The title is probably misleading, as the
Odd Fellows and
Knights of Columbus are still around, but
Reason has a fascinating story in the "reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated" vein:
mutual aid societies (in the guise of "sharing ministries") have made a comeback in the wake of Obamacare.
I predicted that Obamacare would lead to the demise of Samaritan and
two similar organizations in the U.S. This model, I thought, wouldn’t be
able to compete with the heavily subsidized plans soon to become
available on the new health-care exchanges.
Wow, did I get that wrong. As The New York Times reported recently,
[M]embership in sharing ministries has more than doubled
over the last six years, to 535,000 from about 200,000…The growth seems
to have come largely through word of mouth, at churches, schools and
workplaces.
There's also this:
The opportunity to help their fellow Christians is something these men
and women deeply value. "Instead of wanting to be part of an insurance
company, I wanted to be part of something where the body of Christ was
banding together and doing what the bible commanded in a more personal
and real way," Samaritan's Executive Vice President James Lansberry told
me in an interview.
Yes, this. One of the basic problems I see with the state-centered approach to charity is how much it divorces the giver from the recipient. I'm not sure how real that connection can be in an organization that now numbers 200,000 members, but it certainly seems more likely than a huge bureaucracy numbering millions.
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