Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

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_moksha
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _moksha »

ajax18 wrote:This certainly isn't worse than the situation prior to Obamacare. The Church pays for the missionary during the mission from what I've seen. The lapse in coverage was the main problem.

I've read posts from returned missionaries who reported that sometimes the mission president was hesitant to authorize care, perhaps out of the sense of being a guardian of the Church's bottom line profits and costs or perhaps out of a distrust of modern medicine.

There was some fairly recent story on this very subject, but I can't remember any details.

The good thing is that if they get shipped back to the States in lieu of adequate care, at least they can now receive it here. Not sure how that works in the states the refused to expand Medicaid if the parents insurance did not pay for whatever reason.

After that the Church cut a deal of some sort with the hospitals where we were issued a medical card which they would honor for emergency room care.

It is good that some action was taken afterward. Wonder if any other need for emergency or any medical care had arisen in past missions. Being caught unaware of missionaries becoming ill or injured would certainly explain not being prepared for such an occurrence. Guess we live and learn.
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_ajax18
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _ajax18 »

perhaps out of the sense of being a guardian of the Church's bottom line profits and costs


For this reason. I can understand how the church would not be able to afford some missionaries. I often wonder why I used to be able to live on $400/month. I think skirting by without health insurance was a big part of it.
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_Quasimodo
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _Quasimodo »

ajax18 wrote:
perhaps out of the sense of being a guardian of the Church's bottom line profits and costs


For this reason. I can understand how the church would not be able to afford some missionaries. I often wonder why I used to be able to live on $400/month. I think skirting by without health insurance was a big part of it.


Who paid you the $400 dollars a month? Was that the Church?
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_moksha
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _moksha »

Health care in all other countries is cheaper than the US. Working out a payment arrangement with the industrial countries that have a health care system might be a good thing for LDS missionaries.
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_ajax18
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _ajax18 »

Who paid you the $400 dollars a month? Was that the Church?


$400/month is what the missionary or his family pays to support him while on the mission. We got approximately $100 of that in cash. Somehow the church paid our rent, utilities, healthcare?, with the rest. Colombia was a very inexpensive mission by comparison to Europe, and you probably know that the Church was on a socialistic system where missionaires assigned to Europe paid $400/month just like missionaries to South America, though it obviously cost a lot more to have an apartment and a car than a hut and bicycle. Couple that with the fact that half the missionaries were native and I doubt they nor anyone from their family could afford more than $10/month.

It seems similar to the school lunch program. Some people paid full price, some paid reduced, some ate free. But there was no way even the full price could pay for your meal without some money from elsewhere.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
_Quasimodo
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _Quasimodo »

ajax18 wrote:
Who paid you the $400 dollars a month? Was that the Church?


$400/month is what the missionary or his family pays to support him while on the mission. We got approximately $100 of that in cash. Somehow the church paid our rent, utilities, healthcare?, with the rest. Colombia was a very inexpensive mission by comparison to Europe, and you probably know that the Church was on a socialistic system where missionaires assigned to Europe paid $400/month just like missionaries to South America, though it obviously cost a lot more to have an apartment and a car than a hut and bicycle. Couple that with the fact that half the missionaries were native and I doubt they nor anyone from their family could afford more than $10/month.

It seems similar to the school lunch program. Some people paid full price, some paid reduced, some ate free. But there was no way even the full price could pay for your meal without some money from elsewhere.


Wow! So a missionary or his/ her family has to foot the bill! I'm amazed and appalled. There is something very wrong with this.

I have a nephew (actually my best friend's son) who is a volunteer in the Peace Corps. He gets regular, mandatory health checks by Peace Corps professionals. He is given a stipend monthly based on the economy of the country he lives in. He is allowed two weeks a year for vacations. He will receive a full scholarship to selected universities to finish his masters degree and he is placed at the front of the line when applying for any government job.

Mormonism is a strange world.
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.

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_ajax18
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _ajax18 »

Wow! So a missionary or his/ her family has to foot the bill! I'm amazed and appalled. There is something very wrong with this.


I guess I'm amazed you've been around Mormonism this long and didn't know this. Every time I mowed a yard or delivered a newspaper growing up it was put into a bank account to save for the mission. That's what nearly all Mormon boys were encouraged to do. Even back in 95-97, it cost at least $10k to serve. Now I sit back and wonder why $10,000 wouldn't keep me afloat for more than a couple months at most.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
_Quasimodo
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _Quasimodo »

ajax18 wrote:
Wow! So a missionary or his/ her family has to foot the bill! I'm amazed and appalled. There is something very wrong with this.


I guess I'm amazed you've been around Mormonism this long and didn't know this. Every time I mowed a yard or delivered a newspaper growing up it was put into a bank account to save for the mission. That's what nearly all Mormon boys were encouraged to do. Even back in 95-97, it cost at least $10k to serve. Now I sit back and wonder why $10,000 wouldn't keep me afloat for more than a couple months at most.


Well, I knew that Mormons talked about a missionary fund, so I thought that might help defray the costs. I didn't realize that the family of the missionary would have to cover all the costs.

No wonder the Church has 80,000 missionaries. It's a free workforce.
This, or any other post that I have made or will make in the future, is strictly my own opinion and consequently of little or no value.

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_ajax18
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Re: Healthcare of Mormon missionaries

Post by _ajax18 »

No wonder the Church has 80,000 missionaries. It's a free workforce.


It was surely a big sacrifice for the missionaries. For me I was happy to do it since I believed God rewarded a man according to his works in the next world. I only ended up saving about $7k by the time I left. My family was happy to pay the rest.

It's not totally free to the Church though. The Church does pay plane tickets and other fees associated with entering and leaving a country. For example, each missionary who left Colombia with me had to pay a $300 fee for the privilege of leaving the country. The Church paid this. And as I mentioned, $400/month wasn't really covering what it cost me to live in Colombia each month. There's no way.

Church finances are a mystery since they're not transparent about it. I don't see how the Church wasn't pulling a lot of money from tithing to support this entire effort. At the time I was told that mission presidents were independently wealthy and thus qualified to serve in a position that didn't allow them to work for a living. I find that very hard to believe looking back at it. We may not have been privy to his bank statements but we saw how a mission president lived. I suspect the Church compensates mission presidents very well one way or another, and surely it doesn't come from the $400/month our family transferred to the Church bank account each month for our service.

ETA: I think the decrease in the minimum mission age is going to prove expensive for the Church, though better for the missionaries and their lives afterwards. In my day, missionaries often had to demonstrate some savings to become eligible to serve. This savings was often obtained by working full time during the year after high school before the missionary turned 19 while living with their parents.

Sometimes the only thing that stopped a missionary from leaving early or even being sent home early was the fact that neither he nor his family could afford to pay his plane ticket home.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
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