The struggle ahead on health care reform

By Archbishop José H. Gomez

For the last several months our country has been engaged in an intense debate about how best to reform our national health care system.

The Church has played an important part in this debate—and for good reasons. Catholics have been running hospitals and providing health care in this country since a generation before the American Revolution, ever since French Ursuline nuns founded a hospital and orphanage in Louisiana in 1727.

Catholic teaching holds that health care is an essential dimension of the common good (see Catechism, no. 1908). And the U.S. bishops have advocated for many years that we find a way to ensure all Americans have access to decent and affordable health care.

Seen in this light, the House of Representatives’ Nov. 7 vote on comprehensive reform legislation was truly historic.

I am grateful that the House voted to keep taxpayer funded abortions out of this reform bill. This is a victory for democracy, human life, and common sense.

I am also grateful for the remarkable exercise of political responsibility on the part of the nation’s Catholic community.

The bishops provided excellent leadership in analyzing the legislation from a moral standpoint and articulating a strong stance guided by moral principles. Some Catholic Democrats in the House showed courage in voting not to include abortion funding in the bill. And ordinary Catholic citizens made their voices heard loud and clear.

As the legislation now moves to the Senate, many questions remain—not only about abortion but about the basic structure of the reforms being contemplated.

Though as Catholics we believe that health care is a basic right and that government has a proper role in ensuring access to these services, the question remains how and to what extent the government should be involved.

I still have questions about whether this legislation is the best vehicle to advance the needs of low-income Americans and the uninsured. I worry about the cost and the level of government involvement in the marketplace. I am very concerned about the possible erosion of the principle of subsidiarity in some of the current reform proposals.

Subsidiarity is a crucial principle of the Church’s social doctrine. This principle holds that services in society should be provided by organizations that are closest to the people in need of these services. It further cautions against government interventions that might discourage or replace “the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.” (Catechism, nos. 1883, 1894).

I am also deeply troubled by the prospect that immigrants might lose the health coverage they now have. I worry too that this legislation does not adequately guarantee the conscience rights of Catholic institutions and Catholic health care workers.

But the most immediate threat we face is from powerful interests who see health care reform as a backdoor through which to push their radical anti-life agenda.

Our position as Catholics and Americans is reasonable, and responsible. It is not a sectarian position. We cannot be credibly accused of trying to impose our religious values on our fellow citizens.

It is true we believe abortion is legalized homicide, and that destroying unborn children should have no place in the policies or practices of a civilized nation.

But our position makes good sense simply on public policy grounds. We reject that abortion—an alleged medical procedure—should be something mandated as a “right” under health care reform legislation; we further reject the idea that government should pay for or subsidize this procedure.

Now, whatever one may believe about the morality of abortion, it is clear that it is not an essential health care service. As its advocates are always telling us, abortion is a “choice.” Thus, the government has no business promoting it or using our limited taxpayer monies to pay for it.

We are in for a tough battle. But we must be diligent in fighting the tendency to frame the national conversation on health care only in terms of economic and bureaucratic considerations. We need to keep the focus on the sanctity and dignity of the human person. We must fight any attempt to justify the rationing of care to the elderly, the terminally ill, and the disabled.

So as the legislative debate moves to the Senate let us continue to be vigilant. Let us work and pray for reform that truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all.