institute briefing introducing his paper “Why the Obama Plan Is Not Entitlement Reform,” made these points:

  • If there was one consensus point during the health care debate over the past year, it was that Medicare is the main driver in health care costs.
  • Medicare, which he called “maddeningly costly,” creating “excess paperwork, a bureaucracy, and low-quality and uncoordinated care for patients,” will look much the same many years from now–despite “health care reform.”
  • If we really want health care delivery reform, the way to get there is to empower consumers to pick high-value, lower-cost options. That can be done through vouchers. Competition in the health care industry will increase, especially those trying to win the business of older Americans.
  • Medicare is riddled with waste and inefficiency. The fastest solution is to give consumers choice rather than saying government will clean up the system.

Posted in Government health care, Health care bill, Medicare, Solutions, health care costs |

Time to take ‘Bad Medicine’

July 14th, 2010

The Cato Institute’s Michael D. Tanner has written a white paper on the new health care law. “Bad Medicine: A Guide to the Real Costs and Consequences of the New Health Law” is available here. Below is the executive summary.

For better or worse, President Obama’s health care reform bill is now law. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act represents the most significant transformation of the American health care system since Medicare and Medicaid. It will fundamentally change nearly every aspect of health care, from insurance to the final delivery of care.

The length and complexity of the legislation, combined with a debate that often generated more heat than light, has led to massive confusion about the law’s likely impact. But, it is now possible to analyze what is and is not in it, what it likely will and will not do. In particular, we now know that:

  • While the new law will increase the number of Americans with insurance coverage, it falls significantly short of universal coverage. By 2019, roughly 21 million Americans will still be uninsured.
  • The legislation will cost far more than advertised, more than $2.7 trillion over 10 years of full implementation, and will add $352 billion to the national debt over that period.
  • Most American workers and businesses will see little or no change in their skyrocketing insurance costs, while millions of others, including younger and healthier workers and those who buy insurance on their own through the non-group market will actually see their premiums go up faster as a result of this legislation.
  • The new law will increase taxes by more than $669 billion between now and 2019, and the burdens it places on business will significantly reduce economic growth and employment.
  • While the law contains few direct provisions for rationing care, it nonetheless sets the stage for government rationing and interference with how doctors practice medicine.
  • Millions of Americans who are happy with their current health insurance will not be able to keep it. In short, the more we learn about what is in this new law, the more it looks like bad news for American taxpayers, businesses, health-care providers, and patients.

Posted in Government health care, Health care bill, government control, health care costs, health care freedom |

Sharing ministries spotlighted by SF TV

July 7th, 2010

KPIX-TV, Channel 5, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco, has published an online story about health care sharing ministries.

Posted in In the media |

Board meeting at Gitche Gumee

July 6th, 2010

The Samaritan Ministries board of directors was privileged to hold their summer meeting on the shores of Lake Superior, in the heart of copper country on the Keweenaw peninsula in Northern Michigan. There Samaritan members Melvin and Carol Jones direct Gitche Gumee Bible camp, that offers camp experiences for children and families as well as seniors. They also work with churches and other organizations for special events, all for very reasonable prices. Here is a pdf of the member spotlight on Melvin and Carol from a few years ago: Melvin and Carol Jones.pdf

Mel and Carol Jones

Copper Harbor Lighthouse

Sunset on Lake Superior

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Posted in Member Spotlight, Members, Newsletter |

No surprise to us: Primary care docs disappearing

July 5th, 2010

Writes the Associated Press’s Carla K. Johnson on July 2:

Emergency rooms are the only choice for patients who can’t find care elsewhere. They may grow even more crowded under the nation’s new health law.

That may come as a surprise to those who thought getting 32 million more people covered by health insurance would ease ER crowding.

But experts predict a shortage [of] primary care doctors will force many newly insured patients to visit emergency rooms for their health care.

That shortage was predicted all along and, thanks to Medicaid-Medicare short payments, has been a problem for years now. This is only a surprise to anybody who hasn’t been paying attention.

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Posted in Health care bill, health care costs |

Are the patients or the psychiatrists mental?

July 5th, 2010

Some are wondering if it is the patients or the psychiatrists who are crazy now that the latest mental disorder has been revealed: orthorexia nervosa, meaning “healthy eating disorder.” It’s making the internet rounds, coming to a blog, Facebook post, or Youtube video near you.

Do you avoid processed foods and take vitamins? You might be crazy!

Joking aside, there certainly can be serious disorders related to eating. However, this one seems to border on the absurd, and has been mocked all over the web. Some commentators even say it’s a politically motivated attack on health conscious consumers, who just won’t go along and buy all their mass-produced food from heavily subsided multi-national corporations. Others say it’s laying the groundwork for government regulation and taxation of vitamins and supplements.

This latest mental disorder has been officially classified in the U.K., not in the United States’  infamous DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which has been the subject of heated debate among doctors and psychiatrists since it was first published in 1952.

To pick only one of numerous examples, here’s a book by two California university professors presenting the case that “the DSM applies the language of mental illness to everyday behavior, transforming ordinary reactions to life’s vicissitudes into billable pathology.”

It seems safe to say that “healthy eating disorder” is yet another example of political correctness run amok. Hopefully, it won’t come across the pond to the U.S. Keep on endeavoring to eat healthy. You aren’t crazy.

Posted in In the media, Uncategorized |

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