God’s Plan for Healthcare Reform

I heard Randy Clark say recently, that he feels there’s a “Mt Carmel showdown” coming between healthcare and God’s power to heal. I believe he’s right. The reference was to the battle for supremacy between The prophets of Baal and Elijah—the prophet of Jehovah. The story is told in 1 Kings 18. There had been a division in the land; confusion reigned over which deity was the most powerful God. Though greatly outnumbered, as the prophet usually is—Elijah persevered in the showdown and proved to everyone that his God, Jehovah was in fact the only God.

Healthcare is on the minds of nearly everyone in this season. There’s constant discussion on capitol hill about reforming the nation’s health care system. Many Americans have no insurance. Those who do aren’t too pleased with how it works. I have a long list of aggravating problems that stem from the medical insurance my employer provides. Drug company profits are running high. Many would accuse them of duping doctors into following their greed-driven plan to steer healthcare further into a pharmaceutical fix for everyone. State of the art trauma care is simply not possible in many areas. It’s far too expensive. And while breakthroughs have been made in cures for some diseases, drug-resistant diseases like MRSA and pandemics like H1N1 threaten to cripple our ivory towers of healing.

What will the future of medicine look like? I believe I’ve seen it, and it’s a marvel to behold. God often reveals the future to us in dreams and visions. He showed me something in a dream last year that I believe was a taste of what we’re about to see in the near future. I posted the dream once before, but I’ll post it again because I now understand its context better. This is the dream, taken from my dream journal:

I was walking through St Joseph’s Hospital in Tacoma. There were hundreds of patients there, many were not being seen for a medical problem. They were just there to get a health check-up. They sat in hallways and lobbies socializing. They were all excited about the same thing. They knew that miraculous healings were about to take place, and they wanted to have their healings documented by their doctors. I was seeing patients I had not seen in years. There was a joy I’ve never seen in a hospital. The air was buzzing with conversation—everyone wanted to have their present medical state verified by their doctor so when they were miraculously healed there would be proof of it.

I was excited when I awoke from the dream because I thought I’d be involved in a mass healing event. As I’ve reflected more on the dream and listened to what other prophetic voices are saying, I believe it involves much more than this.

First, I believe God actually took me in the spirit to this particular day in the future to show me what was about to happen. (Something like what the apostle John experienced when he wrote the book of Revelation, see John 16:13). I believe I was witnessing history in advance.

Second, what had taken place was a paradigm shift. People were no longer coming to hospitals for healing. They were coming mainly to have their conditions documented by empirical testing. I didn’t see anyone in the hospital who was there for treatment. The healing was firmly in the hands of God, and everyone knew it. What could change a long-standing tradition like this? Why would people come to a major hospital and completely reject the idea that they could be made better; expecting only to have their conditions verified? Could it be there was an outpouring of miraculous healing on an unbelievable scale? Something like this must have happened to transform the expectations of so many people.

I think God is about to show the medical community its weakness like never before. Well, perhaps since the days Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem. Many prophetic voices have seen a worldwide revival coming. They know the power of the Holy Spirit is at issue in the coming season. It’s about God’s power to heal in unprecedented ways and in unbelievable numbers. And when God brings His healing to our streets, people will apparently have little need for hospitals, insurance premiums, or pharmacies.

There are so many positive things that can come from such a move of God. His healing doesn’t cost a penny. He doesn’t bill insurance companies or require a co-pay and no one who operates in the gift of healing better be charging for it. Many incurable diseases will be dealt a death blow. There is no risk of infection to either the healer or those healed. There was a study published in JAMA in 2000 pointing out that complications from medical procedures is the 3rd leading cause of death in the US. When God heals, He is able to heal body, spirit, and soul – that means mental illness and emotional trauma as well as physical illness and injuries can all be healed. Finally, when God heals we all know it – and He’s the only one we can give the praise to, and that’s how it ought to be.

Am I just dreaming? There’s only one way to find out. My money is on the Lord in the coming battle for supremacy in healthcare. Everyone who is called by His name is able to heal. If every believer healed two or three people a day, we’d soon have no need for hospitals at all. That’s a sobering thought. It may be a reality one day.