Please, senator, save the ACA for those who need it - By Aaron Schuerr

Found here. My comments in bold.
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Dear Sen. Daines,

We first met roughly a decade ago when you were the teaching leader for Bible study fellowship, before you launched your political career. In that role you were articulate, dynamic and thoughtful.

During that time, I was the youth group leader at our church and had guest-preached the Sunday sermon. Afterwards you were warm and encouraging, not in an offhanded, “good job” sort of way, but with genuine interest and insight. (Seems like the writer is buttering up Senator Daines so as to deliver a coup de grace.)

You would not have known that during those years my wife and I lacked health insurance. I went without needed medication and suffered from chronic back issues. My wife waited for over a year to get surgery for a torn rotator cuff, (a year in which she could not pick up our three young children or hold them close) until I finally found a doctor that would trade a large painting for the operation. In the world’s greatest economy, we were reduced to bartering for medical care. A year of living with the pain compounded the injury, leading to a more significant surgery and longer recovery.

I’m not being glib to say that we had to live by faith. Though we both worked hard and lived frugally, insurance was well beyond our means. (In other words, he found a way to obtain what he needed, and learned valuable spiritual lessons from doing so.)

With the passage of the ACA, my wife and I found a plan that we could afford. I got long-needed medication and physical therapy. The result is I am healthy and more productive. Access to health care has been transformative for me and my family. (Access which he had before. Everyone has access to healthcare. Not everyone has health insurance.

Having previously embraced a walk of faith and found God took care of his needs, he now forfeits it for the comfort of the government's arms, funded by the forcible extraction of money from other people.)

The overarching message of the gospel is simple and straightforward. “Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:17) Or, as James writes, “But someone will say, ‘You have faith; I have deeds.’ Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.” (James 2:18) Genuine faith shows genuine results. To be transformed doesn’t mean that we live perfectly, it means we live with grace and love, refined day-by-day by the love and forgiveness of God. (I am certain the writer will apply these personal admonitions to the functions of government.)

A Christian should be unsentimental in their pursuit of goodness and free of judgement toward people in need. ("People in need" is a also judgment.)

Therefore, I am genuinely perplexed by the tweet of Vice President Pence: “Before summer’s out, we’ll repeal/replace Obamacare w/ system based on personal responsibility, free-market competition &; state-based reform.” This from a professed Christian. Are their two gospels at work here? One of grace and another of “personal responsibility?” (The write seems confused. Pence is talking about legislation, not grace.)

Christ could heal the sick because he lived among them. He was accessible. He touched the leper, put his fingers on the eyes of a blind man and never turned away from the unclean. He spoke truth to power because he understood the suffering of the people around him.

Sen. Daines, if you would spend just a day in my community, you would see the absurdity of the “personal responsibility” narrative. We are working, and working hard. Access to health care is not about “personal responsibility.” It’s about math. Take away CHIP for my kids and insurance subsidies for my wife and I, and we are faced with a choice: either we pay for health insurance or we pay our mortgage and feed our kids. We cannot do both. Can you imagine being faced with that choice?

I do not understand how you can contemplate stripping millions of their health insurance. You argue that a free-market-fix would unleash the economy’s potential and lift millions out of poverty, but where is the evidence? (Now the writer's true colors are beginning to show. He's a doctrinaire leftist using Christianity as an excuse for government programs. He seems to want Senator Daines to implement a particular version of Christianity in government.)

Are you beholden to your donors? Christ walked among the people, he broke bread with the “undeserving poor.” Whom do you break bread with? (Now comes the hypocrisy charge, as if Daines is partying with the eevil rich and doesn't care about the poor.)

I’m asking you to reconnect with the love and grace that you claimed all those years ago in Bible study fellowship. I’m asking you to listen to those in need. Your faith should inform your politics, not the other way around. (Back at you, Mr. Schuerr. 

And by the way, since when is it acceptable to implement one's religious beliefs in government?)

I am convinced the greatest threat to the church in America is not from liberals and atheists; it is from self-professed Christians who claim truth and righteousness, but do the bidding of the powerful against the powerless. (I am convinced that the greatest threat to the church in America is people like Mr. Schuerr, who interpret his faith through the lens of his politics, who demand that other people conform to his version of Christianity, and who want those people, if they're politicians, to install his particular version of Christianity in government.)

Aaron Schuerr is an artist and lives with his family in Livingston.