The Life Challenges Podcast
The Life Challenges Podcast
What’s Trending? United Healthcare CEO Murder, Italy’s Surrogacy Ban, and HIV Vaccine
This episode dives into the recent murder of a healthcare CEO, examining public reactions and ethical implications. We also discuss Italy's ban on surrogacy and the introduction of a new HIV vaccine, focusing on how these topics illustrate the ongoing struggle between moral values and societal challenges.
• The murder of United Healthcare's CEO sparks outrage and debates on morality
• Public support for the murder raises ethical concerns
• Italy's surrogacy ban reflects a deeper moral understanding
• The new HIV vaccine prompts discussions about "safe sinning"
• Exploring the importance of grace and accountability in today's society
SHOW NOTES:
- https://emersoncollegepolling.com/december-2024-national-poll-young-voters-diverge-from-majority-on-crypto-tiktok-and-ceo-assassination/
- https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2024/12/96739/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=behind-the-new-italian-ban-on-surrogacy
- https://tinyurl.com/2dlrkt3r
- https://tinyurl.com/2aeo3fxa
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On today's episode effective. I mean, that's amazing. We can rejoice at the gift of life that this is giving, but at the same time we can be disturbed by the way it will undoubtedly be used to facilitate all sorts of immoral behavior.
Paul Snamiska:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Christa Potratz:Hi and welcome back. I'm Christa Potratz and I'm here with Pastors Bob Fleischmann and Jeff Samelson. I would like to start by saying Happy New Year to everyone. It is 2025 now. Yes, we wish everybody a Happy New Year, so this is going to be the kickoff, the first episode for us for this year. Kick off the first episode for us for this year, and we want to start by tackling some of the current events that are going on. We wanted to start with. One of the big stories from the past month really was the death, the murder, of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, and there really are a lot of things that we can talk about with that, because I mean just the attention that the murderer got in almost a very positive context, and also just maybe even his reasoning or logic that went behind murdering somebody who had this type of career too.
Jeff Samelson:Just as a review on December 4th 2024, in New York City, brian Thompson, who was the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, an American health insurance company, was shot and killed in Midtown Manhattan. This made the news because it was pretty brazen, it was pretty much out in public and was a fairly big figure. And then there was a lot of attention paid to the manhunt, trying to figure out who this was. Somebody was caught on camera in various ways and things like that, but still was very effective in getting out of New York City. A few days later he was found in Pennsylvania in a McDonald's by a McDonald's employee or whatever, and he was arrested, was arraigned and charged and everything like that.
Jeff Samelson:In New York City Normally this would just be a oh, this is horrible, somebody was murdered and oh great, they caught somebody. But this was blown up in a big way because it seemed to be very obvious that the motive for we can call him the accused killer, but nobody, apart from his not guilty plea, nobody seems to be arguing that he didn't actually do it. His name is luigi mangione. Um, that, uh you. He was motivated because he has problems with the healthcare system and we're not sure whether there was a particular reason he was focusing on UnitedHealthcare or whether he was just kind of going for a general statement kind of thing. And the problem is that there are all sorts of people in the United States who have said good for him.
Jeff Samelson:He did what none of us had the guts to do. He's making a statement about how bad the American health care system is and how we've got robber barons and things like that running these things and changes need to be made and none of the other methods are working. So he made a big statement and that's a good thing methods are working.
Robert Fleischmann:So he made a big statement and that's a good thing. You know it depends a lot on which side of the table you are on with healthcare insurance. I mean, for many years we pay here at CLR, we pay insurance for our staff and it's really high, let's just put it at that. It's very, very expensive and for years like hardly ever used it, we always got by. That's changed in the Fleischman family, I mean, I'm pretty sure our medical costs have maybe exceeded a million dollars by now, based on the expenses and so forth. It was a long time ago. I think it's Brill. What is his name? David Brill Last name was Brill B-R-I-L-L wrote for Time Magazine an in-depth article, probably eight, ten years ago now, on the way medical expenses are charged.
Robert Fleischmann:He talks about like a quartermaster who determines what the fee is, which is why some people pay nothing out of pocket. Some people pay exorbitant amounts. And then you've got people who have gone bankrupt because of medical expenses taking care of a loved one because insurance won't cover this or they won't cover that, but their friend who has better insurance, it gets covered. And when you are on the receiving end of needing insurance, first of all, I understand frustration when something you think this is going to help, this is going to save, this is going to alleviate, and the people who you thought you were paying money to aren't doing it. The problem is that you kind of like cross-channel what's going on. The very life that you felt could have been protected and could have been cared for by better insurance if fat cat insurance company people weren't making a lot of profit off of you now becomes the executive of the insurance company, the executive of the insurance company. And all of a sudden they present themselves as now being the fat cat, selfish entitlement people who are saying his life was expendable but not my loved ones. And of course it's a bizarre way of thinking, but it is the way we think nowadays. And, trust me, I'm always troubled by insurance companies who are raising rates any insurance company I mean. Here at CLR we just got dropped by an insurance carrier and I talked to our church body and a number of our congregations got dropped by their insurance carrier, so we had to scramble around find another insurance carrier to care for us. We were paying our insurance carrier thousands of dollars for decades.
Robert Fleischmann:You can't help but to be frustrated by that. None of that ever justifies terminating the life of someone For crying out loud. If you're frustrated about this, you sit down with your legislator. You start getting people riled up about it. You make it known. You work on legislation. You tighten down with your legislator. You start getting people riled up about it. You make it known. You work on legislation. You tighten things up on them so that they don't have all this money to name huge billings and pay exorbitant salaries, so that they can provide a little bit more equitable service. But you do not terminate a life. There is never a justification for it.
Christa Potratz:There is never a justification for it. Yeah, and I think too, when you were talking as well, I mean when I hear too about all of the people that were in support of what he had done too, I think really what the problem is is again just going back to this internet mob mentality. I mean, nobody is going to sit across from his wife and children and applaud what this man did. I mean, nobody is going to do that. But I mean online and these people start saying things and you know, oh yeah, and you know kind of making the person who lost his life out to be the bad guy. Then you get all of these people in support for that, and it is this idea of how we just sit behind a screen and spew off anything that we think, without really realizing what the words that we're saying actually are.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, just putting some numbers to it, emerson College did a survey in December. A majority of voters 68% think the actions of the killer are unacceptable, 17% find the actions acceptable and 16% are unsure, they just don't know. Acceptable and 16 are unsure, they just don't know. And younger voters, uh, and democrats are more split 41 of voters aged 18 to 29 find the killer's actions acceptable. Um, and there there's some more things. They're breaking it down more, but that's that's a significant percentage of this of the population that are willing to tell a pollster. Yeah, I think this was a good thing, or even I'm unsure about whether it's a good thing or not, because there's arguments on both sides. No, they're not. This was a straight out assassination and tables were turned. If it were somebody that you had positive feelings for who got killed in this way, you'd be completely the other direction. And again, it's our media culture, what you were talking about, about the depersonalization that comes with the internet and such so much.
Jeff Samelson:But I mean, even a lot of it is just really simplistic thinking. It's a refusal to think. Maybe there's more to this than what I feel. You look at, okay, there's this rich insurance company and well, obviously their executives are very well paid, so they're rich too. And then there's the little guy who's not getting his bills paid the way he wants. It's like, well, there's something wrong here. I know exactly what it is. The problem is that we need to get rid of these insurance companies and their executives. And they're just not looking at.
Jeff Samelson:Well, why is it that insurance companies deny or delay care? Well, they are businesses, so they have to make decisions and there are going to be trade-offs. We shouldn't have this system. We should have socialized medicine, like they have in other countries, because there everybody will get the care they want. Well, no, they don't, because rationing of medical care is a primary feature of government-run healthcare everywhere in the world. Because there's not an infinite amount of money to pay for these things. And the irony is that in our system you could have an insurance company saying no, we won't pay for this procedure. Um, but that's as far as it goes. You can still get the procedure if you can find the money somehow In many of the countries where they have nationalized medicine, if the government says we're not going to pay for your procedure, you're not getting the procedure because there's nowhere else to go, unless, like many Canadians, you leave the country and you come down here to the United States where you can get the care and just you know the whole idea that there's a simple fix to the problem we just got to change things with the insurance companies forgets.
Jeff Samelson:Why do the insurance companies, you know, keep raising their premiums? Well, because they keep having to pay the doctors and the hospitals and you know all those things more Well. Why are they charging more? Well, maybe it's because they've got really high malpractice insurance to pay for. Oh, so then we got to look at the legal system and the judges and the juries and the legislatures and Congress. Just making a statement like they're saying this killing is isn't really getting anywhere near a solution or pointing out really what the problem is, because it is super complicated and, yes, I'm the first to say the system should be reformed. It's not good the way it is, but I struggle to find an example of a system that is in every way better.
Robert Fleischmann:You know, I think a key thing that Jeff said is these people were willing to tell a pollster. Yeah, I think it was justifiable. Christians need to be uber alarmed by this. I used to say that you know, there was a time in abortion history where the argument used to be we don't know when life begins, so let women make choices. And they even said in testimony you know, back in the 1974 hearings before Congress House of Representatives, 1974 hearings before Congress House of Representatives that if we knew that life began at conception, then of course we couldn't be in favor of abortion. And then in 1995, I think it was when I read the article that Naomi Wolf had come out with she came out and she said it's a sad but necessary evil, but in an abortion a life is lost. I was alarmed. And I was alarmed because it was said publicly.
Robert Fleischmann:In 2010, virginia Ironside, who was like the Ann Landers Dear Abby person in England, was on a Sunday morning television show and said well, if a child were born with some sort of defect, I think a mother should be able to put the pillow over the child's head and snuff the life out of it.
Robert Fleischmann:And of course it was alarming. You know, you can just watch the video, they're alarmed by it. What's even more alarming is that people have gotten to the point now where they feel secure enough to think it might be enough acceptable opinion that we could talk this way, and that should alarm the Christian community. Somehow we have not permeated the full environment, which this is a pet peeve of mine but we tend to gather around ourselves people who think like us, talk like us, walk like us, train our children like us in the same schools and everything, and then we wonder why the world is going to hell in a handbasket. It's because we are not reaching out to these people and saying you just don't kill somebody just because you're not happy with the system, because you're talking about a lawless world, a lawless society, and then all of you are expendable. So on that note, we can move on to the next topic.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, no, I mean yes, probably a lot more we could say on this topic too, but we will move on here. Bob, you had shared another story with us about the Italians and their ban on surrogacy. We will link these articles as well in our show notes. But I found it very fascinating too with just the Italians, and even the article went into details on their adoption laws and that type of thing. So can you expand a little bit on that?
Robert Fleischmann:Well, just remember everything you believe, you think and so forth is formed by the things you subject yourself to. Whether if all you do is watch Fox News, or all you do is watch ABC News, or all you do is read a liberal newspaper or a conservative newspaper, you're going to always see things in a particular light. When this story first broke that the Italian government had banned surrogacy, your thought was well, it's the Roman Catholic influence, they're coming out with this revolutionary legislation and so forth. And the reality is, when you read the article, if you click on the link in the show notes, you're going to find out that probably out of all the governments in the world, they have been among the most consistent in recognizing life begins at conception and you just don't treat it like a commodity. And it's a government's effort to avoid allowing it to be treated like a commodity effort to avoid allowing it to be treated like a commodity. And, of course, the Western world, American media and I pretty much listen to liberal media. I listen to the three major networks. Don't listen to Fox that much, but on occasion I do, and you watch it from the liberal media network. You would have thought that the world was falling apart. This is the end times, because Italy has done this, the reality.
Robert Fleischmann:And that's why sometimes folks, if you ever want to get a different flavor of things, listen to American news through the eyes of the BBC. That's always been entertaining for me because you know, first of all the BBC have, you know, the British don't have a lot of, you know, inflection, so you don't get, you know, get breaking news and stuff like that. It's just kind of monotone reporting what's happening. It loses a lot of its stupendousness. Well, that's kind of what happened here. I think this story is a good example. If you want to kind of be a little bit restored in the sanity of people, read the story. The Italian government knew what they were doing.
Jeff Samelson:One of the things I think is just illustrated by this is again this kind of I mentioned earlier simplistic thinking. I mean, the simplistic thinking says well, if people want to have babies, and this is a way for them to have babies, what's wrong with surrogacy? An inability or an unwillingness to think a little bit deeper and say okay, what does this actually mean? Has to happen for these people to have children? And what is it going to mean if they have a child and they are raising this child, what kind of environment are we putting these children into?
Jeff Samelson:And one of the really nice things is the Italian government obviously has given this a lot of thought and the proper kind of thought. And so much of what we see, you know, in many other countries and some of the states in the US is just kind of a Wild West mentality of like, well, if you can do it, by all means go ahead. You know, because you know it sounds like you're doing something good, so it must be good. And you know, who are we to get in the way of that? And Christians need to think harder about this. I mean, we want everybody to, because if we know that it's right, it's in everybody's best interests to do what is right.
Jeff Samelson:But Christians in particular need to be careful and not approve of this and, when they have the opportunity to address it at the ballot box or wherever, to make the right decisions.
Robert Fleischmann:Tom Brokaw once wrote that people accuse the media of being liberal and he said but you got to realize he said reporting on something that's routine isn't news. Nobody's going to listen to it. And of course the news organizations today in America are part of the entertainment industry. If you would Walter Cronkite's autobiography, he pretty much the whole last half of his book laments that reality, that it's gone that direction. And so, as a result, on matters like this surrogacy, ivf, all that kind of stuff, anything that looks like a pendulum swing, the media is going to latch onto.
Robert Fleischmann:So when it came out that the Italian government had ruled this way, based on American standards, this was a pendulum swing. The media has been enforcing this whole idea. It's my body, my choice, I should be able to have my children any way I want, when I want, so forth, and all of a sudden the Italian government has pendulum swung the other way. You got to remember it was a pendulum swing by American mentality. But if you were to take the time to look at the careful deliberation that the Italians went through, it's remarkable. And you say to yourself wow, couldn't we perhaps practice a little bit of that judgment on our level? Mm-hmm.
Christa Potratz:Yeah, I think one of the things too that just struck me with the article and I mean you were saying this too, bob is that they really have been consistently going in this direction too. I mean, even just the article cites some of their adoption laws and how I think they had to cohabitate for three years before being able to adopt and just like, oh yeah, ok, that kind of makes sense, and, and so just reading that maybe just made me really think, ok, this isn't just coming out of left field somewhere. All right, well, moving on, we can tackle another current event here. We can tackle another current event here. This one is the shot to end AIDS. This is another one that you had found, bob, with I believe it's was it women getting twice a year shot, and it worked nearly as well in men too.
Robert Fleischmann:Yeah, it's supposed to provide 100% protection against HIV. It's supposed to provide 100% protection against HIV. And you know it's interesting and when I reported on this to my board I used the comment in there that well, is this another step towards safe sinning? And of course we never want to think simplistically. Early in my time here at CLR I encountered my first AIDS patient. He had HIV, advanced HIV and literally they were beginning to bleed internally. It was horrible, it was horrible to view and it was a member within our church body who was dying. He had participated in the gay lifestyle, had developed the HIV virus, had translated into full-blown AIDS and it was taking his life.
Robert Fleischmann:And you know it's funny because when you stand on principle it's the consequence of the action.
Robert Fleischmann:You know you play with fire, you're going to get burned, that kind of thing.
Robert Fleischmann:And when I wrestle with this from an ethical and bioethical standpoint, one of the things I think about is I always think about a lot of times what we tell our kids, because you know that when they get into high school, the number one problem that we experience when they go out on Friday, saturday nights and so forth is partying.
Robert Fleischmann:So do they go to parties where there's drinking, where there's drugs and so forth. So do they go to parties where there's drinking, where there's drugs and so forth, and as a parent you sometimes feel helpless, helpless to keep them from doing something bad, because you know the forces at work strong temptation, getting lured into it, and so forth. And so sometimes a lot of parents have told me over the years that at least on one or two occasions they've mentioned to their children I don't want you drinking, don't want you using drugs, but if you do call me, call me, don't drive home, let me come, I will pick you up. We'll deal with the intoxication problem later on. Well, folks, you essentially have inoculated them with safe sitting because I will be your safety valve, I will protect it, and I think none of us. You know my parents used to tell us I will call the police on you.
Christa Potratz:I will have you arrested you know and so forth.
Robert Fleischmann:You know, my parents knew that they were going to turn, and I believe they would have, but at the same time my parents would not have wanted me to be killed on the way home. They would not have wanted me to hurt somebody else in my driving. The reality is HIV and AIDS is the consequence. The focal point has always been which is part of our sexually absorbed society has always been from same-sex relationships. That's where the Rock Hudson thing, that's where it got known, and so forth. But there have been a lot of people who've been born with HIV from the sins of the parents and so forth. And what do you do then? People have gotten it through blood transfusions, you know, and though that blood supply is safer now, it wasn't always that way.
Robert Fleischmann:You know you can't paint the broad stroke, but at the same time it's kind of like a lot of our medicine, a lot of our technology, does allow us to practice safe sitting. You can now have sexual relations with a reasonable level of protection with anybody you want. So by talking, by favoring, by educating on birth control, are we allowing safe sinning? We could put breathalyzers on cars. Does that allow safe sinning now to prevent you from doing something dangerous. It's complicated and it raises interesting issues because a lot of the medicine, a lot of the technology that has preserved your grandmother's life, that has preserved the struggles your child is going through with a congenital condition, can also be used to help people kind of get along in life so they can continue with safe sitting. We face this issue with dealing with the virus that comes with cervical cancer. That can come with cervical cancer. Do you immunize your child as a sixth grader against it, even though you can only really get it through sexual contact? That's illicit, and so it raises a lot of these very hard questions.
Jeff Samelson:Yeah, I think Christians here, as Bob was talking about, there's this tension and balancing act. We can rejoice as Christians that people who would otherwise get very sick and probably die are not going to as a result of this drug treatment program. Two shots a year, 100% effective I mean that's amazing. We can rejoice at the gift of life that this is giving, but at the same time, we can be disturbed by the way it will undoubtedly be used to facilitate all sorts of immoral behavior. And I think one of the things that you know, the extra thing that Christians need to think about is how this separates sinners from the consequences of their sins, and this is not about they got to get what's coming to them. This is about wanting sinners to be brought to repentance.
Robert Fleischmann:Time of grace. We've lost sight of our time of grace, yeah.
Jeff Samelson:Wonderful parallel here is with birth control. It used to be that there was a strong incentive for unmarried couples not to mess around because there was a big consequence that could come from that you could get pregnant and there are all sorts of things that needed to be done with that, and people never have to face the consequences of the fact that they are doing serious damage to their souls by living the way they are living and doing the things they are doing, and we don't want that lost. It's because we're concerned for the souls of these people, for their eternal salvation, and even within our own circles we don't want Christians to engage in things thinking well, there's no earthly consequence to this, so it must be spiritually okay.
Christa Potratz:I think that is so true when you're talking about just not bringing people to repentance anymore and I know we've talked about that in other episodes too, because I have just thought this year especially, or I guess last year, but just how it just really seems like that that is really what is missing in people now is just this need for a savior, and if you don't feel like you are doing anything wrong or have any consequences of sin, then you just don't see the need for that.
Robert Fleischmann:You know we're destined to die once and after that, to face judgment.
Robert Fleischmann:You know whether we're talking about assassinating an insurance company executive or we're talking about, you know, homosexuals who, as a result of their lifestyle, have brought upon themselves a life-endangering condition. Both of them have a time of grace, a time of which to come to know Jesus as their Savior. And we know from example that and I know that the insurance company executive was a Lutheran but even those who know their Savior drift off of paths and they need time of being restored. And, like I said, in the work that I've done here at CLR, I have worked with pastors who have worked with their members who have gotten caught up in a sinful lifestyle and are paying the consequences for it, and it's in their best interest to have their life extended, not to enable them to practice safe sinning, but to enable them to come to an awareness of their sin, to find forgiveness in Christ and to begin a new life for as long as God permits them to live. And what great comfort that would be, also for their Christian family.
Christa Potratz:All right. Well, thank you both for this discussion and for touching on these current events, and if any of our listeners have any questions on these, let us know. You can reach us at lifechallengesus. We will have links to these articles in our show notes. We look forward to having you back next time. Thanks a lot, bye.
Paul Snamiska:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out For more about our parent organization. Please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.
