HealthCare-NOW! MEDICARE for ALL - Organizinag for a Quality National Single Payer Healthcare System for All, H.R. 676

Faith News

The Louisville Letter on Community Based Ecumenical and Interfaith Ministry.

PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA) CALLS FOR SINGLE PAYER

HEALTH CARE AND COMMUNITY MINISTRY (II)

Resolution to Endorse HR 676

WHEREAS the General Assemblies of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and its predecessors have through the years called for reform of health delivery systems in the United States to make them accessible to the entire population.

WHEREAS the 1971 General Assembly of the UPUSA called for a national health insurance “single payer” plan with the following words:
We find that our society is giving highest priority to the production and consumption of goods and to profit-making and the defense of wealth to the neglect of basic human needs including health.
We believe that good health is of the nation’s most valuable resources, important not only to the well-being of individuals but also to the nation….We believe the general public has direct responsibilities in redesigning and developing a comprehensive, publicly-oriented national health policy.

Therefore, the General Assembly recommends: There be developed a national policy leading to a comprehensive system of health care which shall:
a. Be accountable to the general public.
b. Make all services and benefits available to all persons in the United States.
c. Be administered by a single national health agency with power to enforce standards to provide the highest quality health care possible.

The Delivery of Health Services

A. We believe that the value of persons requires that each person have full access to essential services without regard to ability to pay and on terms that enhance the dignity of the individuals….
B. We find our medical system to be preoccupied with disease and crisis care, which is costly in lives, social relationships, and money…
C. Therefore, the 183rd General Assembly (1971) recommends that:
i. Comprehensive health care for all persons include at least these elements: and in growth and development, nutrition, prevention of illness, periodic diagnostic evaluation, treatment of disease, extended and home nursing care, rehabilitation, long term care for chronic disorders, and the appropriate social and economic provisions to make these feasible in the life of a person and his household.

WHEREAS the negative conditions that resulted in the 1971 and subsequent General Assembly pronouncements have multiplied in recent years so that now almost 50 million persons are uninsured, another 50 million are underinsured, and still another 50 million are at risk to be uninsured because of the gradual collapse of employment-based insurance plans; while per capita annual health costs are higher than in any other country and yet the U.S. ranks only 13th amongst industrialized countries in quality of health care; while administrative costs are many times higher under managed care systems that in single payer systems such as the Medicare and Veterans Administration systems, while for the current per capita expenditure, the entire populace could be covered through a single payer system, including mental health and dental care without co-pays and deductibles.

WHEREAS we now have before the U.S. Congress a bill – HR 676 – that calls for single payer national health insurance and that embraces many of the principles set forth in our General Assembly pronouncements.

WHEREAS health care for the general population and for specific groups within the population as always been a concern of PHEWA and of all the PHEWA networks.

BE IT RESOLVED that:
PHEWA endorse HR 676, a single payer, “Medicare for all”, publicly funded, privately administered national health insurance program.

PHEWA work toward endorsement of HR 676 by the General Assembly of the PC(USA).
PHEWA encourage interfaith and ecumenical cooperation with the goal of obtaining passage of HR 676 by the congress and its signing by the President.

PHEWA send a copy of this resolution to Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), to the appropriate committee chairs of the U.S. Congress, and to the Stated Clerk, the Executive Director of the General Assembly Council , the Washington and United Nations offices, the Advisory Council on Social Witness Policy of the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Diverse Clergy Group

This clergy group supporting single payer healthcare represents congregations from multiple faiths. Members include Lutherans, Episcopalians, Jews and Methodists. Its broad base is the group's strength and its weakness, said Jim Nielsen, the group's initial organizer and retired director of common ministry at Washington State University who now worships at First Presbyterian Church in San Luis Obispo. On one hand, more voices means more power, Nielsen said. On the other, the religious leaders represent "very wide pews" of opinions and beliefs, so reaching consensus can be challenging. MORE

Jewish Magazine: Tikkun Covenant Favors Single Payer (from Tikkun -- published on May 17, 2006)
Editor: This is a part of the agenda by one of Tikkun, the Jewish magazine (and organization) that is helping to organize a national meeting of faith groups this weekend. more

A Spiritual Covenant with America A Jewish Magazine, an Interfaith Movement

Here is the Network of Spiritual Progressive's Spiritual Covenant with America {full version can be found in Rabbi Michael Lerner's The Left Hand of God: Taking Back our Country from the Religious Right (Harper, SanFrancisco, 2006), chapters 9-12.}
The Network of Spiritual Progressives

THE NEW BOTTOM LINE; THE CENTRAL GUIDE POST FOR A PROGRESSIVE SPIRITUAL POLITICS:

America needs a New Bottom Line, one which judges institutions, corporations, legislation, social practices, our health care system, our education system, our legal system, our social policies not only by how much money or power they generate, but also by how much love and compassion, kindness and generosity, ethical and ecological sensitivity, and by how much they nurture within us our capacity to respond to other human beings as embodiments of the sacred and to respond to the universe with gratitude, awe and wonder at the grandeur of all that is.

The Spiritual Covenant with America is one way to translate that New Bottom Line into policies for our society. The “we” is all those who will embrace this New Bottom Line.

CONTRAST: SINGLE PAYER AGENDA ( National Health Care plus transformation of how we understand health.)

We will seek a single payer national health care plan like that developed by Physicians for a National Health Program, and we also seek to broaden the understanding of health care to include all levels of what it is to be human. Our physical health cannot be divorced from environmental, social, spiritual, and psychological realities—and the entire medical system has to be reshaped in light of that understanding, focus on prevention, encourage alternative forms of health practice along with traditional Western forms, and insist that because human beings have many levels of reality, health care must reflect that rather than seek to reduce the human to the merely material.

CONTRAST: LIBERAL AGENDA-- They seek gradual addition of benefits for different sectors of the population but leave the whole system in the hands of the profiteers, thus guaranteeing that their proposed changes will be undermined by the insurance companies and drug companies who raise their costs to make huge profits and thus make these reforms unreasonably costly. The single payer plan does not increase but decreases the total amount spent on health care by the U..S

Meanwhile, the plans put forward by many liberals are too limited and too unimaginative to generate the kind of mass support that would be needed to politically defeat the entrenched interests. (Editor's Note: Sometimes they are pressing for more government money to be spent to cover insurance company coverage for the uninsured while leaving the insurance company billions to be collected from us, the citizens suffering from haphazard and inferior quality healthcare coverage.) Moreover, they do not see the need for broadening our conception of what health care really should be about—the full spiritual-physical-psychological ntegration that makes human beings so special and complicated.

CONTRAST: CONSERVATIVE AGENDA--They continually place private profit over public need when it comes to health care. They think of health care as something that needs to be earned rather than as a sacred obligation. (Editor's Note: But, they are not even " fiscally conservative" because they call for continued support for the insurance and pharmaceutical interests spending hundreds of billions of dollars more than needed for a non-profituniversal healthcare system.)

TALKING POINTS WHEN MEETING WITH AN ELECTED OFFICIAL:

A. We support this program as an inevitable consequence of our spiritual and ethical commitments—our New Bottom Line is in part about treating other human beings as embodiments of the sacred.

cartoon

" I've got a first opinion, and a second opinion, now I'm waiting for my insurer's opinion." By Barbara Smaller

United Methodist Policy

Support HR 676

U.S. House of Representatives Resolution 676 is the most comprehensive health care legislation up for consideration in the House today. It offers a mechanism that would make health care services available to everyone while at the same time reducing the enormous administrative costs of our current healthcare delivery system. Impressively, HR 676 has received the endorsement of 68 Representatives to date. However, that’s still barely 15% of the votes, and if you’ll recall legislative mathematics 101, you need 51% to win.

We are encouraging churches and other organizations to sponsor events in support of health care for all on or as close as possible to 6/7/06 June 7th, 2006.

This would be a good time for your church to conduct a Health Care Justice Sabbath. HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act (or, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act) is far-reaching because it includes the following provisions:

• Provides free health care for all persons residing in the US and US territories financed through the government, replacing today's multiplicity of health care payers with a single paying entity, and eliminating cost shifting.

• Includes all medically necessary care,

• Prohibits private insurers from selling health insurance coverage that duplicates benefits of HR 676

• Prohibits HMOs from rewarding physicians who discourage patients from seeking health care

• Finances health care for all through (1) paperwork reduction (2) rational bulk purchases of medicines (3) existing health care funding (4) increased income taxes on the top 5% of earners; (5) a modest payroll tax, and (6) a small tax on stock and bond transactions.

• Provides for retraining and job placement assistance for persons whose jobs are eliminated due to reduction of health administration requirements

• Establishes a National Board to ensure quality, access, and affordability

• Provides for eventual integration of Veterans and Indian Health Services into the program.

• Permits providers to focus on providing care rather than justifying to insurers the care they are providing.

Additional Resources on HR 676:

• Biblical, Moral, and Ethical Perspectives on Universal Health Care -- remarks by GBCS Consultant Jackson Day at Ecumenical Advocacy Days, March 2006

• Bulletin Insert -- The Good Samaritan and Health Care for All

AMERICAN BAPTIST RESOLUTION ON HEALTH CARE FOR ALL

Healing is a significant sign and metaphor of biblical faith. The prophets of the Old Testament and Jesus himself were healers. Physical well-being was valued for its own sake as well as a sign of hope for the day when everyone would share equally in the blessings of shalom.

Many of Jesus' miracles were miracles of healing. He touched and healed lepers, restored sight, caused the lame to walk and renewed the life of the woman who had suffered for years with a flow of blood. Christ's example (Mark 6:53-56) has inspired countless Christian health care workers including those serving as missionaries. Clearly, we have understood Jesus' concern for physical well-being as a commission to carry on that work of healing.

Today in the United States we have a health care system that is in crisis. Health care providers, health office workers, health support staff, insurers, and payers form a patchwork system without any coordination based on policy.

Health statistics tell an ugly story. At any given time about 35 million people in the U.S., one-seventh of the population, have no health care coverage. They are not covered by private insurance, employer-based insurance or government programs. Another 60 million people, including a large proportion of the elderly, do not have adequate coverage.

In the U.S. we pay more for health care than other industrialized nations and get less for our money. The Department of Health and Human Services estimates the total cost of health care in the U.S. in 1992 to exceed $800 billion, 13% of the gross national product. These dollars and percentages are rising daily.

Many people do not have health insurance and therefore go without basic health care. They see physicians less often and die younger than those with insurance. Even people with apparently good health insurance coverage have hidden vulnerabilities when faced with paying for expensive medical conditions. Catastrophic accidents or chronic long-term needs can bankrupt a family.

Efforts at shifting costs among government agencies, private insurers, and individual payers drain enormous amounts of energy and attention, and create enormous additional bureaucratic and regulatory costs beyond the costs for the health care itself.

Powerful forces seek to preserve the status quo, but we as American Baptists, like many other citizens and public officials, believe that the time has come for significant change.

Three general approaches dominate the national debate on universal access to health care. One would merely seek to reform current health insurance programs. The second is an aggregate of proposals under the umbrella term, "managed competition." The third, the "single-payer" approach, is a publicly financed system based on taxes with benefits paid by the government and with services delivered by the government and with services provided by a mix of private and public providers, as Canada does. All have negatives as well as benefits.

In accordance with our 1975 Policy Statement on Health Care, we believe that health care should be viewed as a right, not a privilege, and that the basic goal for health care reform should be universal access to comprehensive benefits.

Therefore, as American Baptists, we urge the President and Congress to work together expeditiously to enact a major program of health care reform which will extend health care coverage to every person in the United States.

We seek a national health care system that:

serves everyone in the United States
provides comprehensive access, care, and services
is sensitive to the needs and rights of health workers, patients, and their cultures
promotes health awareness, disease prevention, nutrition, fitness, and safety
slows the upward spiral of costs
draws financial support from the broad base of the entire nation
reduces unnecessary administrative costs
reduces inappropriate medical procedures

Adopted by the General Board of the American Baptist Churches - June 1992

167 For, 0 Against, 4 Abstentions
Modified by the Executive Committee of the General Board - June 1993
Modified by the Executive Committee of the General Board - September 1994
Modified by the Executive Committee of the General Board - September 1998
(General Board Reference # - 8193:11/91)

Policy Base

Policy Statement on Health, Healing and Wholeness

advocate for the availability of, access to, and funding for quality health care for all persons; and

advocate for availability of, access to, and funding for quality health care for all persons; and

advocate for legislative health care measures.

American Baptist Policy Statement on Health Care

As American Baptists we affirm and support programs, legislation, research and other formulations which help develop a new comprehensive health care delivery system which provides quality services for all people.

1. Make health care resources, private and public, available in keeping with the total needs of people, rather than on the basis of economic, geographic or racial factors;

3. Provide equitable health care for all residents of the U.S.A. by eliminating financial barriers



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