John 4:39-41 (NIV) - “Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. And because of his words many more became believers.”

These verses are part of a very familiar passage. At Jacob’s well, this Samaritan woman who came to draw water at noon encountered Jesus who drew her out of her shame and hiding. She received the gift of God and received the living water of eternal life in Christ! And the evidence of the new life bursting forth was seen in her telling her story to people in her town. Before Christ, she led a life that avoided people but after her encounter with Jesus, she not only faced the people in her town, she shared boldly about what Jesus did for her and the people in her town also became believers.

It’s incredible to think that this woman at the well who had a reputation in her town overcame her shame and her past to tell others about God. In fact, it was God’s love and grace that overcame the barriers that distanced her from others. God’s love and message came through an unlikely person. But that’s how powerful and irresistible this message of God’s love and forgiveness is.

All of us have a story to tell. Perhaps there are barriers that keep you from telling others about God. May God’s irresistible love that satisfies the deepest thirst of our lives fill us once again and may this message go forth to others!

Let’s worship to this song and remember how God took our broken lives and made us whole. May our lives tell of His amazing grace!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiyYoe678yI

-DP

"Social Movements and Resistance"

Critiquing Culture Conference at George Mason University 

Event: Saturday, October 7th 2017 at George Mason University

Submission Deadline: July 1, 2017

As U.S. lawmakers consider possible paths forward in reshaping health care and health insurance, UMBC’s Christy Ford Chapin has published detailed analysis of historical health care models to inform today’s discussions. Chapin, assistant professor of history, is the author of the award-winning book Ensuring America’s Health: The Public Creation of the Corporate Health Insurance System. Since its publication, she has commented in numerous media outlets on the history of health insurance and factors to consider in developing effective reform.

In a New York Times op-ed, published just ahead of Senate Republican’s release of proposed new health care legislation, Chapin suggests that both Republicans and Democrats “have stumbled to enact comprehensive health care reform because they insist on patching up a rickety, malfunctioning model.” The Democrats’ Affordable Care Act only “added a cracked support beam or two,” and a Republican bill recently passed by the House “will knock those out to focus on spackling other dilapidated parts of the system,” she writes.

But Chapin’s piece isn’t just a critique. She also offers fresh ideas for consideration, based on often forgotten historical models. Reflecting on the perspective she brings to the conversation, Chapin notes, “Historians can use narrative to explain seemingly complex issues, add nuance to national conversations, and highlight overlooked facts.”

Chapin explains that in the early 20th century, a variety of models to organize and pay for health care existed in the U.S. “Unfortunately,” however, “the leaders of the American Medical Association (AMA) saw early health care models…as a threat,” and, she suggests, exercised their power with hospitals and on state licensing boards to retaliate against physicians who participated in them.

After World Word II, President Harry Truman proposed a government-managed universal health care system, similar to some in post-war Europe. In response, writes Chapin, “AMA officials decided that the best way to keep the government out of their industry was to design a private sector model: the insurance company model.”

Chapin argues in the Times that over the years, “because of the perceived threat of reform, insurers weathered rapidly rising medical costs and unfavorable financial conditions to expand coverage from about a quarter of the population in 1945 to about 80 percent in 1965. However, she writes in a related piece for Dissent, “Despite the extraordinary growth of private insurance, high policy costs prevented insurance companies from extending protection to a politically satisfactory percentage of the elderly.” In response, the federal government introduced Medicare in 1965.

Medicare was also designed around the insurance company model, because at the time “the private health care sector had far more capacity to manage a large, complex program than did the government,” writes Chapin in the Times. With more seniors insured, demand for health services spiked. This led insurance companies to introduce cost-containment efforts like standardizing which procedures would be covered for which health conditions, and “shaping the practice of medicine”—exactly what the AMA originally feared would result from government involvement.

Chapin contends in the Times that “to actually bring down costs, legislators must roll back regulations to allow market innovation outside the insurance company model.” In Dissent she further argues, “Only fundamental reforms that reduce corporate influence over health care can make generous universal coverage possible.”

Looking toward the future, Chapin points out that innovative plans are starting to re-emerge in pockets of the country, though they are limited by insurance regulations designed to prevent such practices. Rather than piecemeal workarounds across the country, she suggests a “universal system that grants individuals subsidies to purchase coverage from any medical plan—not just insurance companies.”

“It’s a simple plan for universal care,” Chapin suggests in Dissent. “But it’s also a plan that will drastically reduce costs, encourage doctors to find innovative health care solutions, and liberate the system from corporate control.”

Chapin’s ideas have already sparked conversations across the country, with her New York Times op-ed quickly climbing to top spot as the paper’s most-shared article on its publication day. Learn more about Christy Chapin’s historically-informed perspective on health insurance in The New York Times, Dissent, Forbes, Process, on WYPR, and on EconTalk, one of the nation’s most popular academic podcasts. Read her response to a critique of her work at NewsMax.

Image: Christy Ford Chapin gives a presentation about her work. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.