Obama and the Religious Health Care Reformers
by: Dave Belden on August 10th, 2009 | 4 Comments »
Just been on a fascinating conference call with Jim Wallis and David Saperstein and others, organized by PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. They announced a major step up of their campaign for universal health care, and a coup for this movement: President Obama will join them on a conference call and audio webcast next Wednesday, August 19. You are invited to join the call! Details will be posted at a new website: faithforhealth.org. Details of the rest of the campaign, including first TV ad to be placed by this coalition on health care, many local events etc. are summarized below in today’s leter from PICO, and at their website.
I am in the last hours of getting the Sept/Oct Tikkun to the printer, so I don’t have time to comment much. But first, this is great, in that it shows we are in a new kind of national discourse. The religious liberals are stepping up to the plate in a more major way: a move that has been building for years now, but it takes time to form alliances and get courage.This is a critically important counterbalance to the religious right.
But it isn’t the religious left either, and to get away from the left/liberal/right terminology, it’s not a prophetic religious call as I understand the term, though those on the call would certainly like to feel that it is. So why might it not be?
While it is excellent and true to insist that universal healthcare is a moral and religious imperative, that it involves caring for the least well off among us, the devil is inescapably in the details. The group scrupulously avoided calling for any actual policy recommendations, not even insisting on a public option. Except for one: they did want to insist that the final healthcare program be “abortion neutral.” This meant to them not changing the current law on whether providers can or can’t provide abortions, but it did appear to require that no government money would go to abortions. Two clergy on the call–Jim Wallis being one–said they were personally against abortion for religious reasons (though not calling for it to be illegal). Though it was mentioned that the religious world includes pro-choice people not one of them spoke up saying that for them the right for a woman to decide about her own body and pregnancy was a spiritual imperative.
This silence of the feminists made it look as if the Right was still so fiercely powerful that this new movement could not afford to be painted with a feminist brush, at all. They were rightly very keen that abortion and euthanasia not be used as wedge issues to derail universal healthcare as a whole. Wallis reiterated that lies have been told (e.g., that Obama’s plan will involve compulsory euthanasia) and that this religious campaign would insist on truth telling as a religious imperative.
And then Rev. Adam Hamilton said he was not in favor of free care, just affordable care. No one that I recall came out and said that profit was not the right motive for the provision of healthcare.
So in the interests of creating a wide centrist alliance, and one that could draw in pro-abortion people and pro-profit-based healthcare people, it appeared to have been decided that the radically prophetic voices would have to be excluded or muted. This is the difficulty Michael Lerner has had all his political life, in joining in wide coalitions. But that’s OK, I guess. Different roles for different proles.
Except: will this actually help us get to universal healthcare? Are these people truly marking out the moral high ground? Or, when the compromise comes through that the politicans make, and it is not universal after all, will these leaders have lost too much moral authority to criticize it and push for better? Maybe failure will stiffen their resolve, help them draw clearer lines in the sand. Their concern for their congregational members who are suffering is very real and was well expressed.
Having said all that, I would love to be proved wrong!
Today’s email from PICO:
We have extraordinary news to announce this week.
This morning, we released our first national TV ad from religious leaders who are working to pass health reform legislation this year. Watch the “40 Days for Health Reform” ad here.
Tomorrow, we will hold a National Faith-Based Day of Action for Health Care, with 50 prayer vigils and rallies in 45 cities and 18 states including visits to the offices of over 100 Members of Congress. See a complete event listing here.
And, on August 19, President Obama has agreed to participate in a nationwide conference call with PICO and other national religious groups. The goal of the call is to energize and connect the millions of people of faith across the country who are concerned about health care and who want to be part of the solution.
We want tens of thousands of people on this call with the President so please let your friends and neighbors know so they can be part of this historic event. We will send information to RSVP for the call later this week. Please let people know that they can receive an invitation for the call by signing up for our health care updates here.
These events come at a crucial moment in the debate to reform health care. The overwhelming majority of Americans want a civil discussion about health care. But over the last week, a small group of people have hijacked town hall meetings and used some extreme methods to get the media’s attention.
Shouting down one’s fellow citizens, disrupting public meetings, hanging Members of Congress in effigy…this is not the American way. That is why the engagement of the faith community is so important at this precise moment.
We need to bring real people back into the debate – people who want solutions to the rising cost of health care for them and their families. We won’t let such an important debate get high-jacked by people of any ideology or special interest group.
That’s why we need you and your friends and family to join us at an August 11 Day of Action Event. Search here for an event in your community. And why we need you and your family, friends, and fellow congregation members to join us on August 19 for the conference call with the President, and be a part of this historic faith movement for health reform.
For more information about our faith-based campaign for health care reform, visit www.coverallfamilies.org
Sincerely,
PICO National Network
While I don’t agree with some of their statements, it is vital the faith community show how we can come together and insist on humane healthcare reform and not ‘profit driven reform’. But from your article it dosen’t look as if the ‘faith leaders’ will stand the, as you call it, moral high ground.
By the by, I would also encourage reader to visit http://www.faithfulreform.org
They have tools for interfaith events mentioned above as well as other resources.
A central question that we must ask ourselves – and then answer – is this:
Are we advocating for health care justice, our are we simply advocating for a measure of health care justice?
That’s the question that we must answer.
Are we advocating for all science and evidence-based medically necessary care that is truly affordable and accessible to all, or are we advocating for a measure of science and evidence-based medically necessary care?
A laboratory beaker can be one-quarter, or one-half, or two-thirds full, or it can be filled to the brim. Anything other than a full beaker (a full measure) is less than full.
Anything other than all that is needed is less than what is needed. Less than what is needed is not full justice. It is a measure of justice. It is one-quarter, or one-half, or two-thirds of justice.
The only bill in Congress that would provide all science and evidence-based medically necessary care that is truly affordable and accessible to all is HR 676. It would provide a full measure of health care justice.
My spiritual belief is that we are called to advocate for – and struggle to attain – full justice for all, and that most assuredly includes health care justice.
i love this blog.. thanks for sharing..