Friday 13 January 2017

Repealing Obamacare: How It May Hurt Small Church Pastors and Church Planters Near You

ACA repeal/replace has a lot of implications.

It seems that President-elect Trump is moving full force against a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), tweeting out that “The ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act will soon be history!”

Admittedly, we would find very few people who would say Obamacare has been a great success, especially as premiums have soared in recent years.

When I recently posted on my Facebook page, “I'm interested in the implications of the repeal of Obamacare (ACA) on pastors and church planters. Anyone got any thoughts?” I got quite a few responses, some of which focused on the tremendous increase in premiums.

One person even said, “Over the last 3 years my premium has almost doubled (a 90% increase) for a deductible that went from $500 to $6,000. If my math is right, that's an actual increase of over 1,200% should I have had to use it.”

So, yes, Obamacare has been bad for many and many of the claims about it were false. For example, Politifact named one promise the “lie of the year.”

Furthermore, it is disliked by many people of faith, particularly Evangelicals. There are many reasons for this, but a key one is the unnecessary and (in my view) foolish fight the Obama Administration picked with people of faith. (Hint: don’t pick a fight with a group named “Little Sisters of the Poor.”)

However, many people may be unaware of the impact that such a repeal (without a replace) will have on church planters and small-church pastors. In fact, I constantly talk to church planters who have taken advantage of the ACA and have found it to be one of the only ways they could continue their work and provide for their families.

I asked some pastors and church planters to share, and ...

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