RPF0495-Marijuana_and_HCSM
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00:00:26.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,
00:00:29.000 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now, while
00:00:34.000 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less and protecting that plan from
00:00:38.000 | financial catastrophe.
00:00:40.000 | Question on today's show comes in from Curran, who says, "On the most recent Q&A, I had a
00:00:46.000 | follow-up question on Samaritan Ministries. We're fellow Samaritan users and are very
00:00:50.000 | pleased with the program. I was particularly drawn to the occasional celebratory cigar
00:00:55.000 | clause as well, and when my wife had emergency surgery this spring, I was very impressed
00:00:59.000 | with the personal involvement in the medical expense process it gave us while also fully
00:01:04.000 | covering the more than $60,000 need. It seems like if more people were using this sort of
00:01:09.000 | solution, we would be moving toward a more rational, national approach to health care.
00:01:16.000 | My question is this. In speaking about Samaritan to a pastor friend, he threw out the scenario
00:01:21.000 | that your middle school-age son is injured in an accident while riding in a friend's car,
00:01:28.000 | and the police find marijuana in the car. What happens? When I asked a Samaritan representative
00:01:34.000 | about it, he said their board would carefully review the situation, and if they deemed that
00:01:39.000 | your son wasn't responsible for or aware of the pot, then his injury would be covered.
00:01:45.000 | If he was responsible or aware, then he would not be covered. While my kids are all under
00:01:50.000 | 8 right now, and this scenario is a ways off as a possibility for us, I'm concerned that
00:01:55.000 | when they reach middle or high school age, I may need to look into alternatives for a
00:01:59.000 | couple of reasons. One, I'm not fully convinced of an investigatory board's ability to discern
00:02:06.000 | for sure in such a scenario what was going on, and two, while I'm teaching my kids to
00:02:12.000 | obey their parents and the civil authorities, they're still sinners, and growing up being
00:02:15.000 | a learning process, I'm concerned that if one of my kids made a stupid choice as a 14-year-old,
00:02:21.000 | it could significantly haunt the whole family for a long time. What are your thoughts on
00:02:27.000 | medical sharing plans in this sort of scenario?
00:02:31.000 | And obviously, this is just one example of the many ways a child could make a sinful
00:02:35.000 | and stupid decision while still under their parents' care that could have long-term
00:02:38.000 | ramifications. Thanks again, Curran. Well, Curran, it's a good question. Let me give
00:02:42.000 | just about two minutes of background for listeners who may not be familiar with the context.
00:02:48.000 | Samaritan Ministries is one of the popular healthcare sharing ministries, which are not
00:02:54.000 | insurance companies. They are religious organizations that – wherein the members who
00:03:00.000 | subscribe to these organizations agree to pay one another's – or to support one another
00:03:06.000 | in their medical expenses. So functionally, it can functionally serve in some ways like
00:03:13.000 | insurance to help somebody pay their medical expenses. And the story here that Curran
00:03:18.000 | shared, his wife had surgery and his fellow members in Samaritan Ministries contributed
00:03:23.000 | up to $60,000 to pay the $60,000 bill. But it is not health insurance. And since it is
00:03:29.000 | not health insurance, the religious organizations of which Samaritan Ministries is one,
00:03:35.000 | it's the one that my family and I choose to use, they have different requirements and
00:03:41.000 | different concerns versus traditional health insurance. And so as an example, because – and
00:03:48.000 | each of the organizations is different. But because these organizations are explicitly
00:03:54.000 | religious, their guidelines and the functioning guidelines and rules by which the company
00:03:59.000 | operates will be different than non-explicitly religious organizations. The basic functional
00:04:08.000 | ideology of Samaritan Ministries specifically and the others function similarly with regard
00:04:14.000 | to paying for medical bills and encouraging members to participate in the payment of
00:04:19.000 | medical bills basically boils down to two things. Number one, the organization will
00:04:25.000 | encourage people to participate in the payment of medical bills for anything that is not
00:04:30.000 | explicitly contrary to Christian doctrine. So Curran's wife's emergency surgery was
00:04:36.000 | covered. But if Curran's wife desired to have a surgery, for example, sterilization
00:04:41.000 | surgery, that would not be covered by Samaritan Ministries because that would be considered
00:04:45.000 | to be contrary to Christian doctrine and contrary to the Christian doctrine as explicitly
00:04:50.000 | defined in the Samaritan Ministries guidelines. The second idea is not to cover certain types
00:04:56.000 | of medical treatment if the reason, the impending – the cause of that treatment has been a
00:05:02.000 | circumstance that involves a sinful behavior or action of a participant, of a member. And
00:05:10.000 | that's why the example that Curran gives here with a 14-year-old child using marijuana
00:05:15.000 | or being suspected of using marijuana and then having a car accident and having medical
00:05:21.000 | expenses coming from that, that's why this is particularly poignant.
00:05:26.000 | And there are other examples as well. For example, Samaritan Ministries, if – what
00:05:32.000 | example to use? If, for example, if you contracted a venereal disease or something like HIV/AIDS,
00:05:38.000 | the circumstances of the contraction are very important as to whether they will help to
00:05:45.000 | pay for the treatment or not. If the disease was contracted during homosexual activity
00:05:50.000 | or during adulterous activity, then the treatment for that disease is explicitly rejected and
00:05:57.000 | not covered. But if it were contracted under other circumstances such as body fluid transfer
00:06:05.000 | or something under circumstances like that, then it is covered. So they're very, very
00:06:08.000 | careful about it and they're careful to lay this out.
00:06:11.000 | Now, for many people, these types of restrictions and things is very shocking. It's very shocking
00:06:17.000 | to many people that there would be people who believe that this is an appropriate way
00:06:22.000 | to handle it. For example, one of the – I got several emails when I previously did a
00:06:27.000 | show on healthcare sharing ministries, several very irate listeners when I talked about child
00:06:33.000 | birth. So the ministries has a requirement for those who – child birth, they will pay
00:06:39.000 | for child birth – they will share the need for child birth expenses. I'm trying to
00:06:44.000 | use the explicit non-insurance language. They will share the need for child birth expenses
00:06:49.000 | for children who are conceived in marriage. But if a child is conceived outside of marriage
00:06:55.000 | in a fornication relationship or an adulterous relationship, then they don't. They don't
00:07:01.000 | share those needs. So this is very shocking to people. Many people wrote me emails, "How
00:07:05.000 | can a – this is so un-Christian. How can people not care for the needs?" But this
00:07:10.000 | is very important to many Christians that an organization function this way because
00:07:15.000 | it helps to absolve the conscience of the people who are involved. This is one of the
00:07:21.000 | things that is so helpful about healthcare sharing ministries.
00:07:25.000 | For example, in this scenario that I just talked about in terms of pregnancy and child
00:07:32.000 | birth, nobody would deny that a mother – let's say a single mother who conceived her baby
00:07:40.000 | in a sinful relationship that wasn't – it wasn't in a relationship with her husband.
00:07:46.000 | Nobody would deny that that mother needs to be cared for and that the baby needs to be
00:07:50.000 | cared for all around. I mean there's a Christian ministry in every corner that wants to support
00:07:55.000 | single mothers. But the question comes down to conscience and the people involved need
00:08:00.000 | to be understanding what's actually happening in the scenario. The people who are contributing
00:08:09.000 | financially into a scenario that's questionable or that's under questionable circumstances,
00:08:15.000 | those people need to be close enough to the situation to be – to have close knowledge.
00:08:20.000 | It would be even inappropriate to share even particular details of questionable scenarios
00:08:25.000 | broadly. Those needs need to be ministered to on a local basis and the financial donations
00:08:30.000 | given locally. So this general ideology, this framework under which healthcare sharing ministries
00:08:37.000 | like Samaritan Ministries operate, I found it's either very repulsive to people. Many
00:08:42.000 | people – when I did the show, many people wrote emails talking about how repulsive they
00:08:46.000 | found the idea. Or it's very attractive to people. I'm one of those who find it to be
00:08:51.000 | very attractive. It's very helpful. It helps to assuage those questions of conscience.
00:08:56.000 | I'm responsible for the impact of every dollar that I contribute and give and this is why
00:09:01.000 | it's so difficult. Oftentimes I find it difficult to participate in many mainstream
00:09:06.000 | insurance programs. If the money is going to be – go and be used for something that
00:09:11.000 | is immoral, that makes it very, very difficult. This is why – this is such a big question
00:09:17.000 | about taxpayer support for certain things. I would find it very hard to be a taxpayer
00:09:22.000 | in the state of Oregon right now with recent legislative changes just as an example.
00:09:27.000 | So I appreciate deeply an organization like Samaritan Ministries that gives me an opportunity
00:09:32.000 | to feel much more comfortable with the use – the way that the dollars that I'm a
00:09:38.000 | steward of are being used. And as a voluntary organization, one thing – Samaritan Ministries,
00:09:45.000 | if you're one who is repulsed by this type of functioning, Samaritan Ministries is crystal
00:09:50.000 | clear with all of these things again and again and again. During the process of sign up,
00:09:56.000 | the guidelines, everything is very clearly stated in advance. So the people who are
00:10:02.000 | participating with an organization like Samaritan Ministries are doing so after being
00:10:07.000 | fully apprised of the details and they're giving their conscious assent to something
00:10:14.000 | that is entirely voluntary. To me, that's the way it should be. And it's not even
00:10:19.000 | just a one-time thing. It has to be assented – these requirements and rules are assented
00:10:25.000 | to on an annual basis very explicitly.
00:10:28.000 | So this is the – that's the background for those of you who are unfamiliar with the
00:10:31.000 | context of this question. So, Karin, let me answer the question. There are two important
00:10:35.000 | answers to it. Number one, you need to recognize that this is not a problem that is
00:10:41.000 | exclusive to Samaritan Ministries specifically or healthcare-sharing ministries generally,
00:10:50.000 | but that every insurance policy has certain exceptions and exclusions.
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00:11:50.000 | you do is basically assemble and then toss it in the oven or whatever the appropriate
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00:12:48.000 | You need to recognize that this is not a problem that is exclusive to Samaritan
00:12:55.000 | Ministries specifically or healthcare sharing ministries generally, but that
00:13:00.000 | every insurance policy has certain exceptions and exclusions. For example,
00:13:08.000 | with disability income insurance, if you were to purchase disability income
00:13:13.000 | insurance and then you were to be disabled during the commission of a crime,
00:13:19.000 | you're robbing a warehouse, you fall through the skylight, you become disabled,
00:13:24.000 | the disability insurance policy explicitly states that it will not pay. It will not
00:13:29.000 | pay out under those circumstances. Or if you were to purchase a life insurance
00:13:33.000 | policy and then one month after the inception of the policy, you were to commit
00:13:37.000 | suicide, the life insurance policy explicitly states that it will not pay the
00:13:44.000 | benefit. There is a two-year suicide exception clause on life insurance policies.
00:13:50.000 | They pay out for suicide after two years, but they don't before that. Or another
00:13:55.000 | example from disability, just going off of memory, would be something like war. If
00:13:59.000 | you have a disability insurance policy, but you are injured and become disabled
00:14:05.000 | because you have been actively enlisted in a military and engaged in a military
00:14:10.000 | conflict, then that disability will not be counted as disability and it won't be
00:14:16.000 | paid for by the policy. There are many examples from the world of property
00:14:20.000 | insurance, probably one that hopefully we all know now. Homeowners insurance does
00:14:25.000 | not – standard homeowners insurance does not pay for claims that are related to
00:14:30.000 | flooding and water events. So those people in Houston who had a homeowners
00:14:36.000 | insurance policy, if they did not additionally have a flood insurance policy,
00:14:40.000 | then their claims, any damage that's related to their house that is based upon
00:14:48.000 | the flood itself, that claim will not be covered by their homeowners insurance
00:14:55.000 | policy. There may be – for those people, there may be an additional flood
00:14:59.000 | insurance policy that they have or there are sometimes additional charitable
00:15:04.000 | relief – let me not call government action charity – additional government
00:15:09.000 | relief actions that are related to, for example, FEMA, a special FEMA policy or
00:15:16.000 | a special access to small business administration loans at low interest rates,
00:15:20.000 | things like that, that might be available for them. But it won't be from their
00:15:24.000 | homeowners insurance policy.
00:15:26.000 | Sometimes this would relate to earthquake damage in some homeowners
00:15:30.000 | insurance policies or there are often exceptions and limitations of coverage for
00:15:35.000 | damage that's caused due to negligence on behalf of the property owner. Somebody
00:15:41.000 | doesn't fix their roof and so that causes additional damage to the property.
00:15:46.000 | Well, if there were negligence and that was caused by disrepair, then that could
00:15:50.000 | be problematic in terms of getting coverage. Every insurance policy has
00:15:57.000 | exceptions. Every insurance policy has limitations. If the insurance policy does
00:16:03.000 | not have exceptions and limitations, it will likely not function. This is one of
00:16:07.000 | the reasons why the Affordable Care Act with the changes that happened in
00:16:11.000 | national health insurance in the United States was so problematic because many of
00:16:16.000 | the traditional ways of protecting the insurance company were removed. When you
00:16:22.000 | remove the ability to exclude preexisting conditions or to at least limit them at
00:16:29.000 | the inception of a policy, it opens up opportunities for adverse selection on
00:16:34.000 | behalf of many sick people. That's what happened. Many sick people chose to buy
00:16:38.000 | insurance, which is why the laws mandating the purchase of insurance were
00:16:42.000 | absolutely necessary in order for the insurance to even function as such.
00:16:47.000 | Anyway, I don't want to go into the Affordable Care Act. Just simply to
00:16:51.000 | demonstrate that every insurance policy has exceptions and it's important that you
00:16:55.000 | always are aware of those exceptions. One very important aspect of due diligence
00:16:59.000 | that you should perform regularly, at least when you are renewing insurance
00:17:04.000 | coverage, is read your insurance contracts. Now, sometimes this is easy.
00:17:08.000 | Sometimes this is hard. Very few of us have ever read our insurance contracts,
00:17:12.000 | which is why when we lend a car out to somebody or we go to rent a car and they
00:17:21.000 | offer, "Do you want the additional rental coverage?" oftentimes we're caught
00:17:24.000 | flat-footed and thinking, "Well, should I sign up for this additional policy or
00:17:27.000 | should I not?" Or we go to lend the car to somebody and we think, "Well, am I
00:17:32.000 | opening myself up and exposing myself to a potential problem here if they crash my
00:17:37.000 | car or if they hurt somebody else in my car or do I have some form of coverage?"
00:17:42.000 | The answer to that question will depend on your insurance policy. It's an
00:17:47.000 | important little bit of due diligence to perform, important little bit of homework
00:17:51.000 | to perform. Incidentally, let me answer. I had one listener who had emailed me a
00:17:57.000 | long time ago and said, "I talked about the idea. I like to have an extra car
00:18:01.000 | around when possible to be able to lend out to people who are in need." And they
00:18:05.000 | said, "Well, how do you handle that from a risk perspective?" Some people very
00:18:08.000 | clearly say, "Don't ever lend your car out." I've read many books that are very,
00:18:12.000 | very strong about that. Don't ever lend a car out for any reason. My answer to
00:18:16.000 | that is my insurance policy explicitly provides coverage for me if I lend my car
00:18:21.000 | out to somebody on a short-term basis. Of course, the driver needs to be properly
00:18:25.000 | licensed, proper driver, of course, but I maintain and retain the same coverage
00:18:30.000 | that I have on a normal basis if I make a temporary loan of my vehicle to somebody
00:18:36.000 | else. So I'm comfortable with that risk given the benefits of being able to help
00:18:41.000 | somebody who is in need. That's not any kind of national standard, however. Your
00:18:47.000 | insurance policy may be different and you should investigate that. So this is not a
00:18:52.000 | problem of an exception of coverage that's exclusive to Samaritan Ministries, but it
00:18:58.000 | is a potential problem because of the very stringent exclusions of coverage for an
00:19:06.000 | organization like Samaritan Ministries. There are many people for whom Samaritan
00:19:11.000 | – I mean millions, a huge portion of the population for whom Samaritan Ministries
00:19:15.000 | is not appropriate. And there are many people who may perfectly be able to affirm
00:19:21.000 | all of the statements and requirements that an organization like Samaritan
00:19:25.000 | Ministries would require but for whom it may not be an appropriate coverage. And the
00:19:31.000 | scenario that you described there is an example of something that you should
00:19:35.000 | consider very carefully.
00:19:37.000 | Now I want to go back in the archives of the concepts I've presented here on
00:19:41.000 | radical personal finance all the way back to episode 91, which was called Do I Need
00:19:46.000 | Insurance? A Mental Model to Analyze Methods of Dealing with Risk, very early in
00:19:50.000 | the radical personal finance project. And I talked about the different risks and the
00:19:54.000 | way that risks should be handled. And I think this answers your question, your
00:19:59.000 | specific question and gives the tools to be able to answer it. In episode 91, I laid
00:20:05.000 | out some of the risk control methods that can be used. Some of them are, for example,
00:20:10.000 | risk avoidance and loss prevention and loss reduction and non-insurance transfers.
00:20:16.000 | That was what from my outline at that point in time. Risk avoidance, loss prevention,
00:20:20.000 | loss reduction and non-insurance transfers. And then of course we can transfer risk
00:20:26.000 | using insurance as well. We can do a non-insurance transfer of risk or an
00:20:30.000 | insurance transfer of risk. So practically speaking, the scenario that you described
00:20:34.000 | is one that would have a varying risk profile depending on the age and the
00:20:40.000 | activities of your children. And it's possible that this risk could be reduced due
00:20:48.000 | to loss prevention activities. So for example, a very practical training point with
00:20:54.000 | children, just talking into the world of child training for a moment. One of the most
00:20:58.000 | important tools I'm convinced that we as parents need to equip our children with is
00:21:02.000 | pre-planned behaviors when confronting difficult situations. The DARE people said it
00:21:10.000 | well, for example. Remember the DARE, Keep Kids Off of Drugs program? Just say no.
00:21:15.000 | And as I understand, the basic of their instruction was to try to combat drug use
00:21:20.000 | among children was to say here's a plan. When somebody offers you drugs, you say no.
00:21:26.000 | Well, that's a really important decision to make. And that's something that we as
00:21:32.000 | parents need to equip our children with in advance. We need to equip them with the
00:21:35.000 | tools by discussing the situation. Here's what's likely to happen. When this happens,
00:21:42.000 | you do this. If I think back in my own life, some of the situations where I have
00:21:48.000 | been in great danger, great physical danger and great moral danger, oftentimes the
00:21:53.000 | reason I was there was because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to handle
00:21:58.000 | the situation. There are a number of situations that I wish my parents had taken
00:22:04.000 | the time to instruct me and give me advice. Now sometimes, often, as parents we have a
00:22:10.000 | tendency to be naive. We have a tendency to be naive about the things that our
00:22:14.000 | children are likely to do, the things that the situations that they're going to be
00:22:18.000 | involved in. We think, "Oh, not my little Johnny. Not my little Sally. They wouldn't
00:22:22.000 | do it." Well, how do you know what your children would or wouldn't do unless you've
00:22:27.000 | instructed them in it? Children and young men and women do not have the emotional
00:22:33.000 | maturity to be able to handle many of these situations. One of the ones that just
00:22:38.000 | very practically speaking, I often was faced with the idea of I don't know what to do
00:22:44.000 | when somebody is driving too fast. Generally, when I was younger, I was pretty level
00:22:48.000 | headed, pretty responsible. I steered clear of a lot of trouble. But I actually
00:22:52.000 | consider one time when I was younger that scares me to death when I look back on it
00:22:57.000 | and realize how stupid I was. But I was with some friends in the car. I was driving.
00:23:01.000 | And for some reason, I usually didn't drive all that quickly when I was young. I
00:23:06.000 | generally didn't have a heavy foot. But for some reason, I was driving very fast. I
00:23:12.000 | was going about 90 miles an hour on the highway. And it was – there was an empty
00:23:16.000 | road, et cetera. But I was in the car with three of my friends and I was going 90
00:23:20.000 | miles an hour on the highway. And one of the girls that was with me said, "Wow, this
00:23:25.000 | car goes pretty fast." I still remember it like just clear as anything. Now,
00:23:31.000 | thankfully, nothing happened. I wasn't – I didn't drink. I wasn't under any
00:23:36.000 | influence. I was just driving fast. And the car – as with many cars, many cars can
00:23:40.000 | handle 90 miles an hour. But there was no reason in the world for me to be going 90
00:23:44.000 | miles an hour. And it wasn't even a fast car. It wasn't a sports car. It was just a
00:23:48.000 | normal car. And in hindsight, what I realized was happening, that girl who was in the
00:23:54.000 | car with me was uncomfortable as she should have been, ashamed that I was doing it.
00:24:00.000 | But she was uncomfortable. But she didn't know what to say. She didn't necessarily
00:24:05.000 | want to be uncool and say, "Joshua, please slow down." And I was in that situation
00:24:09.000 | many times. And when I would be with somebody who was driving unsafely, they were
00:24:15.000 | driving fast or they were showboating, something like that, and I didn't want to be
00:24:18.000 | the uncool person, the person to stop the party and say something. Well, I wish
00:24:25.000 | someone had given me some instruction about what to do. I figured some things out
00:24:29.000 | over time. Thankfully, that 90-mile-an-hour thing was not a normal thing. I usually
00:24:33.000 | just became the driver. And then I could control the circumstances better. But with
00:24:39.000 | my children, when they reach that age, I'm going to give them very clear instruction.
00:24:44.000 | If you're in the car with somebody who is driving unsafely, here is what you do.
00:24:49.000 | It wasn't for me until I was in my mid-20s that I had the clarity and the maturity and
00:24:55.000 | the strength of character and force of will to understand that, "No, I'm not going
00:24:59.000 | to deal with this. I'm not going to have my life put in danger." But even it's still
00:25:04.000 | not easy. A couple years ago, I was with some people at some harvest festival at some
00:25:10.000 | church building here where we live. And I wanted to take my children on the hayride.
00:25:16.000 | And we went on the hayride on the tractor with the person. But we wound up getting
00:25:22.000 | on with a group of – I guess a youth group or something that had been on it. And so
00:25:29.000 | the driver was being very aggressive with their driving. They were driving the tractor
00:25:33.000 | in very tight circles, driving it quickly, speeding up, slowing down, driving close to
00:25:38.000 | trees. But yet I didn't want to ruin the fun. Finally, I realized I was being stupid.
00:25:45.000 | And I just thought, "Joshua, what are you doing? I'm sitting here. This is unsafe.
00:25:49.000 | This is by definition unsafe. None of these children should be in this situation. This
00:25:54.000 | driver should not be permitted to do this." But yet I didn't want to ruin everyone's
00:25:58.000 | fun. I didn't want to – I didn't know who it was. I didn't want to get anybody
00:26:01.000 | in trouble, all of these emotions that go on. Finally, I said, "Stop," and I got
00:26:06.000 | my family out and I mildly reprimanded the driver and we left.
00:26:11.000 | Now, even now in hindsight as I consider it, I realize I should have been stronger.
00:26:16.000 | What was happening was legitimately unsafe and I should not have been permitted it because
00:26:20.000 | I would bear some guilt if I didn't stop it and there were a catastrophe. I don't
00:26:25.000 | want to overemphasize the – a simple example like a hayride on a tractor. But I do want
00:26:30.000 | to emphasize that this is something that we need to build in ourselves, the confidence
00:26:34.000 | to walk away. It's building in me. Now at 32, I'm much more confident than I was at
00:26:41.000 | 22. But I think we can help our children to participate in this as well.
00:26:47.000 | This has to start at an early age with age-appropriate instruction. So I instruct my children very
00:26:54.000 | carefully. If you get separated from daddy and mommy, here's the plan. Here's what
00:26:58.000 | you do. We need to tell them what to do so they're not emotionally distraught when
00:27:02.000 | they get separated from mommy and daddy. My children have one set of instructions if they're
00:27:06.000 | in a crowd of people. They have another set of instructions if they're by themselves
00:27:09.000 | and they wandered off in the woods. We need to proactively instruct our children what
00:27:14.000 | to do. If somebody preys on them, if somebody says to our children, "Hey, you need to
00:27:21.000 | keep this a secret from mommy and daddy," our children need very clear instructions
00:27:26.000 | about the keeping of secrets, when it's appropriate and when it's not. They need
00:27:31.000 | very clear instructions. If somebody touches you in this way on these areas of your body,
00:27:37.000 | this is what you do. You need to yell and tell. Yell at the top of your lungs and go
00:27:42.000 | and immediately talk to mommy about it. We've got to instruct our children on what
00:27:46.000 | do you do if you're over at somebody's house and they say, "Look, let me show you
00:27:50.000 | this cool gun that I found. This is my daddy's gun. Let me show it with you." Children
00:27:54.000 | are killed every single year in that situation, and it's unconscionable that we not
00:27:59.000 | instruct our children what to do and how to be forces of good and influence and leaders
00:28:04.000 | in that situation so that it can be resolved safely and appropriately.
00:28:09.000 | You can't play around with this stuff. You have to instruct our children on what to
00:28:12.000 | do when somebody tries to show you pornography. Guaranteed to happen. What are you going
00:28:18.000 | to do? And it needs to be instructed long before it ever happens. We can't play around
00:28:24.000 | with this stuff. I mean, very valuable passage of Scripture. Solomon, in speaking to his
00:28:30.000 | son in Proverbs chapter 5, he talks about what to do with regard to a prostitute. He
00:28:35.000 | clearly describes the problem. He clearly describes the situation. He describes, "Here's
00:28:39.000 | why you're going to be attracted to a prostitute. Here's what she's going to say. Here's
00:28:42.000 | how she's going to call out to you." When the prostitute calls out to you, this is
00:28:46.000 | what you do and this is how you avoid it. And we've got to do exactly the same thing.
00:28:51.000 | So whether we're dealing with a legitimate flesh and blood prostitute or that we're
00:28:55.000 | dealing with marijuana or alcohol or any one of the myriad of traps that our children
00:29:00.000 | will face, it's our job as parents to give them that instruction and to do it proactively.
00:29:05.000 | So shame on us if we haven't done that. Shame on us if our children wander in to the
00:29:13.000 | place where they weren't warned to go. We bear the responsibility in that situation.
00:29:18.000 | Forgive me if I'm preaching a little bit, but I get so frustrated about this. Even
00:29:24.000 | just look at the current – we've grown a bunch of moral cowards in the US American
00:29:30.000 | culture. Look at the current hoopla with Harvey Weinstein, this scumbag abuser.
00:29:38.000 | Maybe I should moderate that because I've been a court case and I should go with
00:29:42.000 | innocent until proven guilty. But I don't see any disagreeing accounts. There are
00:29:47.000 | hundreds of people that must have known about this guy's behavior and yet nobody
00:29:51.000 | spokes up, nobody speaks up, nobody confronts it, nobody exposes the sin and the evil.
00:29:58.000 | It takes a victim to come forth and blow the thing open. What about all of the enabling
00:30:03.000 | people all around who allow this evil to continue? It's one thing for a victim to
00:30:09.000 | come forward and they should, but when somebody has been victimized by an abuser,
00:30:14.000 | it's very challenging for them to be able to overcome that. Now hopefully we can
00:30:18.000 | equip them to do that, but that's not their first and foremost responsibility.
00:30:23.000 | It's our responsibility to pay attention to those who are being victimized and stand
00:30:27.000 | up for them. Paul in Ephesians commands, "Take no part in the unfruitful works of
00:30:33.000 | darkness, but instead expose them." So this evil has to be exposed and it has to
00:30:39.000 | be eradicated. It's evil and unconscionable for you to allow sin to go on, you to
00:30:45.000 | allow people to be evil and to not expose it publicly. And it's the same thing with
00:30:51.000 | our children. We've got to train them exactly the same. Forgive me, I started
00:30:57.000 | preaching at y'all. I feel strongly about it and I am sick and tired of cowards
00:31:06.000 | sitting by and not standing up against evil. It doesn't matter if it's your brother
00:31:12.000 | or your boss or your governor or your best friend. Doesn't matter if it's your
00:31:20.000 | pastor. It doesn't matter who it is. Anytime. It doesn't matter if you agree
00:31:25.000 | with somebody politically and you like their political ideology. You cannot
00:31:30.000 | defend evil. Whatever form it comes in, it needs to be clearly seen and clearly
00:31:38.000 | exposed so that it can be destroyed. That tirade was intended to say that I think you
00:31:50.000 | can moderate this risk with your children by carefully instructing them. And it's
00:31:55.000 | not just health insurance basics. This is what you need to do. You need to instruct
00:32:00.000 | your children. If you're in a situation and you're with people who are consuming
00:32:07.000 | alcohol or using marijuana or using other drugs or participating in any form of
00:32:12.000 | immorality, you need to flee. Run. Because none of us and none of our children are
00:32:22.000 | strong enough to stand if we start hanging out in Sodom. So, you can make a
00:32:33.000 | difference in your children's lives. And that's part of training. You should make a
00:32:38.000 | difference in your children's lives. We've got to teach our children what to do.
00:32:42.000 | Someone's driving unsafely. Someone's driving under the influence. I think back
00:32:47.000 | to how much I struggle with this sometimes in college. Last example and I'll be
00:32:51.000 | done. But I think back to how when I would have friends that were drinking and
00:32:56.000 | they, you know, drunks, people who are drunk are very persuasive. I would have
00:33:01.000 | friends who were drinking and sometimes you don't know, okay, how many drinks did
00:33:06.000 | they have? And they're like, "Oh, I'm going to drive home." Well, when do you know
00:33:09.000 | when to take the keys away? It's a hard answer. When do you know when to take the
00:33:15.000 | keys away? In hindsight, I wish I had been, as a young man, I wish I had been
00:33:22.000 | stronger. Thankfully, there wasn't a lot of tragedy as far as I did due to my own
00:33:28.000 | negligence. Nobody ever was in tragedy. But I know so many other situations where
00:33:32.000 | there were. You know, there was a heartbreaking scenario when I was in college
00:33:36.000 | and a couple of kids were killed. Country concert, went to a country concert,
00:33:43.000 | drinking, for whatever reason, flipped the car over on the interstate and dead.
00:33:49.000 | It's just heartbreaking. I bet you their parents wished that one of their friends
00:33:55.000 | had stood up and said, "No." And when somebody takes action, that has incredible
00:34:01.000 | consequences. As I've learned to be stronger, I've often seen that people would,
00:34:07.000 | you know, people may laugh at you when you walk away. Well, what happens usually,
00:34:13.000 | there are some people who are so blinded by their behavior that they just laugh at
00:34:18.000 | you and say, "Oh, that person's spoiling the fun." But usually, often all it takes
00:34:22.000 | is one person to stand up and walk away. And that'll encourage a couple of other
00:34:28.000 | people to stand up and walk away. There's no excuse for us not to be those people.
00:34:34.000 | There's no excuse for us not to train our children to be those people. So I think
00:34:38.000 | that you can mitigate this risk through good parenting. I don't think that this is
00:34:43.000 | a risk that you have to worry about. I think that you can avoid this risk and you
00:34:48.000 | can reduce the risk. This is a risk that's manageable through good parenting. Now,
00:34:55.000 | is it a risk that is always guaranteed to be manageable? No. Let's say that you
00:35:00.000 | have a child who is rebelling against your authority. They're sowing themselves
00:35:05.000 | into this type of lifestyle. You're aware that they're using drugs. You're
00:35:08.000 | interacting with them, etc. Well, I think there your risk scenario changes. And
00:35:13.000 | that's a scenario where you better take action. Now, hopefully the action is not
00:35:16.000 | just changing – trying to say, "Well, I'm going to change our health insurance
00:35:21.000 | so that if they are on drugs and they get an accident, then they're going to be this."
00:35:27.000 | I hope it's a whole lot stronger than that. And I don't think that in this – and
00:35:30.000 | even in that scenario, I don't think this is the first of the concerns. There are a
00:35:34.000 | lot deeper problems and it's beyond my expertise to even open my mouth on what you
00:35:40.000 | would do in that situation. But I think if the circumstances change and your risk
00:35:45.000 | profile change, then yes, you start to change things. You start to change the
00:35:50.000 | things you're using. And so I think this is where on the matrix that I presented in
00:35:57.000 | Episode 91, I talked about how we analyze the expected frequency of an event and
00:36:03.000 | then the expected severity, loss severity of an event. Then you may change
00:36:08.000 | categories. So for any event that has a high expected frequency and a high
00:36:14.000 | expected severity, you have to avoid that. You can't ensure those types of risks.
00:36:18.000 | You have to avoid it. So speaking specifically and applying it to the situation.
00:36:22.000 | If I have a child that – let's say the child is driving and the child is prone to
00:36:26.000 | drug use or alcohol use and they're obviously being stupid and making stupid
00:36:32.000 | decisions, well then I need to avoid that risk as much as possible. So I'm going to
00:36:37.000 | remove the car. They're not going to be allowed to drive. I'm going to remove
00:36:41.000 | their ability to be with other people as long as they're under my authority and I
00:36:45.000 | have that authority. I'm going to remove their ability to be with other people and
00:36:49.000 | then I'm going to fight like crazy to solve the relationship problems that are
00:36:54.000 | leading to this and I don't know where to go from there. I wouldn't pretend to give
00:37:00.000 | advice on that. I don't even have a clue. But the point is that if there's a high
00:37:04.000 | loss severity, I have a child who's behaving stupidly and they're doing it with
00:37:10.000 | a high frequency, then we've got to avoid that risk as much as possible. You don't
00:37:13.000 | just say, "Here, keep the car and I'm going to take away – and we're going to
00:37:18.000 | change our health insurance." No. You try to avoid the whole scenario. If you have
00:37:22.000 | an event that has a high expected frequency but a low expected severity, well
00:37:29.000 | that's the kind of risk that you can just retain the risk. This would not be an
00:37:33.000 | applicable example to your question here. But if you had something that was a low
00:37:37.000 | expected frequency and a low severity, then I think that's also an appropriate risk
00:37:42.000 | to retain. It's only if you have something that has a low expected frequency but a
00:37:46.000 | high severity that you insure. So as your risk profile changes, then your insurance
00:37:53.000 | decisions would change. These things are not static. These things are not just
00:37:57.000 | always the same and there's no need for it. This is one of the major kind of
00:38:02.000 | financial planning mistakes that people often make is they make decisions one time
00:38:09.000 | and then they never address them. It's important to address them and reassess and
00:38:13.000 | ask, "Is my risk profile still the same? Are the things that I'm concerned about
00:38:18.000 | still the same?" and adjust as time goes on. It's only as you adjust the details,
00:38:27.000 | it's only as you make adjustments that a financial plan can stay on track. I think
00:38:32.000 | that's all I have to say on this subject. Thank you for listening. I didn't intend
00:38:37.000 | to start preaching at you but I guess when you touch on something that you're
00:38:40.000 | passionate about then it kind of tumbles out. I'm tired of the cowards. Now,
00:38:50.000 | there's no reason for those of us who see something to go across the world and try
00:38:55.000 | to point out the speck in someone else's eye across the world. We got to deal with
00:39:01.000 | the logs nearby. I'm not trying to get us all to go and – I mean I used Weinstein
00:39:08.000 | because it's a common news example currently. That's probably common but it's not
00:39:12.000 | my business to deal with Hollywood. It is my business to deal with the abusers that
00:39:19.000 | I know. Can't do anything about Weinstein. Doesn't mean no good to worry about him.
00:39:24.000 | It's the responsibility of those people who are close to him to rebuke him and to
00:39:30.000 | expose him. But you and I better not keep quiet about the situations that we know
00:39:37.000 | about. I guess the way that that applies to money is this. It may cost you your job.
00:39:45.000 | It may cost you a role in a movie and fame and fortune and stardom. But at the end
00:39:52.000 | of the day, do you want to arrive 20 years down the road with a nice fat bank account
00:39:59.000 | and look yourself in the mirror and know that you've been complicit in evil? Would
00:40:04.000 | you rather be able to look yourself in the mirror and pick your chin up? Don't sell
00:40:10.000 | your soul for a fun night on the red carpet and a fancy movie royalty check. I guess
00:40:18.000 | I preached enough in this show. I might as well finish my sermon. The writer of Hebrews
00:40:25.000 | talks about Moses and it says that Moses chose to share the oppression of God's people
00:40:31.000 | instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin. The psalmist stated the same thing
00:40:37.000 | when he says in the book of Psalms, "A single day in your courts," speaking to God,
00:40:42.000 | "a single day in your courts is better than a thousand anywhere else. I'd rather be
00:40:46.000 | a gatekeeper in the house of my God than live the good life in the homes of the wicked."
00:40:52.000 | So if you're facing a challenge, if you're asking the question about what do I do when
00:40:56.000 | I'm facing a wicked situation, it doesn't matter how powerful the person is, doesn't
00:41:01.000 | matter how high the corruption goes, doesn't matter how evil it is, don't stand and think
00:41:08.000 | that the pleasure of sin will continue. Don't think that if I just get the favor of this
00:41:16.000 | person, then I'll be happy because they'll pour out their money and their favor on me.
00:41:21.000 | Don't think it for an instant. Maybe true for a short time, but at the end of the day,
00:41:26.000 | evil will always be exposed to light and it'll always be destroyed. You see that happening
00:41:31.000 | right now in the news, very current. Even by people, the majority of whom, as far as
00:41:39.000 | I'm aware of, don't give any acknowledgement to God in any way. It doesn't matter whether
00:41:46.000 | they acknowledge God or not, they still see the effect that you can sow a career for 20
00:41:51.000 | years, but if people find out you've been complicit in evil, that career will unravel
00:41:59.000 | overnight. It's the way the world works. So you can get away with evil for a short
00:42:06.000 | time, but not for a long term. So don't be complicit. Stand up and expose it, no matter
00:42:13.000 | the cost. I didn't really mean for insurance to cross over this boundary, but I hope that
00:42:23.000 | it's encouraging to you in this day and I hope that you can do something with it and
00:42:29.000 | train your children to be courageous. People's lives are at stake. It's no laughing matter
00:42:38.000 | to see somebody's life destroyed by abuse because people were silent in the face of
00:42:45.000 | the abuser because of fear or because of not wanting to rock the boat. It's no laughing
00:42:49.000 | matter to see a young man or a young woman's life snuffed short because one of their friends
00:42:56.000 | decided to drunkenly get in a car. This applies even whether or not, it's no laughing matter
00:43:05.000 | for your husband or wife and your children to be on their way home from the soccer game
00:43:11.000 | and some drunk plow into their car and kill every one of them because that drunk's friend
00:43:16.000 | didn't pull their keys from them. If that happens to you, you would wish that somebody
00:43:25.000 | stood up and took the keys from the drunk and said, "Stop." Well, you can't expect
00:43:31.000 | it of other people if you're not willing to do it to yourself. And yes, I'm preaching
00:43:36.000 | to myself as just about every day. All right, I'm done. I'll be back with you all soon.
00:43:46.000 | This show is part of the Radical Life Media network of podcasts and resources. Find out
00:43:52.000 | more at radicallifemedia.com.
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