With more than 620 Catholic hospitals serving the public around the United States, hundreds of Catholic medical clinics and shelters, and even a few Catholic-affiliated medical schools, Catholics have a keen interest in healthcare reform. That interest isn’t new. It’s rooted in experience, including the experience of trying to help people with little or no health insurance at all. For decades, the U.S. bishops have pushed for an overhaul of our nation’s healthcare industry and the way it delivers its services. Why? Because the Church sees access to basic health care as a right and a social responsibility, not a privilege.
But Catholic support for the general principle of reform does not bind anyone to endorse a specific piece of legislation. God gave us brains for a reason, to think; and we need to use them, because the practical and moral problems we face on the way to good healthcare reform are as formidable as the goal is admirable. This is why the U.S. bishops’ conference has tried so diligently for the past three months to work with Congress and the White House in seeking sound compromise legislation. As of November 5, all those efforts have failed.
The bishops have a few simple but important priorities.
First, everyone should have access to basic health care, including immigrants. The Church would hope to see that access broadened as widely as possible. But at a minimum, it should include those immigrants who live and work in the United States legally. Second, reform should respect the dignity of every person, from conception to natural death. This means that the elderly and persons with disabilities must be treated with special care and sensitivity. It also means that abortion and abortion funding should be excluded from any reform plan, no matter how adroitly the abortion funding is masked. Whatever one thinks about its legality, abortion has nothing to do with advancing human “health,” and a large number of Americans regard it as a gravely wrong act of violence, not only against unborn children but also against women.
Third, real healthcare reform needs to include explicit, ironclad conscience protections for medical professionals and institutions so that they cannot be forced to violate their moral convictions. Fourth—and this is so obvious it sometimes goes unstated—any reform must be economically realistic and financially sustainable. We can’t help anyone, including ourselves, if we’re insolvent. If we commit ourselves to health services, then we need to have the will and the ability to really pay for them. That’s a moral issue, not simply a practical one.
Note that these priorities do not attack the constitutional status of abortion. That’s a different battle. Nor do they take anything away from people who regard themselves as pro-choice. But they do protect the rights of the many, many citizens who see abortion as tragic and evil, and refuse to be implicated in supporting it.
Given the broad Catholic support for some kind of comprehensive healthcare reform, the historic links of the Democratic Party to the Catholic community, and the party’s total control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, the reform legislation actually moving through Congress as I write these comments on November 5 is not only inadequate and baffling, but insulting and dangerous.
With the exception of a few leaders, like Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak, Congress has ignored or rejected every attempt at resolving the serious concerns voiced by the bishops—or alternately, has pushed solutions like the Capps Amendment that do not solve the problems, and even create new ones. The White House has done nothing to intervene. “Common ground” thinking in Washington apparently has more reality as public relations than as public policy. And as a result, all of the main healthcare reform proposals in Congress, including the huge, 2,000-page merged House bill, are fatally flawed. Unless they are immediately and adequately amended, they need to be opposed and defeated.
For all of Congress’ public talk about “consensus building” and “consensus health care,” Washington has proved once again that hearing loss can be job-related. Most American Catholics, from people in the pews to pastors and bishops, want healthcare reform to work. But too many people in Washington don’t know how to listen, or don’t want to listen, or just don’t care.
James D. Conley, S.T.L., is the auxiliary bishop of Denver.
Comments:
We have created too much dependence on the State to provide what human relationships should be providing and the result is that people are alienated from one another. Many don't love and aren't loved. Our Bishops should be talking less to politicians about grand plans and more to their flocks about simpler ones.
Well, the 1/5 is nice and the 4/5ths is monstrous.
I always say that the holy went to bed with the unholy, and now the holy is tainted just the same. Nothing is holy.
It is no wonder why now Catholics who sold out aren't being taken seriously.
A ministry can't run along side (especially in the same conglomerate) ruthless business. The two are not compatible. The ministry can't close their eyes to what the ruthless business portion is up to and STILL maintain that their ministry is holy. It just doesn't work that way.
It must be all for one and one for all, otherwise forget the 'ministry' all together.
It hasn't been a ministry around be me since 1996 because that's when they let the snakes into the system to do the dirty work.
The idea that carying for the sick is not a trivial benefit akin to a solar tax credit, but is in fact a moral mandate, something essential to a decent and just society.
However, inasmuch as teh Bishops have entered the political fray, political calculations come into play.
Currently tens of thousands of innocent lives are lost each year due to lack of health care; hundreds of thousnds more are ruined by bankruptcy and poverty caused by inadequate insurance.
Further, major health care reform is a once in a decade opportunity; the political will and organization to proceed is nearly balanced out by the opposing party, which has as its mandate an implacable opposition to universal coverage.
I would suggest that the more moral case would be to press as hard as possible for abortion funding restrictions in this bill, but insist on it passing regardless.
First, it is easier to amend the bill next year to restrict abortion funding, than it is to create a new healthcare reform in the next term.
Second, abortions are a low-cost precedure- restricting funding has very little effect on the number of women seeking it. So even allowing for the chance that the bill will cover abortion, it is extremely unlikely that the number of abortions will rise.
If this bill is not passed, we will need to wait another decade or longer to get another one, and in that decade, hundreds of thousands of innocent lives will have been sacrificed needlessly causing untold misery for millions more.
Whereas passing the bill now will not result in any abortions that would have not happened otherwise.
This administration and most legislators do not have the sanctity of life and the principles of subsidiarity as their foundation; furthermore, as the entire program will be economically disastrous at the national level, the health care bill must not be supported.
There can be little or no consensus building or common ground with a president who champions abortion and the destruction of marriage as a means of transforming this nation.
Healthcare reform must BEGIN at the level of the individual, not the federal government. Proper diet, exercise, and sleep are the foundation for health, and many of the expensive medical conditions of our society begin at the level of the individual. According to the CDC, lung cancer is the second most common type of cancer, and the most lethal. Although 80-90% of all cases of lung cancer are attributable to smoking, millions of individuals continue this irresponsible practice.
From obesity and Type II Diabetes to heart disease, the avoidable habits and addictions of individuals account for the lion's share of American healthcare costs. We will never succeed in curbing healthcare costs or delivering true health while we fail to address the matter at the level of individual responsibility.
And the kicker is that our local congresswoman who is a "Catholic" and indeed a fellow parishioner, who has received hundreds if not thousands of calls, will most likely vote for it!
I also agree with Greg Miller above. If this country wants to reform our health care system the government should advocate caring for our health. They could give incentives to organic farmers, give tax breaks to people who have a garden, outlaw chemical pesticides and herbicides, work to clean up our drinking water, put tough restrictions on smokers. Individuals need to turn off the TV and computer, get outside, exercise, take responsibility for what is put into our body. Doctors need to educate themselves on nutrition and preventive health and finding the cause of a problem instead of passing out pills that only treat symptoms. Insurers need to get a clue about the benefits of time-tested treatments like acupuncture and homeopathy.
But for now....stand up against this bill !!!!