World

Repealing Obamacare without a Replacement: How It May Hurt Small Church Pastors and Church Planters Near You

ACA repeal/replace has a lot of implications.

It seems that President-elect Trump is moving full force against a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), tweeting out that “The ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act will soon be history!”

The Problems of Obamacare

Admittedly, we would find few people who would say Obamacare has been a great success, especially as premiums have soared in recent years. Even Bill Clinton’s comments, later walked back, reveal the widespread dissatisfaction.

When I recently posted on my Facebook page, “I’m interested in the implications of the repeal of Obamacare (ACA) on pastors and church planters. Anyone got any thoughts?” I got quite a few responses, some of which focused on the tremendous increase in premiums.

One person even said, “Over the last 3 years my premium has almost doubled (a 90% increase) for a deductible that went from $500 to $6,000. If my math is right, that’s an actual increase of over 1,200% should I have had to use it.”

So, yes, Obamacare has been bad for many and many of the claims about it were false. (For example, Politifact named one promise the “lie of the year.”)

Furthermore, it is disliked by many people of faith, particularly Evangelicals. There are many reasons for this, but a key one is the unnecessary and (in my view) foolish fight the Obama Administration picked with people of faith. (Hint: don’t pick a fight with a group named “Little Sisters of the Poor.”)

Those high premiums, and failed promises, have hurt a lot of people—including small church pastors and church planters.

But, it is here now, so there is more than one side to the story now.

Repealing Has Implications

Many people may be unaware of the impact that such …

Continue reading

Post Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.