Does Money Equal Life?
Recognize Why And When Cultural Factors Impact Decision Making
John Quincy Archibald (John Q) is a down-on-his luck father, whose insurance won't cover his son's desperately needed heart transplant. As such he takes the hospital's emergency room hostage until the doctors agree to perform the operation. John Quincy Archibald's son Michael collapses while playing baseball as a result of heart failure. John rushes Michael to a hospital emergency room where he is informed that Michael's only hope is a transplant. The diagnosis is frightening. Without a new heart, the boy will most definitely die. Unfortunately, John's insurance won't cover his son's transplant. Because the company he works for dropped John Q from full-time to part-time, his health insurance has been changed and the new policy does not cover the surgery, leaving them to raise 30% ($75,000) of the $250,000 in order to get their son's name on the donor list. Because John Q is running out of time, he's also running out of options. Out of desperation, John Q takes the emergency room staff and patients hostage until hospital doctors agree to do the transplant and save the life of his son. In the end John makes the decision to die so that his son can have his heart. Top
MONEY EQUALS LIFE:Something like a heart-transplant requires more than basic coverage. Why? Because it's still expensive any way you slice it and such specialized care will almost never be included in what our tax-dollars can afford. Top
Questions …
- Is the bottom line to simply keep people comfortable and let them die?
- Is letting people die who could be saved for lack of money the right thing to do?
- On the street the brothers believe: MONEY EQUALS LIFE, are they right?
- Or could it be true, that the brothers are selling themselves short, because LIFE is worth more than MONEY?
FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:
SCRIPTURE: Genesis 2:7, Proverbs 13:22, Matthew 6:25; 16:25; 10:28, John 3:16; 10:10; 14:6, Acts 17:26; 20:24, Romans 6:23; 10:23, 1st Corinthians 4:2, 2nd Peter 1:3 …
KING SOLOMON, the wisest man who ever lived, discovered the futility of LIFE when it is lived only for this world. Solomon gives us his conclusion here:
ECCLESIASTES 12:13-14: "Here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil"
Perhaps the OLD TESTAMENT PROPHET MICAH, who lived in Judah from before the fall of Samaria in 722 B.C. and experienced the devastation brought by Sennacherib's invasion of Judah in 701 B.C., summed up LIFE best when he said:
MICAH 6:8: "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."
In light of all of this, I want to ask you the same question the five men from the tribe of Dan asked their brothers (Judges 18:8): "What say ye?" Top