Diocese of Sacramento December 5 & 6, 2009 • San Fernando Region January 23 & 24, 2010
• Diocese of Fresno April 17 & 18, 2010 •
Diocese of Orange May 1 & 2, 2010 •
Archdiocese of San Francisco May 15 & 16, 2010
Social Teaching
US Bishops' Position on Health Care Reform
1. Supports universal health coverage which protects the life and dignity of all, especially those who are poor and vulnerable, and is affordable. Because Catholic teaching insists that basic health care is a right and is essential to protect human life and dignity, genuine health care reform which protects human life and advances universal coverage is a moral imperative and urgent national priority. For us, universal coverage should be truly universal, assuring decent health care for all from conception to natural death.
2. Opposes any efforts to expand abortion funding, mandate abortion coverage, or endanger the conscience rights of health care providers and religious institutions. Longstanding and widely supported current policies on these issues must be preserved. We urge members of the House and Senate to take all steps necessary to oppose abortion funding, mandated abortion coverage or weakening of conscience rights.
3. Supports effective measures to safeguard the health of immigrants, their children and all of society by expanding eligibility for public programs, such as Medicaid, to all low-income families and vulnerable people and by offering adequate subsidies for cost-sharing of insurance premiums and out of pocket expenses.
Developments are occurring at a rapid pace in Washington. Congressional leaders are aiming for a vote sometime during the week of March 14. However, the schedule has shifted many times. As the year-long debate on health care insurance reform nears a final vote, the US Bishops continue to urge the following three essential elements be included:
Retain longstanding requirements that federal funds not be used for elective abortions or plans that include them, and effectively protects conscience rights;
Ensure access to quality, affordable, life-giving health care for all; and,
Protect the access to health care that immigrants currently have and removes current barriers to access.
In addition to the material on our health care reform page, the following has just been released:
The Senate Health Care Reform bill clearly expands abortion services, despite suggestions by some political leaders to the contrary. Richard Doerflinger, Associate Director, Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops notes the following:
"We do not know how anyone who has spoken to the bishops could conclude that the Senate health care bill does not fund abortions. As the bishops have said in their letters to Congress, abortion problems in the Senate bill are so serious that, despite our strong support for expanding access to health care, we will have to oppose the bill unless they are resolved.
"While the Senate bill includes some language limiting the direct use of tax credits to subsidize abortion coverage, it still violates longstanding federal precedent on abortion funding in two ways.
WASHINGTON -- On the eve of the White House Health Care Summit, the U.S. Bishops urged Congressional leaders "to commit themselves to enacting genuine health care reform that will protect the life, dignity, consciences and health of all." In their February 24 letter to Congressional leadership, the bishops also cited their longtime support of adequate and affordable health care for all, calling health care a basic human right.
The letter was signed by Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chairs of the bishops' committees on Domestic Justice and Human Development, Pro-Life Activities and Migration, respectively.
The bishops urged the House and Senate to adopt legislation that ensures access to quality, affordable, life-giving health care for all; retains longstanding requirements that federal funds not be used for elective abortions or plans that include them; effectively protects conscience rights; and protects the access to health care that immigrants currently have and removes current barriers to access.
"We hope and pray that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine health care reform that protects the life, dignity, consciences and health of all," said the bishops.
For more information about the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' teaching on health care reform, visit www.usccb.org/healthcare.
Does an embryo have a soul? Isn't society justified in putting to death a criminal that has committed a capital crime? Why should taxpayers have to support health care and schooling for undocumented children? Why didn't Pope John Paul II agree to call President Bush's invasion of Iraq a "just war"? When did health care become a "right"?
All of these apparently unconnected questions actually involve the same central Catholic moral principle, the consistent ethic of life. This principle is often associated with Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s 1983 proposal of the “seamless garment” analogy, a reference from John 19:23 to the seamless robe of Jesus, to provide a moral compass to help Catholics apply moral principles to life issues present in the public square.
Cardinal Bernardin suggested that a consistent ethic of life might be the most effective approach in addressing issues dealing with human life and dignity in a modern society more and more identified with the “culture of death.” His seamless garment approach suggests that all life issues such as abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, social injustice, racism, prejudice, poverty, unjust war and economic injustice are most effectively confronted when done so with a consistent application of moral principles that are firmly founded on the intrinsic value of human life.
Key points from the USCCB Statement: Health care is a basic human right, say bishops: Don't go backwards on conscience protections. Government health care plans should follow Hyde and not pay for elective abortions.
WASHINGTON --The U.S. bishops called on Congress to continue to work on health care reform to provide access for everyone, protection of life at all stages and conscience rights.
The call came in a January 26 letter signed by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston- Houston, chair of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities; Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, chair of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chair of the Committee on Migration. The entire letter can be found here. The bishops said that the need for reform remains despite a new political climate.
Kathy Saile, Director of Domestic Social Development for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, explains the importance of health care reform for the U.S. Bishops and why the bishops insist that the legislation not federally fund abortion.
Federal government must not expand its role enabling abortions; Bill should not go forward unless and until problems remedied; Protection of life, conscience rights; fairness to legal immigrants; affordability top issues.
WASHINGTON--The Senate health reform bill should not move forward in its current form, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City said December 19, as senators proceeded closer to a vote.
Cardinal DiNardo chairs the bishops' Committee on Pro-life Activities. Bishop Murphy chairs the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development. Bishop Wester chairs the bishops' Committee on Migration.
WASHINGTON -"The Senate vote to table the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment is a grave mistake and a serious blow to genuine health care reform," said Cardinal Francis George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The Senate is ignoring the promise made by President Obama and the will of the American people in failing to incorporate longstanding prohibitions on federal funding for abortion and plans that include abortion."
Bishop William Murphy, Chair of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said: "Congress needs to retain existing abortion funding restrictions and safeguard conscience protections because the nation urgently needs health care reform that protects the life, dignity, conscience and health of all. We will continue to work with Senators, Representatives and the Administration to achieve reform which meets these criteria. We hope the Senate will address the legislation's fundamental flaw on abortion and remedy its serious problems related to conscience rights, affordability and treatment of immigrants."
Amendment precludes use of federal dollars for elective abortion coverage. Bishops want Stupak-style House amendment included in Senate bill. Oppose making people pay for other people’s abortions
WASHINGTON—The U.S. bishops have voiced support for the Nelson-Hatch-Casey Amendment to the Senate health reform bill and have asked voters to back it.
The bishops took the position in a Dec. 7 letter to all U.S. senators, after Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE), Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Robert Casey (D-PA) proposed an amendment to prevent the health reform bill from using federal funds to pay for health plans that include elective abortions. The ban would be similar to the Hyde Amendment, passed in 1976, to ban federal funds in the Health and Human Services’ appropriations bill from paying for coverage that includes most abortions.
For more than three decades, the U.S. Bishops have advocated for universal healthcare which protects the life and dignity of all. What that means in political terms is currently under vigorous discussion in the U. S. Congress.
On November 7, the House of Representatives passed the 1990 page Affordable Health Care for America Act, which purports to cover 96 percent of all Americans—an additional 36 million uninsured—and which includes the Stupak Amendment. The Stupak Amendment—like the 32 year old Hyde Amendment—bans the use of federal funds for paying for abortions or for plans that include abortion coverage, with an exception in the cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother.
On November 21, the U.S. Senate voted 60-39 to begin debate on their version of healthcare reform, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—weighing in at 2074 pages—with plans to provide healthcare coverage to 31 million uninsured. This bill does not have the Stupak Amendment language—but rather depends on the annual inclusion of Hyde Amendment in the Appropriations bills and authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make certain that at least one health insurance plan offered in government-regulated insurance exchanges provides coverage of abortion. Senators, advocates and lobbyists will be studying all this bill’s provisions in anticipation of the Senate debate which begins November 30.
1. Supports universal health coverage which protects the life and dignity of all, especially those who are poor and vulnerable, and is affordable. Because Catholic teaching insists that basic health care is a right and is essential to protect human life and dignity, genuine health care reform which protects human life and advances universal coverage is a moral imperative and urgent national priority. For us, universal coverage should be truly universal, assuring decent health care for all from conception to natural death.
Developments are occurring at a rapid pace in Washington. Congressional leaders are aiming for a vote sometime during the week of March 14. However, the schedule has shifted many times. As the year-long debate on health care insurance reform nears a final vote, the US Bishops continue to urge the following three essential elements be included:
WASHINGTON -- On the eve of the White House Health Care Summit, the U.S. Bishops urged Congressional leaders "to commit themselves to enacting genuine health care reform that will protect the life, dignity, consciences and health of all." In their February 24 letter to Congressional leadership, the bishops also cited their longtime support of adequate and affordable health care for all, calling health care a basic human right.
By Rev. Richard Benson, C.M.
Key points from the USCCB Statement: Health care is a basic human right, say bishops: Don't go backwards on conscience protections. Government health care plans should follow Hyde and not pay for elective abortions.
Federal government must not expand its role enabling abortions; Bill should not go forward unless and until problems remedied; Protection of life, conscience rights; fairness to legal immigrants; affordability top issues.
WASHINGTON -"The Senate vote to table the Nelson-Hatch-Casey amendment is a grave mistake and a serious blow to genuine health care reform," said Cardinal Francis George, President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. "The Senate is ignoring the promise made by President Obama and the will of the American people in failing to incorporate longstanding prohibitions on federal funding for abortion and plans that include abortion."
For more than three decades, the U.S. Bishops have advocated for universal healthcare which protects the life and dignity of all. What that means in political terms is currently under vigorous discussion in the U. S. Congress.