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U.S. bishops want health care for all — including unborn |
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By Maria Wiering
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Thursday, 24 September 2009 |
After hearing President Barack Obama deliver his latest address on national health care reform, officials with the U.S. bishops’ conference expressed their hope that reform efforts will espouse important elements the church supports, including a continuing ban on federal funding for abortion.
Some pro-life advocates, however, remain skeptical.
Obama addressed a joint session of Congress Sept. 9, and three days
later he packed the Target Center in Minneapolis for a campaign-like
rally to promote his vision for reform. He pushed for universal and
affordable care and said he opposed federal funding for abortion while
supporting the protection of federal conscience laws — all measures the
U.S. bishops support.
Obama also said he supports a public insurance option. The U.S. bishops have taken no position on a public insurance option.
Currently, three versions of a comprehensive health care reform bill
are circulating in Congress — one in the House and two in the Senate.
The two houses of Congress would have to pass an identical bill before
Obama could sign it into law.
Health care a basic right
Catholic health care facilities comprise the largest U.S. network of
nonprofit health care sponsors, systems and facilities. One out of
every six U.S. patients is cared for in a Catholic hospital.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have outlined a vision for
health care reform that dates back to 1993 in a resolution titled “A
Framework for Comprehensive Health Care Reform: Protecting Human Life,
Promoting Human Dignity, Pursuing the Common Good.” (Find it online at
www.usccb.org/healthcare.)
Despite being 16 years old, the document still addresses today’s needs
and concerns, said Minnesota Catholic Conference policy director
Alexandra Fitzsimmons. In it, the bishops state “that everyone has a
right to adequate health care.” This was reiterated from the bishops’
1981 pastoral letter “Health and Health Care.”
“This right flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that
belongs to all human persons, who are made in the image of God,” the
document states.
The U.S. bishops lay out eight criteria for health care reform,
including respect for life from conception to natural death, priority
concern for the poor, cost restraint, pursuing the common good while
preserving pluralism, and universal access for every person living in
the United States.
Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Center, N.Y., wrote a letter to
Congress in July stating that the U.S. bishops continue to advocate for
reform that leads to health care for all.
“The bishops want to support health care reform,” said Bishop Murphy,
chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human
Development. “We have in the past and we always must insist that health
care reform excludes abortion coverage or any other provisions that
threaten the sanctity of human life.”
Archbishop John Nienstedt reiterated the points in Bishop Murphy’s
letter in an Aug. 27 column in The Catholic Spirit. He has called for
an explicit statement in the bill which asserts that government
insurance would not cover abortion services and that euthanasia would
not be permitted.
“This legislation has far-reaching moral implications for us as a
people and as a nation,” Archbishop Nienstedt wrote. “What it permits
and what it disallows speaks volumes about the values that we hold dear
and are willing to fight to defend.”
During his Sept. 9 address, Obama told Congress he wanted to clear up
what he said are several misconceptions about the health care reform
being proposed: He said it would not create “death panels” aimed at
euthanizing senior citizens, it would not insure undocumented
immigrants, and it would not use federal dollars to fund abortions.
It would also leave federal conscious laws intact, Obama said, allowing
doctors not to preform procedures or prescribe medication that violate
their personal values.
USCCB officials welcomed Obama’s statements on abortion and the
uninsured in a Sept. 10 press release. They especially welcomed Obama’s
stated commitment to continue to exclude federal funding of abortion
and to maintain federal conscious laws, said Richard Doerflinger,
associate director of the bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities.
As currently written, however, the leading piece of legislation in the
House, America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, known as H.R.
3200, allows for federal funding of abortion. Doerflinger said Sept. 16
that the Senate Finance Committee legislation made public that day by
Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) has “the same unacceptable language on
abortion” as H.R. 3200.
Abortion funding still unclear
The House bill’s Capps Amendment, offered by Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.)
and passed in July, requires a public health insurance option to cover
all abortions eligible for federal funding under the Hyde Amendment.
The Hyde Amendment bars federal funding for abortions, except in cases
of rape, incest or when the life of the woman is endangered.
The Capps Amendment also grants the secretary of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services the power to mandate coverage for abortions
in the public plan not eligible for funding under the Hyde Amendment.
This provision could expand the public option’s coverage to all abortions, Fitzsimmons said.
In the present administration, Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be the
official deciding whether the public insurance option should include
abortion coverage.
Sebelius is a Catholic who supports access to abortion.
If the secretary of Health and Human Services mandates abortion
coverage as part of the public insurance option, then federal funds
will subsidize abortions. Federal funds — in the form of affordability
tax credits designed to help low-income people pay their insurance
premiums — will also subsidize abortions in private plans that cover
abortion, Fitzsimmons said.
Though the Capps amendment states that affordability credits should not
be used to pay for elective abortion services, merely segregating funds
will not achieve this end, she added.
Additionally, while the Capps Amendment does not require private
insurance companies who participate in a Health Insurance Exchange — a
market of sorts where individuals and businesses could comparison shop
for coverage — to cover abortions, in effect, it would grant federal
subsidy funds to those that do, Fitzsimmons said.
Catholics cannot compromise on the abortion issue, Fitzsimmons said.
“We cannot let go of the principle that really is why we believe that
health care is a basic right,” she said. “[Health care reform] is empty
if it’s done without respect for life at the same time. . . .
“The first place that we need to start from is that the church does
believe that health care is a basic human right,” Fitzsimmons added.
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Federal Health Care Reform Framework