Health Care and Lobster Joints

by Jared Crooks
May 1st, 2003

An Interview with Ted Pittenger, President and Founder of Samaritan Ministries

BR: When did you realize that there existed a need for alternative health care and how did you get started?

Pittenger: I was involved with another medical needs sharing organization, just as a subscriber myself, and it seemed like such an excellent idea, the way Christians ought to be responding to health care needs and the current crisis. It just occurred to me one day that why couldn't there be two of these? I didn't know that there was anything else out there except for this particular program I was involved in. So I just started investigating what it would take to set something up…and just began to pursue it. It was kind of a rough road at first—this was back in 1991. It took us three years to get things up to where we were ready to launch.

BR: What do you see as your biggest challenge in the next few years?

Pittenger: The continuing challenge is finding ways to get the word out. Our best advertising is word of mouth—people who are involved with us already telling their friends…it's a tough concept to communicate in just an ad or the radio…There's also always the concern—with Clinton and Hillary, they tried to get national health care put in place. The United States rejected it, but over the last ten years, slowly and incrementally, it's been instituted in other ways—a little bit here, a little bit there…[National health care] would be one of the worst things that could happen to us—to not only Samaritan Ministries but also our nation.

BR: What is your vision for Samaritan Ministries itself, or this kind of model? Do you think it will—or ought—to eventually replace the health care system as we know it, or do you see your organization and its underlying structure as something of a perpetual alternative?

Pittenger: Well, initially it's an alternative. Our niche, in a sense, is fairly small because you have to be a Christian to be a part of it and there are still a lot of companies offering insurance to their employees…But, I think that as prices continue to go up and spiral, you're finding that employers are paying less and less. They're requiring more from their employees as a contribution. I think our way of doing things is becoming more and more attractive. And as far as reforming, yes, we have long-range goals and ideas to impact the whole health care system. Part of the big problem is that when you have someone else paying for it—whether it be an employer or the federal government—anytime you have that happen you lose a sense of value of the benefit. An illustration that I heard recently: if someone told you you could go eat wherever you want and you only have a ten-dollar co-pay—find me the lobster restaurant. But if you yourself have to pay for all of it, then McDonalds sounds just fine. We've lost touch with cost…

BR: Do you think that the current health care system in this country is intrinsically flawed—that is, it can't be reformed—or do you think that there are a lot of different factors, things outside the basic system, that if they were changed a lot of the problems would be solved?

Pittenger: That's kind of a tough call. I would say that you don't have to start over, that it's not broken beyond repair. Probably the biggest quick fix would be to go back to having people pay for it themselves. I think it's economics: if you have to pay for it, you're going to shop around and find the best deal. You're not going to go to Kmart to get surgery, of course, but you're going to shop around and get the best deal for your dollar. Another huge thing that comes to mind is Tort reform. People expect doctors to be gods and never make mistakes, and so they're just getting killed by insurance they have to pay to protect themselves. Obviously you don't want someone who doesn't have a medical degree or is operating on you drunk—I think the law still needs to be there to protect the consumer—but just this stuff we read, people spilling coffee on themselves. It's just stupid. If I were a judge, I'd be throwing out cases left and right. Tort reform will be a driving factor…As a Christian I wouldn't sue my neighbor unless he purposely sawed a tree down so it fell on my house. Things happen. Life happens. I don't have a sense that [the current health care system] is irrevocably broken, but there are a lot of things that will have to change. And that is what we're trying to do, with some of the things down the road.

BR: Where do you see your organization in, say, five years? What are some of your upcoming plans?

Pittenger: We're in the process of starting a not-for-profit foundation specifically designed to raise funds for people with preexisting needs or preexisting bills, if they're looking for help with medical expenses because they weren't part of an organization like ours. We're also working on a clinic and a biblical counseling center.

BR: Personally, what do find to be the most rewarding part of your job?

Pittenger: Just being in the heart of seeing what God is doing in the body of Christ. One the things I've seen that's really unique is that, since we're interdenominational, it's probably one of the few places in the body of Christ where people who might not even talk to each other are praying for each other, and sharing in the financial burden of someone that they might totally disagree with doctrinally—it's just really interesting to me. And seeing the answers to prayer, to see God bringing about miraculous things, and to see the healing—all these things are pretty exciting just to be a part of.

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