The Intersection Between Religion and Health Care
Several religious groups are weighing in on plans to reform the health care system, but there’s no consensus between them on how that should be done.
Stephen Romine and Sam Moore both are Baptists. Both agree the U.S. health care system needs reform.
But there’s no consensus between them, or within Hampton Roads’ faith community, on how to fix the system or whether current legislation will do the job right.
“I’m one who supports free enterprise and capitalism. I believe the private sector does a better job,” said Romine, an attorney who is particularly dubious about a government-sponsored public option. He attends Kempsville Baptist Church in Virginia Beach.
Moore, a real estate agent who receives Medicare, wants the pending legislation to move forward, with fine-tuning down the road, if necessary.
“You’re talking about a lot of folks in America who don’t have insurance, including some in my own family,” said Moore, a member of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Norfolk.
Many religious groups – including Catholics, Southern Baptists and the United Church of Christ – are weighing in on the debate over health care reform.
A bill passed the House of Representatives on Nov. 7, and on Saturday, the Senate voted to bring its own bill to the floor. Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is aiming for final passage before the Christmas break.
Religious groups diverge, nationally and locally, over what moral principles should guide health care reform.
At a news conference in October, clergy from Kempsville Baptist Church in Virginia Beach, Exodus Faith Ministries in Chesapeake and London Bridge Baptist Church in Virginia Beach warned against the legislation’s high cost and the possibility that patients wouldn’t be able to choose their own doctors.
T heir top principle, though, was fighting bills that would allow publicly funded abortion.
“This issue alone requires that the health care plan be scrapped,” the Rev. Tommy Taylor of London Bridge said.
The trio of clergy said they had preached on the legislation and asked congregants to lobby Congress.
The House banned federal funds for abortions under the public option and in the insurance “exchange” the bill would establish. But Taylor said he fears that funding for abortion could creep into the Senate bill or final legislation. “It’s not over,” he said.
Nor is it over at the Virginia Catholic Conference, the public policy advocacy arm of the Catholic Church.
While the House abortion amendment mollified Catholic bishops’ concerns, they want a bill to provide universal health care coverage as well, said Jeff Caruso, executive director of the Catholic group.
The church wants legislation to cover children, the elderly, the poor and legal immigrants who are ineligible for Medicaid without five years’ residency, he said.
“We need to make sure everyone has access to health care when they truly need it,” Caruso said.
His organization issued prayer petitions, fliers and bulletin inserts for distribution to every parish in the Richmond diocese, urging Catholics to lobby Congress.
The biblical commandment to love your neighbor as yourself undergirds the preaching on health care reform done by Bishop Curtis Edmonds Sr. at St. Mark Missionary Baptist in Portsmouth.
“If we’ve got to pay more taxes for some unfortunate person to have insurance, I don’t mind paying more,” he said. “It is a Christian principle to help those who are less fortunate than you.”
Like Edmonds, the Rev. James Webb of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Norfolk is telling congregants that he backs a public option “based on the life of Jesus. We’re to take care of the widows and orphans, those less fortunate.”
At Temple Emanuel Synagogue in Virginia Beach, Rabbi Howard Mandell tells people who ask that universal health care is a basic right.
“The basic Jewish principle is that all people are created in the image of God,” he said. “Having adequate health care is an obligation of the community.”
For all the talk on health care in some churches, there are plenty of congregations where there’s little discussion.
At Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Norfolk, the Rev. Joseph Metzger said, “there’s no real talk” because many parishioners find the debate confusing.
And despite a United Church of Christ petition campaign to gather 100,000 signatures endorsing health care reform, most local congregations aren’t discussing the topic, said the Rev. Drew Morris, a United Church of Christ overseer for eastern Virginia.
One reason may be that health care reform isn’t clear-cut, even for people with strong viewpoints, including Moore and Romine.
Moore, who spent 23 years in the Navy, predicted any new law on health care will naturally generate fraud and waste. He believes many people don’t have health insurance because of personal irresponsibility: “We got a lot of freeloaders in this country.”
Still, he wants universal health insurance.
“If every man is in the image of God and if I love God, I can’t treat my fellow man like a dog,” he said. “I have to have some kind of compassion.”
Romine is for compassion, too.
“No one would want to turn away someone in true need,” he said, “and as a world power and advanced civilization, we ought to provide good health care to our citizens.”
But he worries about inefficiency and degraded medical care if the government has more say over health coverage.
“Is it better fixed with incentives and a private sector solution,” he said, “or is it so broken that the government takes it over?”
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
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