{"id":170,"date":"2009-09-09T21:28:13","date_gmt":"2009-09-09T21:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/health-insurance.html"},"modified":"2009-09-09T21:28:13","modified_gmt":"2009-09-09T21:28:13","slug":"health-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/health-insurance.html","title":{"rendered":"Obama and Health Insurance&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ll admit it. I don&#8217;t know enough about health insurance or the complexities of the US budget to know whether or not the Obama healthcare proposal is feasible. Based solely on the he-said, she-said of television pundits and little in-depth research into the details of the program (or the positions taken by the opposition) I find myself sympathizing with both sides of the argument.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On the one hand, the costs and bureaucratic challenges involved in government-sponsored universal healthcare seem to be insurmountable. That, plus the swiftness of this proposal that &#8220;has to be done this year&#8221;, sometimes feels more political than visionary, which would not be the ideal..\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>On the other hand, since leaving my corporate job (and our health benefits) in 2004, our family has run the gamut of health insurance challenges &#8211; from paying more than $1200 a month out of pocket for insurance (sometimes on credit cards) to going without and hoping for the best. \u00a0Also not the ideal.<\/div>\n<div>\u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n<div>I do not envy this President the challenge of separating the political wheat from the medical chaff when it comes to this massive undertaking. I do not envy us as citizens the task of sorting through the extremes of the debate on both sides of the question in order to understand what is being proposed in a way that we are able to discern what it is that might be best for our families, our neighbors and our country.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Would love to hear your thoughts&#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll admit it. I don&#8217;t know enough about health insurance or the complexities of the US budget to know whether or not the Obama healthcare proposal is feasible. Based solely on the he-said, she-said of television pundits and little in-depth research into the details of the program (or the positions taken by the opposition) I&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spiritual-growth"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Obama and Health Insurance... - Flirting with Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/health-insurance.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Obama and Health Insurance... - Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;ll admit it. I don&#8217;t know enough about health insurance or the complexities of the US budget to know whether or not the Obama healthcare proposal is feasible. Based solely on the he-said, she-said of television pundits and little in-depth research into the details of the program (or the positions taken by the opposition) I&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/health-insurance.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Flirting with Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-09T21:28:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Joan Ball\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Obama and Health Insurance... - Flirting with Faith","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/flirtingwithfaith\/2009\/09\/health-insurance.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Obama and Health Insurance... - Flirting with Faith","og_description":"I&#8217;ll admit it. 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