"The Health Care Gamble" or "A Nickel versus Twenty Grand"

I find myself in a quandary:

As the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church prepares to gather next week, I'm doing my homework on the recommendations.

On one hand we have Recommendation #1 a resolution on health care. Lines 39 and following state "1.4 million Ohioans have no health insurance and 62% of Ohioans had some experience with being uninsured...Millions more with health coverage are under-insured or reluctant to use their coverage because of high co-payments, deductibles and other cost sharing requirements." This resolution calls us to call upon legislators (state, local, even as high as the UN) to work for health care reform and coverage.

Some of those 1.4 million Ohioans are in my congregation and contribute to the payment of my health insurance premiums. I find myself falling into the millions who are reluctant to use that coverage paid for by the uninsured or under insured because my deductibles are high.

I earnestly believe that we need to do something about health care coverage in our nation. (I don't have any problem when it comes to the intent of this resolution.)

On the other hand there is recommendation #2 a resolution that asks United Methodists to continue saying "No Casinos in Ohio!" Lines 30 and 31 state: "WHEREAS a Mississippi State University study found that in counties with casinos, those earning less than $10,000 per year lost 10% of the family income to casinos..."

I don't gamble personally. I have better things to do with my money. I also recognize, though, that many people are addicted to gambling. However, I don't demonize people who like to go to Argosy or any other place. I don't demonize folks that buy the occasional lottery ticket either.

Here's where I experience tension between these two recommendations: Nowhere in our recommendations is there a mention of asking our conference folks to use their group bargaining power to lower what our congregations are paying for their pastors' health insurance. 2009 rates for pastors' health insurance (family coverage) is $18,336 per year.

It just so happens that that is slightly more than 10% of our church's annual budget (see above statistic on gambling). I would expect that the 2010 rates will be higher than the 2009 rates, too, and as my congregation wheedles down it's budget because of the state of the economy, that means that health insurance coverage will most likely be MORE than 10% of our budget!

It just so happens that my family and I are blessed with health and rarely need to visit the doctor which means that when we do have a need for a visit we pay for most of the cost because of deductibles--which makes us reluctant to use our coverage (see above comment!)

Now, here's my quandary (if you haven't seen it already). We want to say no to casinos, our UM Social Principles state that "gambling is a menace to society, deadly to the best interests of moral, social, economic and spiritual life" and yet we continue to ask our congregations to pay outrageous rates for our group insurance coverage--which is as much of a gamble, if not a more costly one, than a $1.00 lottery ticket or a few tries on a nickel slot.

Prayerfully discerning...