Ep 729 ｜ The Unmatched Generosity of Christians ｜ Guest： Andy Schoonover
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Summary
In this episode, we look at a Pew Research study that shows that younger evangelicals are more concerned about climate change than their elders, and why this matters. We also hear from the head of CrowdHealth, a company that helps Christians pay for their health care costs.
Transcript
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Christians give more charity than any other group in the world.
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We will talk about a study that reveals the stunning statistics about how much Christians
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Also, we will look at a few polls that show what Christians think, especially the younger
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generations of Christians about climate change, about same-sex marriage, and what this all
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We will also be talking to the head of a sponsor of this show, CrowdHealth, about what
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his company is doing and how they're helping Christians who have health care costs, how
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we can come together to help each other navigate this medical world and help each other when
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we are going through medical crises and meeting our medical needs.
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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.
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Okay, I wanted to talk about a few interesting studies that I've seen about Christians, what
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The first study that I wanted to look at was a study about climate change.
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I get emails from Pew Research that I signed up for, and sometimes they have a study that
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The title of this study, or the headline advertising this study, is, Younger Evangelicals in the U.S.
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are more concerned than their elders about climate change.
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And this doesn't really surprise me, necessarily.
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If you look at the views of each generation, you will see, whether they're Christian or not,
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each generation gets more progressive, more liberal than the last.
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That is a result of education in this country and the ideology that characterizes most public
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That is also the result of what people see on social media, what they're fed via Snapchat,
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That's the ideology that's pervasive in Hollywood.
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And so all of the forces, all of the secular forces, lean to the left.
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And that has infected, unfortunately, many pulpits.
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Many pulpits who think that they can outlove God by disagreeing with God and what he says
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about marriage and what he says about sexuality and what he says about righteousness and sin.
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And so they are essentially preaching a false gospel that sounds more worldly than it does
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And thus, you have a lot of young people who are confused.
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Now, I'll talk about why I think that is the case when it comes to the climate.
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That's not because I think that it's wrong to care about the environment or we shouldn't
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care about the earth or that we shouldn't recycle or that we should just, you know,
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Of course, I think that we should care about the earth because we read in Genesis that we
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We can have compassion for all of those things while still realizing that there are some
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very serious, very fundamental questions about climate change ideology, because that is what
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No matter how many times they've been disproven, no matter how many Al Gore predictions have been
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And they use the existential, the existential threat of climate change, or so they say is
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an existential threat to scare you into doing what they want you to do for their own political
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And when I say they, I'm talking about those of the World Economic Forum.
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I'm talking about the global politicians that are, for example, shutting down farms in the
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Netherlands that are forcing people to drive electric cars, trying to get rid of gas cars,
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shutting down oil production sites in the United States, only to rely on other terrible countries
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committing all kinds of human rights atrocities for our oil, all in the name of helping the
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environment, trying to stop the production of meat, getting people to eat bugs, all because
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This is going to help us save the world from the deleterious effects of climate change.
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Of course, they don't talk about how healthy the barrier reef is doing.
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They don't talk about all of the cycles of climate change that the universe has gone through
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However, this is really just a premise for them to transform society, for them to take
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more control, and for them to push policies that give them more power and money.
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There's a lot of money, as we have talked about several times, in green energy.
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There's a lot of money in making these windmills and making these solar panels that are also,
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There's a lot of power and a lot of governments and a lot of NGOs when it comes to climate change,
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We'll link a couple past episodes, one that I did with Jackie Daly, and then another one
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that I did recently with an author who talks a lot about the Great Reset and climate change.
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And you can learn a little bit more just about how false a lot of the assertions are when it
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So it doesn't really surprise me that a lot of young people, even young Christians in the
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In the U.S., young adults are more concerned than their elders, both in the overall population
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and within religious groups, about climate change.
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So all U.S. adults, apparently 57%, 57% say that global climate change is an extremely slash
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adults say that the Earth is getting warmer mostly because of human activity.
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I would say that the evidence for that is shaky at best.
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And then they break this down by different belief systems and then also by age.
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And so Republicans are much less likely than Democrats to believe this.
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Only 25% of Republicans say that global climate change is an extremely serious problem versus
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I mean, that's just a clash of worldviews, a clash of facts right there.
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Evangelical Protestants always holding down the fort in the base department.
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Evangelical Protestants always on every single subject.
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It's white Evangelical Protestants, more than Catholics, more than mainline Protestants, more
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Evangelical Protestants are always holding down the fort on the most conservative things.
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34% of Evangelical Protestants say that global climate change is an extremely serious problem.
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And 38% say that it's not a serious problem at all.
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57% of Catholics versus 34% of Evangelical Protestants say that this is an extremely big deal.
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Everyone is looking to be attached to something, to have a cause.
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And so it doesn't surprise me that the religiously unaffiliated, who are almost always Democrats,
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So Evangelical Protestants ages 40 plus, only 31% say that it's an extremely big problem.
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And then 18 to 39-year-olds, that's my category.
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41% say that it's an extremely big problem in the world.
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And 75% say that it's either somewhat or an extremely big problem in the world.
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And so it's really the 40 plus Evangelical Protestants.
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Yeah, the 40 plus Evangelical Protestants, the 40 plus Republicans that are the ones who are
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like putting their stake in the ground and say, no, this is not an extremely big problem.
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Maybe you could say that there are better things that we can do.
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Again, not saying we shouldn't care about the environment.
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But like if you are looking at a list of priorities, it doesn't even come close to the top of the
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Yes, I think also people say that this is a problem.
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Most people don't live their life this way, by the way.
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Some of the biggest advocates of climate change policy are the ones who are flying to the World
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Economic Forum on a private jet several times a year and eating Wagyu beef.
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As the saying goes, they just believe that you shouldn't have access to these things,
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But they can do all of these things because they matter.
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They're not part of the great unwashed as you are.
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And so, of course, they have been very successful in pushing their propaganda because their power
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And so, unfortunately, young people, as young people often are, are kind of taken by a lot
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But let me read you the Bible verse that I always read when it comes to the subject of
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If you're a Christian, you believe the Bible is the word of God.
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We believe that he created the heavens and the earth.
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I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil
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Never will I ever or neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have
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While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and
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That is Genesis 8, 21 through 22, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter,
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There is actually nothing that we can do to quicken the end of the world.
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OK, like this is our father's world and he's got it in his hands.
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That doesn't mean that we should be irresponsible or that we shouldn't care, but he is sovereign
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He has promised that seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night
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So let's do our best to take care of the things that we can.
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But I do not agree with most of climate change policy, which is actually more concerned with
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depopulation than it is actually helping the world.
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We've talked about this many times with Justin Haskins as well.
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And again, we'll link some of those past episodes.
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So young people, and I guess I include myself in that category because Pew said it's 18 through
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39 year olds who believe in a lot of this nonsense.
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Remember the word of God, that God is totally in control and also understand much of climate
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change activism is a religion in itself, which stands opposed to Christianity.
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Evangelical Protestants keep holding down the fort when it comes to this kind of stuff.
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Another study that I wanted to look at in line with that two other studies, but I also thought
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that this was interesting and I meant to talk about it a while ago and just didn't get to it.
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When we've been talking about the so-called Respect for Marriage Act, that redefined something
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that the government doesn't have the power to redefine marriage because it's pre-America,
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Marriage is based on the biological complementarianism of one man and one woman that you do not find
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It is a part of nature and societies all over the world for all of time have recognized
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that special status of the only child-producing and child-protecting institution that exists
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They can write a law saying that a zebra is a dog.
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They can write a law saying marriage is between like a tree and a bike.
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And so a lot of people, however, have gone along with Obergefell, which was decided by
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the Supreme Court in 2015, saying that this is a legal right of any two adults to get
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married, which of course has led to a lot of infringement upon religious liberty and this
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respect for marriage act so-called will only ensure that further.
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However, most Americans believe that gay marriage, same-sex marriage, as it is called,
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is good for society or the legalization of it is good for society.
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Actually, it was only seven years ago when Obergefell was decided.
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And before Obergefell was decided in 2015, still a majority, a slight majority, but the
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majority of Americans did not believe that homosexuality was good for society.
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That shows how fast minds change about things, especially when it's shown to you in the media
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and when it becomes popular and when it becomes comfortable.
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So most Americans, about 60% of Americans say that same-sex marriage is good for society
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and only 19% say it's very bad, 18% say it's somewhat bad, 25% say it's somewhat good and
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So you've got about 61% that say that it's good for society.
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I always think it's interesting how this breaks down when it comes to like male, female and things
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And so for men, there are 40% of men in the United States think that same-sex marriage
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Asian people are actually the most likely, that surprises me, the most likely to say that
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homosexual marriage is good for, or unions are good for society.
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This is going to make the intersectionalists just so distraught.
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Black Americans, least likely to say that same-sex unions are good for society.
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57% versus 61% of whites, 60% of Hispanics, 70% of Asians, 39% of Black Americans say that
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it's bad for society, most likely to say that it's bad for society, which is fascinating because
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about 90% of Black Americans or more vote Democrat.
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Ages 18 to 19, or ages 18 to 29, most likely to be for it.
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So this really is just an issue that most Americans don't really care about.
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They're not really thinking about the morality of it.
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Now, if you break it down, though, by Republican and Democrat, 66% of conservative Republicans
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say that homosexual marriage is bad for society.
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Democrats, 80% say that it is good for society.
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So just like on all things, really, on all issues, Republicans are much more divided and
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much more heterodox across the board than Democrats are.
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Democrats are much more likely to just be a part of groupthink, really, than Republicans
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I know they want to think that it's the opposite, but it's not.
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If you look at, really, how Democrats and Republicans think on every issue, there's a lot more disagreement
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within the Republican Party on these issues than there is in the Democrat Party.
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So we've got white evangelical Protestants taking the lead.
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Is anyone surprised in saying that gay unions are not good for society?
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71% of white evangelical Protestants say that versus only 32% of Catholics.
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Now, two, my lovely Catholic friends, whom I link arms with when it comes to abortion and
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when it comes to a lot of these issues, who I am very thankful for.
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One thing that my Catholic friends say whenever I talk about the Reformation or whether I talk
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about the why I believe in by grace through faith alone, why I'm a Protestant, they will
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say that, oh, we are mourning all of these denominations.
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And the reason why Protestants are so theologically incorrect and they get, you know, things wrong
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Like, I've even seen some Catholics say that, like, Protestant theology is to blame for, like,
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transgenderism and a lot of these liberal issues.
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It's because we believe in reading the Bible ourselves and because we don't look to the
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church or the Catholic church or a pope or one particular teacher to tell us what the
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Bible says and to tell us what the Bible means.
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But we do believe that the individual can have those things.
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Traditions, church is important and all of that.
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And I hear that believing that is what leads to moral relativism, what leads to the acceptance
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But my friends, if you look at white evangelical Protestants versus Catholics, line us up on any
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issue, whether it's marriage, gender, sexuality, abortion, Republican versus Democrat, any of it.
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And we are, in general, we are more conservative, far more conservative in what I would call far
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more in line with scripture when it comes to marriage and gender than statistically, in
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Catholics are far more liberal, far more cultural.
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I'm not talking about those of you who are listening to this podcast and agree with me.
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I'm talking about statistically than Protestants are.
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I always find that argument interesting that Protestants have, like, led to liberalism when,
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in general, Protestants are actually far more conservative on these issues than, in general,
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I personally believe that that is actually the importance of knowing the Word of God yourself
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And I'm very thankful that Catholics, especially in recent years, there have been amazingly popular
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podcasts that are walking Catholics through the Bible.
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Like, the rise of the Bible study and the personal study of scripture.
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I know that a lot of Catholics don't like the Protestant Reformation, don't like Martin Luther,
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And I am glad that in recent years, in recent decades, Catholics have come on board, like,
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I think that reading the Word of God is what drives someone to be conservative.
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Um, and so that's what I think the difference is.
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And I always just think that it's a little bit of a strange argument when my Catholic friends
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try to throw that in my face and say that Protestantism leads to liberalism.
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That just doesn't seem to be statistically true.
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So I don't think it's a surprise, then, that a lot of Republicans, obviously, are on board
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with something like the Respect for Marriage Act.
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It is surprising, though, that they are willing to do so without any religious liberty protections
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whatsoever, which is what they have essentially done, especially in the Senate.
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They don't even care about trying to serve their constituents who simply say, hey, just
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Don't force me to say something I don't want to say or do something that I don't want to
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And some Republicans in the House and the Senate don't even care about that.
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It's not surprising to me that they have embraced this new redefinition of marriage.
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It is disappointing to me that they have decided that our religious liberty shouldn't even be
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protected and that sexual rights are more important than constitutional rights.
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Last study that I wanted to talk about before we get into a short interview was a study about
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the importance of philanthropy and who is actually giving, who is giving in society today.
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I saw a tweet and it is, it was by Scott Salls and he tweeted this, Christian philanthropy
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accounted for 70% of all American philanthropy in 2022 at $300 billion total.
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Christians also outgave the U.S. government in addressing global poverty.
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Whatever folks might say or think, the church remains a seismic value add to the world.
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So this is actually from Philanthropy Roundtable.
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They are the source of this study and they look at this stuff every year and they look
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And Christians worldwide are fighting poverty more effectively than the U.S. government and
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are giving more money than even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Christians are the ones who are carrying on their backs the needs of the most vulnerable
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I mean, we're talking billions of billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars of
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hard-earned money that Christians give every year to organizations that are fighting poverty,
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that are fighting sex trafficking, that are advocating for adoption, that are helping children,
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that are helping the poor around the world, the most vulnerable and marginalized people
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Christians are helping, but also through their time and through their energy, service, hours
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are being given to these communities by Christians.
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Now, religious affiliation in the United States, as Philanthropy Roundtable notes, has gone down.
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In 1972, 95% of Americans identified as Christians.
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And then in 2016, that was 71%, according to Pew Research, and that's even lower than that.
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And yet, Pew or Philanthropy Roundtable notes that the greatest indicator of whether or not someone
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is going to give to charities in any given year is still religious affiliation.
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Now, they asked those that they polled this question, churches, synagogues, and other houses
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of worship contribute blank to solving important social problems.
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So 21% in 2001 said that churches, synagogues, and other houses of worship contribute nothing
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So 40%, and now even more, are saying, well, the church really isn't that significant.
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And 51% are saying that religion is actually the problem in our society rather than the solution.
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57% say that good works and charitable work, all the charitable work that we see, all the money
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that's given, would all still happen if there were no people of faith or religious organizations
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You have to be completely, completely detached from reality, know nothing about history whatsoever,
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know nothing about charity in the United States, know nothing about who built the hospitals,
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who built the adoption agencies, who built the orphanages, who built the universities.
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You have to literally know nothing about charitable giving at all to make a statement like that.
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And yet, when we look at the numbers, they asked, who did the volunteer work?
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They say that Pew Research Center investigators examined the behavior of a large sample of the
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They found that among Americans who attend services weekly and pray daily, 45% had done volunteer
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work that week versus only 27% among the rest of the population.
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They also found that Americans who go to church weekly and pray daily are much more likely to
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gather with extended family, to have more of a community, to have more of family connections
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in their lives. Also, I think this is all connected together, gave to the poor in the past seven
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days. This was a question that was asked. 65% of Americans who attend church weekly and pray daily
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gave to the poor in the past seven days versus only 41% of other Americans. They also found
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that two-thirds of people who worship at least twice a month give to secular causes even,
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compared to less than half of non-attenders. And the average secular gift by a church attender
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is 20% bigger. And this was also documented by the New York Times a couple years ago,
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that Republican counties give far more on average in charity than blue counties do. And I think one
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of the reasons for that is because red counties are mostly Christian, and it's mostly Christian
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conservatives who are giving the money, who are donating to charity.
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Religious charity dominates U.S. philanthropy. America's tradition of voluntary charitable giving
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is one of the clearest markers of U.S. exceptionalism. As a fraction of our income,
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we donate over two and a half times as much as Britons do, more than eight times as much as Germans,
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and at 12 times the rate of the Japanese, American religiosity plays the central role in that
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distinctive pattern. That is what de Tocqueville said hundreds of years ago about America,
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that the thing that distinguishes us from every other country is our Christianity. It is what makes
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us hard workers. It is what has driven the beliefs that we do about human beings and about human rights.
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It is what has righted our wrongs throughout history. It is what has always helped us correct course
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to get closer to the ideals and ideas upon which we were founded, that all men and women are created
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equal and are given certain inalienable rights by the God who created us. It is what has made America
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exceptional. And it is the reason for our chaos. The reason for our weakness today is because of the
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abandonment of those Christian values. That's it. The annual Given USA tabulation show a third of our
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donations is going to religious causes in the U.S. But Given USA statisticians acknowledge that this is
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an underestimate. Their calculations include only gifts to houses of worship and related mission
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organizations. But there are a lot of organizations that are excluded from that. Most U.S. charity is
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religious. 41% goes to congregations. 27% goes to groups with no religious ties. And 32%
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goes to religious charities. So 73% of all American charitable giving goes to religious causes and to
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churches. Also, religious Americans adopt children at two and a half times the overall national rate.
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They play a particularly large role in fostering and adopting troubled and hard to place kids. Local
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church congregations aided by umbrella groups like Catholic Charities provide most of the day-to-day
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help that resettles refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the U.S. Research shows that the bulk of volunteers
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mentoring prisoners and their families, both while they are incarcerated and after they are released, are
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Christians, eager to welcome offenders back into society. The educational alternative that draws most of the
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headlines today is charter schooling, which serves 3 million children, much less acknowledges the fact that
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3.8 million children are educated every year in religious schools. These religious schools offer
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qualitative advantages. Their students experience less violence and bullying and feel more secure,
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exhibit better citizenship skills, are more engaged with their community, and produce average SAT scores
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more than 100 points higher than public school students. Religious hospitals care for one out of
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every five U.S. hospital patients. Catholic institutions account for 16% of all hospital beds,
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and additional large care health care systems are run by Adventists, Baptists, Methodists, Jews,
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and other faith groups. Faith-based organizations are at the forefront of both care and recovery for
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the homeless. A 2017 study found that 58% of the emergency shelter beds in 11 surveyed cities are
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maintained by religious providers. Local congregations provide 130,000 alcohol recovery programs. This
00:31:08.520
honestly can kind of make me cry. Local congregations provide 120,000 programs that assist the unemployed in
00:31:15.200
the United States. Local church congregations provide 26,000 programs to help people living with HIV and
00:31:22.100
AIDS, one ministry for every 46 people infected with the virus. Churches recruit a large portion of the
00:31:27.840
volunteers needed to operate organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, America's
00:31:32.840
thousands of food pantries and feeding programs, Big Brothers, Big Sisters, the Red Cross, and other
00:31:37.640
volunteer-dependent churches. It is really incredible, really incredible the impact that the church still
00:31:46.600
has today. And I don't think that those who demonize the church recognize everything that is going to be
00:31:53.420
missing when you get your wish of being able to tax churches out of oblivion, when the state is able to
00:31:59.920
control what the church can and can't say. There's a lot of people that think that we should remove the
00:32:05.760
tax-exempt status of churches because they shouldn't be given special privileges. You have no idea what
00:32:13.000
you will be taking away from communities and from the most vulnerable when you do that. And honestly,
00:32:19.060
I don't think that those activists care at all. They just want more power to the state and less power to
00:32:24.700
churches, less influence of churches. I mean, that will lead to death. That will lead to all kinds of
00:32:32.660
further atrocities and deprivation far beyond our imagination. The church, the Christian church,
00:32:39.860
is the greatest force for good in the world, has been for 2,000 years. That doesn't mean that people
00:32:45.700
haven't done bad things in the name of Christianity. Of course they have. It doesn't mean people haven't
00:32:49.520
wrought destruction in the name of Jesus. Of course they have. But the true living church of God around
00:32:55.220
the world, the little c Catholic church, meaning the universal church, has done more good for more
00:33:01.420
people than any other institution, than any other force by far. And a great example of that is my next
00:33:09.720
guest. He is the owner of a company called CrowdHealth. And CrowdHealth is changing how we do
00:33:17.420
health care coverage. It's a community of Christians coming together to help cover each other's health care
00:33:22.760
costs without getting in the winding and troubled web of health insurance. And so this is a great
00:33:32.300
conversation and a good way for us to get involved and to help more people. And just encouraging to see
00:33:38.840
what Christians are doing for each other. So as views change and as younger generations are still
00:33:44.680
trying to work out what the Word of God actually says about all of these issues, let us be encouraged by
00:33:49.520
the fact that God is still on the move and he is still using Christians to be ambassadors of truth
00:33:54.360
and goodness. So without further ado, here is our conversation with the CEO of CrowdHealth.
00:34:07.580
Andy, thanks so much for joining us. All right. Could you tell us who you are and what you do?
00:34:12.900
Yeah, sure. Name is Andy Schoonover. I'm the CEO and founder of CrowdHealth,
00:34:18.260
which is a new, innovative way of paying for health bills. I started the company because
00:34:26.280
a few years back, I had health insurance, went on healthcare.gov and got health insurance I thought
00:34:33.000
was my only option. And I kind of joked that it worked until I had to use it. My little one,
00:34:38.980
who was one at the time, was having recurring ear infections. And so we went to the ear, nose and
00:34:43.480
throat doctor who told us that she needs tubes in her ears. If you're a parent out there,
00:34:47.520
I'm sure many of you have gotten the same message. So went to the local hospital,
00:34:52.420
got tubes in her ears. It was a 15 minute procedure and it was $8,000. And I was just
00:34:57.860
blown away by that. But not only that, a few weeks later, I got something from my health
00:35:02.740
insurance plan that said that it was medically unnecessary and so they weren't going to pay for
00:35:08.380
it. So as a result of that, we started a new company because we thought that people can do better
00:35:13.720
than what health insurance is currently offering us. And so we're really excited about this service
00:35:21.460
and excited to tell you more and your audience more about it.
00:35:24.060
Yeah. Tell us. I mean, obviously my faithful audience who listens to all the episodes has
00:35:31.100
probably heard me talk about crowd health before, but it's always different to hear it from the person
00:35:36.900
who started it. So you told us the origin story, but just tell us what it is, what its mission is
00:35:45.880
Sure. Yeah. No. So it's, it's totally different from health insurance, totally different from health
00:35:50.920
shares, which I'm sure your audience is familiar with. You know, the way that we work is every month
00:35:55.700
you put $175 into an account, that account is yours. Um, and that money accumulates over time
00:36:04.200
so that when somebody in the, um, community has a health problem, let's just say that my daughter
00:36:09.920
falls off her bike and has a $5,000, um, health bill, I'll pay the first $500 of that. And then
00:36:16.540
crowd health will go to the community and say, Hey, can we get 45 of you to give a hundred dollars
00:36:22.140
from that account that you set up to help Andy's family with that broken arm. Um, and if you say
00:36:28.280
yes, then a hundred dollars is transferred from your account to my account. Um, and you know,
00:36:34.780
eventually we'll have, you know, the $4,500 to, to pay for my, my daughter's, uh, you know,
00:36:40.980
falling off of her, her bike or broken arm or whatever it is. Um, you know, I think the cool thing
00:36:45.240
about this is, you know, generally with health insurance companies, you're paying into a, you know,
00:36:51.040
this pot, um, and it disappears, right. You never see that again. Um, and this is, you actually know
00:36:57.840
that you're helping Andy's, uh, family in Austin, Texas pay for, um, his daughter's broken arm. And
00:37:06.000
so, you know, you think that, that there's a humanity to that, that, um, you don't get with
00:37:11.320
having a health plan or even some of these health shares. And so we think that's just a cool thing.
00:37:17.120
We're trying to bring humanity back to healthcare. And one difference too, from insurance providers
00:37:23.160
is that there are no doctor's networks and there's not a whole lot of restrictions that people have
00:37:27.620
to worry about. Right. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, one of the things that I know my wife asked
00:37:32.780
me when we think about health insurance is like, can we go to the same pediatrician? Can I go to the
00:37:37.320
same OBGYN? Can I do those? And, you know, we allow people other than, you know, we had that famous
00:37:42.680
statement back in, you know, what it was 10 years ago, you can keep your own doctor, right? Which
00:37:47.260
actually wasn't the case. Um, and someone stood up and said, you lie and he was right. We won't
00:37:54.080
mention any names, but, um, you know, in this case, it's literally, there's no doctor networks. So you
00:37:59.060
can go to whoever you want. Um, we just asked that for the big events that you come to us and let you
00:38:05.200
help you find a really high quality doctor at a really good price. So we had a woman up in Dallas who
00:38:12.620
needed a, um, who's going through cervical cancer right now. So she needed a full hysterectomy.
00:38:17.980
She went to her local, uh, hospital in Dallas who told her that it was going to be $40,000.
00:38:23.300
She called us and she said, wow, you know, like I really feel bad for the community because I don't
00:38:27.680
want to burden them. You know, can you guys find me a better place to do this? And we found a doctor
00:38:31.780
who was actually, um, better at this procedure, um, and for $9,000. So that's a 75% savings versus what
00:38:42.080
their local hospital could do. So yeah, we just asked people to let us help them find a really
00:38:46.280
good doc at a real, really great price. Which is what everyone wants anyway. So the fact that that
00:38:52.820
is a service that y'all provide helping people find good doctors and the fact that this is a
00:38:57.700
community, there is, uh, there's a lot of benefit to that if you're trying to find a good provider,
00:39:04.080
because someone over here says, oh yeah, you know, I have a, an aunt down in Dallas. She just went
00:39:09.540
through breast cancer. She loved her surgery, whatever it is. There is a benefit to that,
00:39:14.740
that really can't be provided by your typical insurance company. Yeah. And we don't, we don't
00:39:20.660
want you to have to negotiate with your doctor. Like that seems like an awkward thing. Um, and I
00:39:25.680
don't particularly like negotiating for a used car or whatever it ends up being. It's like, um, let us
00:39:31.220
go in and ask your doctor to, you know, if we can pay them cash, if you can pay them cash, ultimately
00:39:37.380
on the day of that procedure, you know, will they give you a discount for that? And we're seeing
00:39:42.540
anywhere from 30% to 80% discounts by actually just paying them in cash on the day of that, that
00:39:49.260
procedure. You know, these doctors are typically not getting paid for 60, 90, 120 days from the health
00:39:55.720
insurance plan. It takes them, it costs them about 30% of their revenue to actually bill a health
00:40:02.260
insurance plan. So these doctors are our biggest advocates. There are huge fans. They don't want
00:40:08.260
to deal with the health insurance plans. You know, they want to deal with the health insurance plans
00:40:12.000
less than you want to deal with the health insurance plans. And so they, they love crowd
00:40:15.920
health. And actually, I think it's the second, maybe the third largest group of crowd health
00:40:20.300
members are doctors. Um, interestingly enough, you know, I'm wondering if you guys have
00:40:25.860
come up against any kind of political or regulatory obstacles, because I could see how insurance
00:40:33.720
companies and politicians who are kind of funded by, uh, some of these lobbyists and insurance
00:40:40.040
companies don't like you guys and probably don't want you to grow. So is that something that you guys
00:40:47.520
have experienced? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I've kind of termed it the medical industrial complex,
00:40:52.600
which is, you know, these big health insurance plans, these big hospitals are funding these
00:40:58.400
government officials who are making legislation that, um, help them that create barriers to entry.
00:41:04.960
And so, yeah, for sure. We've, we've had some, some interest from, you know, primarily the politically
00:41:11.780
left to our income to this Medicare for all, you know, mentality. Um, and we don't think that the
00:41:18.180
government should be involved in our healthcare. I am adamantly against that. That's a hill I will die
00:41:22.540
on. Um, and so I think, you know, we need to bring healthcare back to, to individuals, you know,
00:41:28.760
just a quick, quick story is we had a member who's 19 years old, um, who got her hand caught in the
00:41:35.780
prop of a boat over the summertime. And so this was a big bill, tens of thousands of dollars, as you can
00:41:41.440
imagine. We went to crowdfund surgery and exactly. Yeah. Reattachment, all physical therapy, all these
00:41:47.980
things. So we went to our group of people and we said, Hey, will you help this 19 year old in
00:41:52.820
Tennessee? And, um, we actually had people come back and said, you know what, I want to give more
00:41:57.600
to this person. Like, I want to get more than what you've asked for to this person, you know? And so
00:42:02.280
to me, it's like, man, like that's bringing humanity back to healthcare. Cause these, these big health
00:42:07.420
plans, like you don't know where your money is going. You know, if you're on Medicare or some of these
00:42:11.780
big government plans or Medicaid, like you send your money to the government and you have no idea
00:42:16.280
where, you know, your money is going. And I truly believe that, you know, over a period of time,
00:42:21.220
starting probably in the seventies, the government and insurance companies have wedged themselves in
00:42:26.660
between us and our neighbors and have kind of alleviated us from the responsibility of like
00:42:32.720
truly loving our neighbor. Well, um, and so, you know, what we're trying to do is ultimately is,
00:42:39.140
is saying, Hey, you know, like you can love your neighbor well through healthcare by helping somebody
00:42:44.040
else in need when they need it. And like, that is fundamentally the mission that we're trying to
00:42:48.820
kind of reestablish here is kind of a sense of generosity of loving your neighbor within healthcare.
00:42:54.160
Cause we've been doing that for hundreds of years and it wasn't until the seventies where
00:42:57.160
these health plans basically said, no, we're not going to allow you to do that anymore.
00:43:00.980
Yes. I think people have noticed maybe more than ever over the past, than over the past couple of
00:43:06.060
years, that there is a war on interdependence and that there is a war on community dependence.
00:43:12.640
There is a war on the family and communities and churches relying on one another, taking away that
00:43:18.680
interdependence, bringing people into isolation, which forces people then to depend on the state for
00:43:24.080
a variety of needs. And the medical industrial complex, again, as we saw over the past couple of
00:43:29.240
years, plays a really big role in that isolation and dependence on the government. And so this is a,
00:43:37.600
maybe seemingly for some people, small, but really impactful way to wage a war against that push for
00:43:48.080
isolation and against the interdependence and the loving of neighbor that God calls us to.
00:43:55.240
We talk a lot like, what can we do? What can we do? The powers that be are trying to drive us into,
00:44:01.020
you know, globalism and dependence on the states. And I've always said, localization and community
00:44:10.020
dependence is one way that you can push back against the powers that be that are trying to
00:44:15.960
drive us apart. And this is one way to do that. One last question that I have.
00:44:21.860
Just real quick, I wouldn't say this is a small way. Like this is, you know, that the health care
00:44:27.260
is $4 trillion that we spend every single year. Like this is the largest industry on the planet.
00:44:33.540
Right. And the government is slowly but surely trying to take away that component of our decision
00:44:40.980
making process. And so, you know, if the government is able to suck up, you know, $4 trillion worth of
00:44:46.820
our own money, you know, ultimately, then, you know, I think that's a problem. And I think we've
00:44:53.340
seen it even with healthcare.gov, which it is, you know, these third party insurance plans that are
00:44:58.820
on these healthcare.govs, but it is subsidized by us, the taxpayers for, you know, everybody up to like
00:45:05.080
three or 400% of the poverty line. So in essence, what they've done with healthcare.gov over the last
00:45:09.900
literally three months is they've expanded the subsidies on that, which in essence is what it's doing is
00:45:15.260
it's expanding Medicaid. And so I think that's a problem. And so, you know, if your listeners get
00:45:22.240
come away with nothing else, I would say, you know, you may be in a decision process right now
00:45:27.220
on where to get your healthcare. You know, you can go to your state marketplace or healthcare.go,
00:45:32.980
depending on what state you're in. All I'm saying is that action actually props up a government
00:45:39.640
ownership of your healthcare. And so whether it be CrowdHealth or HealthShare or some other
00:45:44.600
alternative, you know, I would, I, all I would ask your, your audience to do is consider an
00:45:48.460
alternative. Yes. And that's why I said seemingly small way, because I think some people would see
00:45:54.760
it as well. What difference can I make in making this choice? This is just me. This is just one
00:45:59.500
family. This is just one individual that's making that choice. It's seemingly small, but of course,
00:46:04.120
just like all choices collectively, they can make a huge difference. And so you're absolutely right.
00:46:08.380
We just saw it in the elections, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. One last question that I have
00:46:13.360
before I close this out, something that people are growing increasingly concerned about when it comes
00:46:18.160
to their insurance. And certainly if they are dependent upon government insurance or government
00:46:25.500
coverage is paying for through their dollars, surgeries that don't align with their values,
00:46:34.400
like abortion or like the kind of transgender surgeries that we are seeing that people are just
00:46:42.400
not comfortable with. So I know it might be like a tough question. I don't want to put you on the
00:46:47.480
spot, but how does your company deal with that? Cause I know a lot of Christians listening in this
00:46:51.080
audience, they don't want any part of that. Yeah, no, it's not a tough question at all. It's probably
00:46:55.620
the easiest question yet. It's like, I'm a believer. I will not allow my company to fund anything that
00:47:00.700
are against biblical principles. And so you have my word that that's not going to happen. So before
00:47:07.220
CrowdHealth, I was in a faith-based ministry that I ran. And so you can, your audience can be assured
00:47:13.280
that that will not happen. Amen. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. And as my audience will
00:47:20.700
hear me say later this week, when I read the actual ad, if people go to joincrowdhealth.com, you can use
00:47:26.900
my code Allie. You said it's typically $175 a month, correct? But with my code, it's $99 a month for
00:47:34.000
the first six months, which is an amazing deal. You save a lot of money. Plus you're going to save
00:47:39.260
a lot of money with this anyway. And so thank you so much. Thanks for just obeying the Lord and going
00:47:45.960
out and starting something. A lot of people talk about doing things and making a difference and
00:47:50.380
it's just lip service and you're actually doing it. So thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
00:47:56.380
Thank you. And thank you for everything you do as well.