I may make people upset with this post, but I wanted to share thoughts I’ve had all year that were made clear at a conference I attended this week about healthcare and barriers to access. It’s all about money. And something has to change.And the only way change will happen is if we’re willing to listen to understand, to humbly admit that maybe there’s a better way, and to look out for the most vulnerable.
Healthcare should not be a partisan issue, and until we look at this in a nonpartisan fashion, it’s only going to get worse.
These are raw thoughts, and I know I will continue to ponder these ideas, but I wanted to process some of them through this post today.
“What good is one’s money unless one uses it for the good of the community and humanity in general?” – Milton Hershey
As a tour guide at Highpoint Mansion, I share the incredible story of Milton and Catherine Hershey’s generosity. Their legacy—which includes the creation of a school that continues to change the lives of thousands of children—is about far more than chocolate. It is a powerful example of ethical financial stewardship. They lived out the spiritual imperative found in Scripture: to use wealth to do good. To do unto others as you’d have them do to you.
But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.
– 1 Timothy 6:9-10
This ideal of selfless wealth, however, stands in stark contrast to the reality 2025 has revealed to so many of us. My eyes have been opened to the pervasive, corrupting power of money in our culture, politics, and especially our healthcare. I always knew it was an issue, but the happenings of this year have made it obvious, and something has to change.
Funding the Oligarchy
The money we spend is funding a growing oligarchy in this country. From observing the invited guests at the inauguration to the continuing felt impact of Citizens United, it is apparent that politics are being influenced by those who benefit most from the policies being developed. The wealthiest among us are not using their resources for the “good of the community,” but rather to secure their own positions, dictating policy for personal profit.
This is a betrayal of the very concept of wealth as a tool for blessing.
In 2025, this administration (and Project 2025) eliminated so many of the programs that made us a force for good and stability in the world (like USAID). The United States was once seen for the good it did, for the way it used its abundant wealth to help those with much less. That’s not true anymore.
People around the world are suffering, and we are responsible.
No one chooses where they are born, or the economic situation of their country.
As U2 said in their song Crumbs From Your Table, “Where you live should not decide whether you live or whether you die.”
This is heartbreaking.
The biblical command to the rich is clear (and this is just one example of many):
Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud and not to trust in their money, which is so unreliable. Their trust should be in God. Tell them to use their money to do good. They should be rich in good works and generous to those in need, always being ready to share with others. By doing this they will be storing up their treasure as a good foundation for the future so that they may experience true life.
– 1 Timothy 6:17-19
We have politicians making massive cuts to Medicaid (while claiming they aren’t), a decision that will impact the most vulnerable among us. We have Christian Nationalism on the rise while our government policies are less and less like Jesus. None of this is okay.
The Deadly Cost of Profit-Driven Healthcare
Nowhere is the cancer of greed more apparent than in healthcare in the U.S., where the desire for profit is actively harming patients. The influence of billionaires is dictating clinical care, and we see politics influencing science when it should be the other way around.
As a speaker at a conference I attended recently noted, we are in a remarkable age of science with treatments that were only dreamed of a generation ago now within reach. Yet, we have policies in place—regulatory, reimbursement, and supply chain—that actively undermine science instead of supporting it.
And, this undermining often comes from the payers (insurance).
In a field that pledges to “do no harm,” patients are at the center of systemic harm.
“Healthcare should be based on the ideal patient experience, not who will benefit financially.”
– Melissa Horn
Here are just a few examples:
Denied Care:
Entire medical teams determine the best course of action, only to have insurance companies say no.
Patients wait months for a specialist, only to be told it’s “not in the plan” or “not medically necessary.”
Or, payers force patients to try medications that do not work for the patient (step therapy or fail first), causing irreparable decline in many cases.
Financial Ruin: Co-pays are so high that patients simply cannot afford the necessary care, or they acquire vast amounts of medical debt.
Lost Time and Life: All of this creates unnecessary burden and pain, costing not just money, but health and lives. And those costs to health, work, and family time are unrecoverable.
Lack of Timely Diagnosis: Disparities in healthcare create diagnostic odysseys that harm patients. This includes the disparities from state to state in Newborn Screening.
“I have lost years of my life switching medicines unnecessarily just to get back to where I already was.”
Donna Cryor
While I would never expect people who do not follow Jesus to adhere to biblical principles (because Christian Nationalism is not a good thing), given the professions of faith in this administration, it is a problem that they are actively going against the teachings of Jesus in the policies they create.
They are actively harming the poor, the sick, and the hungry, all while they claim to follow Jesus with their words.
“We are making patients fight battles they do not have the time, money, knowledge, or understanding to navigate. It disproportionately impacts the most vulnerable.”
Dr. David Charles
We see the number of billionaires in this country growing each year. We see them profiting off of us. And we’ve been conditioned to think this is normal.
Meanwhile, in the rare disease advocacy space, we are scraping by, trying to fund research and treatments ourselves, while billionaires are influencing the very policies that make our lives more difficult and our advocacy impossible.
They have the power to change the world for good, to end hunger, to do so many good things, and instead they choose to make life more difficult for the average citizen. And we just smile and nod because it’s the only way we’ve ever known.
The Antidote
The love of money is not just the root of personal evil; it is creating a country of disparity and scarcity, marked by a broken system that people are too scared to fix. And we are being told that it’s unfixable by those who benefit most from its failure.
I never understood the arguments for universal healthcare until I entered the rare disease advocacy space. While those systems aren’t perfect, they are certainly better than what we have now. At the very least, I see the merits of non-profit healthcare.
We have been indoctrinated to believe that our way in the U.S. is the best way, and to think otherwise is unpatriotic.
What is truly unpatriotic is deliberately causing harm while the rich get richer—or even worse, when the rich grow richer because of the harm they are causing.
Something has to change. Lives literally depend on it.
Even So, Joy 