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    Senate Letter 12.22.09

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    witheloggia
    The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urges the Senate not to pass its current health care reform bill without essential changes. Specifically, the bill violates longstanding policies against using federal funds for elective abortions and plans that include abortions. It also fails to protect conscience rights and ensure affordable and accessible coverage for all, including immigrants. The bishops believe the Senate should not move forward with this bill in its current form and should instead make changes to remedy these fundamental flaws.

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    Senate Letter 12.22.09

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    The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urges the Senate not to pass its current health care reform bill without essential changes. Specifically, the bill violates longstanding policies against using federal funds for elective abortions and plans that include abortions. It also fails to protect conscience rights and ensure affordable and accessible coverage for all, including immigrants. The bishops believe the Senate should not move forward with this bill in its current form and should instead make changes to remedy these fundamental flaws.

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    The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urges the Senate not to pass its current health care reform bill without essential changes. Specifically, the bill violates longstanding policies against using federal funds for elective abortions and plans that include abortions. It also fails to protect conscience rights and ensure affordable and accessible coverage for all, including immigrants. The bishops believe the Senate should not move forward with this bill in its current form and should instead make changes to remedy these fundamental flaws.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    763 views3 pages

    Senate Letter 12.22.09

    Uploaded by

    witheloggia
    The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops urges the Senate not to pass its current health care reform bill without essential changes. Specifically, the bill violates longstanding policies against using federal funds for elective abortions and plans that include abortions. It also fails to protect conscience rights and ensure affordable and accessible coverage for all, including immigrants. The bishops believe the Senate should not move forward with this bill in its current form and should instead make changes to remedy these fundamental flaws.

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    United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

    3211 FOURTH STREET NE • WASHINGTON DC 20017-1194 • 202-541-3000


    WEBSITE: WWW.USCCB.ORG/healthcare • FAX 202-541-3339

    December 22, 2009

    United States Senate


    Washington, DC 20510

    Dear Senator:

    On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we strongly urge the
    Senate not to move its current health care reform bill forward without incorporating essential
    changes to ensure that needed health care reform legislation truly protects the life, dignity,
    consciences and health of all.

    The Catholic bishops of the United States have long supported adequate and affordable health
    care for all, and insisted that providing health care that clearly reflects these fundamental
    principles is a public good, moral imperative and urgent national priority. In our letter of
    November 20 we urged the Senate to act as the House has in the following respects:

    • keep in place current federal law on abortion funding and conscience protections on
    abortion;

    • protect the access to health care that immigrants currently have and remove current
    barriers to access; and

    • include strong provisions for adequate affordability and coverage standards.

    Disappointingly, the legislative proposal now advancing to final approval in the Senate does not
    meet these moral criteria. Specifically, it violates the longstanding federal policy against the use
    of federal funds for elective abortions and health plans that include such abortions -- a policy
    upheld in all health programs covered by the Hyde Amendment as well as in the Children’s
    Health Insurance Program, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program -- and now in the
    House-passed “Affordable Health Care for America Act.” We believe legislation that fails to
    comply with this policy and precedent is not true health care reform and should be opposed until
    this fundamental problem is remedied.

    Protecting Human Life and Conscience


    Despite claims to the contrary, the House-passed provision on abortion keeps in place the
    longstanding and widely supported federal policy against government funding of elective
    abortions and plans that include elective abortions. It does not restrict abortion, or prevent people
    from buying insurance covering abortion with their own funds. It simply ensures that where
    federal funds are involved, people are not required to pay for other people’s abortions. The
    public consensus on this point is borne out by many opinion surveys, including the new
    Quinnipiac University survey of December 22 showing 72 percent opposed to public funding of
    abortion in health care reform legislation.
    2

    The abortion provisions in the Manager’s Amendment to the Senate bill do not maintain this
    commitment to the legal status quo on abortion funding. Federal funds will help subsidize, and
    in some cases a federal agency will facilitate and promote, health plans that cover elective
    abortions. All purchasers of such plans will be required to pay for other people’s abortions in a
    very direct and explicit way, through a separate premium payment designed solely to pay for
    abortion. There is no provision for individuals to opt out of this abortion payment in federally
    subsidized plans, so people will be required by law to pay for other people’s abortions. States
    may opt out of this system only by passing legislation to prohibit abortion coverage. In this way
    the longstanding and current federal policy universally reflected in all federal health programs,
    including the program for providing health coverage to Senators and other federal employees,
    will be reversed. That policy will only prevail in states that take the initiative of passing their
    own legislation to maintain it.

    This bill also continues to fall short of the House-passed bill in preventing governmental
    discrimination against health care providers that decline involvement in abortion (Sec. 259 of
    H.R. 3962), and includes no conscience protection allowing Catholic and other institutions to
    provide and purchase health coverage consistent with their moral and religious convictions on
    other procedures.

    Immigrants and Health Care Coverage


    We support the inclusion of all immigrants, regardless of status, in the insurance exchange. The
    Senate bill forbids undocumented immigrants from purchasing health care coverage in the
    exchange. Undocumented immigrants should not be barred from purchasing a health insurance
    plan with their own money. Without such access, many immigrant families would be unable to
    receive primary care and be compelled to rely on emergency room care. This would harm not
    only immigrants and their families, but also the general public health. Moreover, the financial
    burden on the American public would be higher, as Americans would pay for uncompensated
    medical care through the federal budget or higher insurance rates.

    We also support the removal of the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing federal health
    benefit programs, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, and Medicare. An
    amendment authored by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), which would give states the option to
    remove this ban, should be included in the bill.

    Accessible and Affordable Health Care


    The Catholic bishops have advocated for decades for affordable and accessible health care for
    all, especially the poor and marginalized. The Senate bill makes great progress in covering
    people in our nation. However, the Senate bill would still leave over 23 million people in our
    nation without health insurance. This falls far short of what is needed in both policy and moral
    dimensions.

    The bishops support expanding Medicaid eligibility minimally for people living at 133 percent or
    lower of the federal poverty level. The bill does not burden states with excessive Medicaid
    matching rates. The affordability credits will help lower-income families purchase insurance
    coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange. However, the Senate bill would still leave
    low-income families earning between 133 and 250 percent of the federal poverty level
    3

    financially vulnerable to health care costs, while it does provide more adequate subsidies for
    households 250 percent over the federal poverty level. Overall, the average subsidy provided for
    in the Senate bill is $1,300 less than the average subsidy in the House bill. We urge that the best
    elements of both bills be included.

    For many months, our bishops’ conference has worked with members of Congress, the
    Administration and others to fashion health care reform legislation that truly protects the life,
    dignity, health and consciences of all. Our message has been clear and consistent throughout.
    We regret to say that in all the areas of our moral concern, the Senate health care reform bill is
    deficient. On the issue of respect for unborn human life, the bill not only falls short of the
    House’s standard but violates longstanding precedent in all other federal health programs.
    Therefore we believe the Senate should not move this bill forward at this time but continue to
    discuss and approve changes that could make it morally acceptable. Until these fundamental
    flaws are remedied the bill should be opposed.

    Regardless of the outcome in the Senate, we will work vigorously to incorporate into the final
    legislation our priorities for upholding conscience rights and longstanding current prohibitions
    on abortion funding; ensuring affordability and access; and including immigrants. We hope and
    pray that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine reform.

    Sincerely,

    Bishop William F. Murphy Cardinal Daniel DiNardo Bishop John Wester


    Diocese of Rockville Centre Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston Diocese of Salt Lake City
    Chairman Chairman Chairman
    Committee on Domestic Committee on Pro-life Activities Committee on Migration
    Justice and Human
    Development

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