A Biblical Solution to the Health Care Crisis: Faith-based medicine (for Republicans)

(Re-post for the current health care debate)

A few years ago Garrison Keillor suggested a way to solve our health care crisis, and it's even more relevant today: impose faith-based medicine on all Republicans. That would reduce, by at least a third, the total US health care cost, while encouraging (okay, requiring) the religious right (and those who go along with them) to practice their faith.

Here's how it would work (with biblical justification, of course).

Sick republicans would ask their religious leaders to pray for them (and maybe get anointed with Crisco oil).

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. --James 5:14-15

Or, if they choose, they can try touching their religious leader's handkerchief or something.

So that from his [Paul's] body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. -- Acts 19:12

But under the faith-based medical plan, Republicans would not be allowed to go to a doctor. Because God is insulted when they trust science more than faith.

And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the LORD, but to the physicians. -- 2 Chronicles 16:12

As Garrison Keillor said

Let them try faith-based medicine, let them pray for their arteries to be reamed and their hips to be restored, and leave science to the rest of us.

Five Golden Hemorrhoids ... and a partridge in a pear tree

Garrison Keillor says that atheists and Jews should "buzz off" at Christmas time and leave the holiday to believers.

But I like Christmas too much to leave it to Mr. Keillor and other mindless bigots.* In fact, I'd like to propose an improvement to one of their carols.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is a fun song, but none of the gifts have much to do with the Bible or Christianity. There are no french hens, leaping lords, or swimming swans in the Bible. And what's with the "Five Golden Rings" thing?

So let's change "Five Golden Rings" to something that has some religious significance. Something that is found in the Bible. Something God would appreciate.

Five Golden Hemorrhoids!
(If you don't know about them, you can read about them here.)

So this Christmas, in honor of Garrison Keillor, whenever you sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" substitute "Five Golden Hemorrhoids" (or "Five Golden Rhoids") for "Five Golden Rings."

God and Garrison Keillor will love you for it!

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Some believers might object by saying that the five golden hemorrhoids were from the Old Testament, so they have nothing to do with Jesus. But if so, they are forgetting that everything in the Old Testament points to Jesus. So the only question is this: How do the five golden hemorrhoids point to Jesus?

And the answer is perfectly obvious: The five golden hemorrhoids represent the five wounds of Christ in the crucifixion. They were fashioned out of gold and given to God as a present in the same way the wise men brought gifts to the baby Jesus at Christmas time.

Like everything else in the Bible, it all makes perfect sense.

Merry Christmas!

*I don't really think Garrison Keillor is a mindless bigot. I think he's just pretending to be one.