The Virginia Way: disagreeing without being disagreeable

By Bill Re, Associate Director

The horrific attack last month on a U.S. Representative and others in Alexandria made me reflect on the experiences I had earlier this year working my first General Assembly session in Richmond.

There is a saying in politics: “You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.” I always interpreted that as praise for campaigning­­—that it is idealistic and inspiring—and a criticism of governing—that it is boring and unimaginative, and that pragmatic compromises ought to be viewed cynically.

But based on my first session, I have somewhat reversed my view. The poetry of campaigns can often be more like something out of the Iliad, with Achilles dragging Hector’s bloodied body through the streets, than like a Shakespearean love sonnet. And the prose of governance is often more like the prose of Scholastic philosophers, well thought out and willing to engage sincerely with objectors, and less like the instruction manual for a kitchen appliance.

I saw those involved were able to disagree without being disagreeable. Committee hearings were typically polite. Many people could rehearse the arguments for and against each position; I would be hard-pressed to think of a better way of showing respect for an opponent in a debate than being able to articulate his or her position in an informed and convincing way. With disagreements understood and in the open, things became less emotional and more sincere. I heard more than one legislator talk about the genuine friendships which they had developed with people across the aisle. And there was willingness to praise one another publicly. I will not soon forget the encomiums given by Democrats and Republicans for retiring legislators, such as Speaker William Howell and Del. David Albo, among others.

Despite the impression given in the media, there is a lot of agreement in our legislature. Of the 926 bills passed by the General Assembly in 2017, 519 passed unanimously. Of the 3033 floor votes, 2219 were unanimous. And of the 814 contested floor votes, only 238 had a lot of opposition, with only 59 straight party-line votes.

I do not mean to sound Pollyannaish. Of course disagreement exists; that happens when serious-minded people approach important issues from different perspectives. And legislators do employ procedural roadblocks and tricks to derail legislation; that is within the rules of the game, as is criticizing them for doing so. But what surprised me was that after all was said and done, legislators could still make gestures of respect to their opponents, and at least tried to acknowledge each other’s good will.

Back in February, while preaching at Virginia Vespers during the legislative session, Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge said, “No matter how harsh the political climate can get, we are called to recognize the dignity of each other.” For a good example of how to do just that, one could do a lot worse than looking to the Virginia General Assembly.

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Bill Re, an associate director at the Conference who began in November 2016, just completed working his first General Assembly session.

By Kevin Mauer, Associate Director

The TSA agent who ushered me through security was a middle-aged woman, remarkably loquacious for 5:00 a.m. She was quick to note the lobbyist ID poking out of my wallet and asked whom I lobbied for.

I was proud to answer, “The Virginia Catholic Conference.”

“You ain’t the ones against pap smears and mammograms, are you?” she goaded.

“No ma’am, we support women’s healthcare.”

“Oh, just choice.” She had me, she thought, no matter how tired her rhetoric or vapid her arguments. My ability to catch my flight rested in her hands. “You want to make healthcare decisions for women.” And she left, self-satisfied, but leaving me desiring the true dialogue that such weighty conversation topics warrant.

This happened on Wednesday morning of the Sixth Week of Easter while I was en route to Atlanta to attend the annual convening of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc. (CLINIC), where I would represent the Conference on a Friday panel. At the plenary panel that evening, labor organizer D. Taylor brought the morning’s experience home for me. “We need to talk to people who disagree with us,” he stressed. How appropriate, on the same day our Supreme Pontiff (from the Latin for “bridge-builder”) engaged in dialogue with our nation’s president, with whom he has had certain very public disagreements (with some less-public agreements as well, of course).

We need to talk to people who disagree with us about the right to life as well as people who disagree with us about the right to migrate. Ideally, this happens in the context of bridge-building dialogue, not during an exchange of one-line zingers at airport security.

Bridge-building dialogue is inscribed in the very mission of the Catholic Church — Catholic meaning whole, lacking nothing. In our Church, all dialogue is had, all stories told, all stones turned. Dialogue is how we foster the Catholic virtue called solidarity—

…dialogue, for example, about the numberless stories like that of Maribel Trujillo Diaz, a mother of four U.S. citizen children (including a three-year-old with special needs) who had lived in Ohio for 15 years and was a lector at her parish. Maribel was suddenly deported last month without the chance to say goodbye to her family. As Catholics, we know that the rights of the family unit are sacred and more fundamental than the policies of any government.

…dialogue about the life of the Catholic Church in the U.S., for the sake of which, in the words of Bishop McElroy of San Diego, “it is unthinkable that we will stand by while more than ten percent of our flock is ripped from our midst…”

…and dialogue also about the history of this Church and this nation, which has always been a patchwork of marginalized immigrant communities made up of individuals with or without legal status, distinguished by their language and culture but united by their love of God, family, hard work, and the American dream.

As we close the Easter season, it is a good time to remind the whole Church what Don Kerwin of the Center for Migration Studies reminded his panel’s audience on Ascension Day: “Easter is the ultimate amnesty.” Easter means restoration for all of us: we sinners, we sheep without a shepherd, we strangers with irregular status. As an Easter people, we need to engage in bridge-building dialogue about why people migrate and what they contribute.

Easter people look forward.

Kevin Mauer is an associate director of the Virginia Catholic Conference

By Kevin Mauer, Associate Director

There’s a saying that no one is converted by the Catechism. I don’t know about that, but I do know it’s not a stretch to say that I was reverted by the Compendium of Social Doctrine. I recommend it to any person of good will, but especially to Catholics who want to know what our Church teaches about the political realm and why.

When I discovered Catholic social teaching as a practicing Protestant thirsty for some gospel truth about faith and politics, it changed my life. I had not been satisfied with the way that the Christian faith, in my experience, seemed to have been either compromised by politics or silent about it. Shouldn’t my faith inform my vision of a just society and compel me to act? Shouldn’t Christian doctrine be the basis of my political views, and not the other way around? Enlightened minds in the Middle Ages summarized all this in the maxim, Theology is the Queen of the Sciences. Or, if you like, theology ought to be the dog that wags the political tail.

This discovery of Catholic social teaching was one of the first in my growing sense that the Church was, in G.K. Chesterton’s phrase, a “truth-telling thing.” Over the course of this discovery, I wondered what other truths she told. I eventually found the same striking integrity in every one of the Church’s teachings by the spring of my sophomore year in college, when suddenly I was sitting on a folding chair at the Taizé community, trying to summarize my lifetime of sins to a silver-haired priest who then absolved them in French. I was home.

Catholic social teaching is an immeasurable gift to all Christians. Right and left, conservative and liberal,Republican and Democrat are short-sighted monikers that originated in the modern American political milieu — they have nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus told us his kingdom is not of this world, yet we insist on reducing his message not only to this world, but worse still, to arbitrary twenty-first century American political categories. It is a special kind of tragedy when so many within the Church choose to put their political allegiances before their core identity as members of the Body of Christ.

Pray with me that we would all judge our politics by our Church’s witness instead of judging the Church by our politics.

Kevin Mauer is an Associate Director at the Virginia Catholic Conference.

By Toni Ardabell

The mission of Bon Secours is to bring health and wholeness to the individuals and communities it serves. Our heritage compels us to focus on the underserved, who are often uninsured.   Many of our facilities are positioned in communities where we can provide good help to those most in need. Our faith calls us to heal the entire person — body, mind, and spirit– regardless of his or her ability to pay.

We are a Catholic-based mission-centered not-for-profit health organization that relies heavily on Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements to offset the services we provide for no pay, and to maintain our high standards of care and quality workforce.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is not working for our Virginia hospitals because it has significantly reduced Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements, albeit mostly to subsidize private coverage for those in need, and because Virginia has chosen not to close the coverage gap.  The American Health Care Act (AHCA), in its last form before the U.S. House of Representatives ceased considering it, would have been even worse for Virginia hospitals.  The AHCA would have taken insurance coverage away from thousands of Virginians, and reimbursements would have been even lower.  We were glad that the AHCA, in its last form, did not become law.

The ACA is the law of the land, and we believe that Congress must reform it. In the meantime, we believe that the Virginia General Assembly and Governor must create a path for closing the coverage gap in the Commonwealth.

According to the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS), Virginia is currently forty-seventh in the country in per-capita Medicaid spending.  According to the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA), each day expansion does not occur, we leave $6.2 million in federal funding on the table.  Failure to expand has resulted in $6.9 billion of Virginia taxpayer dollars staying in Washington, D.C. between 2014 and 2018, and a missed opportunity to insure more than 250,000 Virginians.  Not expanding Medicaid has also put tremendous pressure on Virginia general fund spending for mental and behavioral health programs; expansion would have freed up $800 million in Virginia’s budget.

In fiscal year 2016, our Medicaid shortfall for the Bon Secours Richmond Health System alone was $28.7 million. In the same year, we provided $33.2 million in charity care, and invested $20.3 million through our public health and community development programming in the greater Richmond community.  Too many more years with the same coverage gap would likely lead to major reductions in these critical programs that help provide a more stable future for the most vulnerable among us.  Drawing down more federal Medicaid dollars would help our system plug this gap, enabling us to make even more investments in public health, and in the community development projects that support our neighbors.

We have also felt secondary effects from the failure to expand Medicaid.  According to the VHHA,  health care and social services jobs grew 75% faster in expansion states (2.4% versus 1.8%).  This is harmful for the Commonwealth’s economic vitality, and especially confounding in a climate where nursing and staffing shortages are plaguing patients and hospitals.  Failure to expand Medicaid also leaves employers with the burden of subsidizing the costs of hospital charity care.

Medicaid expansion is a cornerstone of the ACA. If we are going to keep them both, equity among states is a must, hospital-related cuts must be restored, and reimbursements must be fair.  We will welcome provisions that demand safety and quality, and compel efficiency, and put reimbursement at risk through a rational pay for performance construct.

Our hope is simply that our representatives in Richmond and Washington, D.C. engage in an open, honest and methodical conversation before attempting to legislate a sea-change in one-sixth of our economy.  Further, we expect they will actively include healthcare professionals who understand the industry in this conversation.  While we impatiently wait to be part of that movement, we will do all within our power to continue providing good help to those in need.

At Bon Secours, we spend no time thinking about whether there is a Republican or Democratic way to replace a hip, improve a patient’s life or deliver a baby.  We believe our elected officials should take this same tact when working to replace the current regulatory regime, improve the ACA, or at least deliver on closing the coverage gap.

Toni R. Ardabell is the Chief Executive Officer of the Bon Secours Virginia Health System.

This is the third and final part of a series about issues related to poverty in Southwest, Southside and Eastern Shore, Virginia.

By August Wallmeyer

It’s hard these days to read a newspaper or hear a broadcast news report without getting an update on Virginia’s opioid epidemic and the deaths resulting from use of this and other illegal drugs.  The statistics are staggering.  The number of our fellow citizens dying from accidental drug overdoses is extremely discouraging and sad, but it’s hard to actually comprehend the size and scope of the tragedy.  The Richmond Times-Dispatch recently found a way to put the carnage in perspective:  Recalling the mass shooting at Virginia Tech ten years ago—itself an unimaginable, horrible event that took 33 lives—the Times-Dispatch wrote that the deaths resulting from the misuse of opioids and other drugs in Virginia are equivalent to another Virginia Tech massacre every week!  The current annual death rate is more than 1,400 in Virginia alone, a 40 percent increase over the previous year.

And the problem undoubtedly is getting worse, not better.  Doing research for my recent book, The Extremes of Virginia, I found that in Southwest, Southside and the Eastern Shore of Virginia, the death rate from opioid abuse was 56 percent higher than in Virginia as a whole.  And the opioid problem continues to worsen.

Law enforcement and health care providers are becoming overwhelmed with the volume of drug addicts and overdoses.  The CEO of a hospital in Smyth County in Southwest Virginia recently pleaded for creation of a task force composed of business, civic groups, churches, government officials, health care providers and others to confront the budgetary and social problems resulting from the drug crisis.  Other jurisdictions all across Virginia are struggling with the same situations, proof that the problems are not confined to the rural, poor areas in the Extremes of Virginia.  Virtually every locality in the Commonwealth—central Virginia, Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads, the Shenandoah Valley—all parts of Virginia are affected.  And this drug crisis cuts across all racial, economic and social boundaries.  Although the conventional wisdom is that African-Americans are the major “hard” drug users, white males in the 25-55 age group are dying at rates far in excess of other groups.

While government, law enforcement and health care officials scramble urgently to deal with these problems, thoughtful people must ask what are the underlying causes that seem to compel so many to use mind-altering drugs and what are the long-term, permanent solution strategies.  I’ve argued in The Extremes of Virginia that Virginia needs to spend serious money, effort and time to try to better understand the core problems that lead not only to use of illegal drugs, but also to higher suicide rates, festering unemployment and poverty, inferior health care and other problems that plague Virginia.  The legislature last session took some steps to curb excessive prescribing of opioids, which is a much-needed reaction to the current situation.  Additionally, the Virginia Catholic Conference advocated for much-needed funding for overdose reversal kits and expanded addiction treatment services, which was included in this year’s amended budget.  While certainly helpful, this “Band-Aid” approach is only that.  What we need is more investigation and greater understanding of the underlying causes of our major problems, coupled with sensible, long-term recommendations for improvement.  We need long-term strategies in addition to Band-Aids.

August Wallmeyer, a member of the VCC Management Committee, is a former broadcast journalist, a semi-retired lobbyist, and the president of August Wallmeyer Communications.  Find “The Extremes of Virginia,” here.

 

This is the second in a series about poverty issues in Southwest, Southside and the Eastern Shore of Virginia

By August Wallmeyer

In my travels throughout the poor, rural areas of Virginia, one disheartening fact became very obvious. Young people in Virginia today are engaged in the same kind of disruptive economic migration that newly freed slaves in the South faced after the civil war: the need to relocate to search for gainful work and the dignity work brings to families. Just as in the late 1800s, those fleeing Southwest, Southside and the Eastern Shore of Virginia (areas I called The Extremes of Virginia in my recent book) are forced to break apart multi-generational families, discard their regional traditions and abandon ties to their native cultures, all in search of jobs, economic opportunity and education.

Today’s economic migrants are frustrated with the lack of local opportunities to trade honest work for a living wage to support themselves and their families. And the young people—and more than a few older ones, as well—have no other choice but to pull up stakes and head for greener pastures.

In those rural, poor areas of Virginia I wrote about population declined 2.3 percent in the first five years of this decade, compared to population growth of 4.1 percent in Virginia as a whole. And as a direct result, those rural, poor areas are becoming even poorer and older.

In The Extremes, the poverty rate is 67 percent higher than the statewide average. Household incomes average only 59 percent of statewide, and only 54 percent are in the civilian labor force, compared to 65 percent in Virginia. Sadly, suicide and illegal drug use are much more common in these economically bereft areas as well.

Federal and state governments, with good intentions, have tried to help, but without major successes. More than 50 years ago President Lyndon Johnson famously declared “war on poverty” in Appalachia. After spending more than $22 trillion (more than three times the cost of all U.S. wars) on anti-poverty programs, the poverty rate is essentially unchanged.

Today, Virginia’s latest jobs and economic development effort, GO Virginia, seeks to attract highly educated and trained professional workers and businesses to the Commonwealth, because these types of high-paying jobs have a larger “economic multiplier” effect on our economy. Fair enough, perhaps. We need trained professionals. But the GO Virginia strategy begs an important question: what about our citizens already here in Virginia who lack the education and training to become these desired professional workers and are woefully unprepared for the “better” professional jobs? In The Extremes, high school graduation rates are vastly inferior to the statewide statistics. And college graduation rates are less than half the statewide average. So these fellow citizens in rural, poor, less educated Virginia, hungry for any honest employment, aren’t likely to benefit from GO Virginia at all.

Catholic teaching is replete with references to the dignity of work, which is a fundamental human right. Performed by men and women who have their own inherent dignity, work also has dignity. It allows them to provide for their own basic needs and those of their families. Pope Francis has been quoted saying “We do not get dignity from power or money or culture. We get dignity from work.”

Perhaps our governmental and business leaders should consider exactly how the dignity of work will come to rural, poor Virginia?

August Wallmeyer, a member of the VCC Management Committee, is a former broadcast journalist, a semi-retired lobbyist, and the president of August Wallmeyer Communications.  Find “The Extremes of Virginia,” here

Bishop DiLorenzo prays with Health Wagon staff

This is part one of a three-part series by August Wallmeyer on issues impacting residents in the “Extremes of Virginia,” based on his recent book.

Part I: Health Care

By August Wallmeyer

The first time I attended a Remote Area Medical (RAM) event in Wise County in far Southwest Virginia, researching for my book The Extremes of Virginia, I quickly learned just how different daily life is for most people in Appalachia.  The Wise RAM expedition is a once-a-year three-day-long outdoor clinic where several thousand local folks receive free health and dental care.  It’s sponsored by The Health Wagon, the free integrated health care service heavily supported by the Catholic Diocese of Richmond and staffed by a small army of volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses and others.

To the people of Southwest Virginia where poverty and unemployment rates are high, The Health Wagon is essential. While many of us are blessed to have good health insurance that allows us to access health care when we need it, some 400,000 low-income Virginians do not have access to affordable health care. Governor McAuliffe has repeatedly called on the General Assembly to expand access to Medicaid. But beyond Virginia, the U.S Bishops have urged lawmakers to expand care for the nation’s neediest.  “Affordable and accessible health care is an essential safeguard of human life and a fundamental human right,” the U.S. Bishops said in Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, no. 80.

People in need of free health and dental care are admitted to the RAM event at the Wise County fairgrounds starting at 7 a.m., but to be sure they get in, many stand in line starting about midnight the night before.  Interested to learn more, I stood inside the gate as the first wave of patients flooded in.  It was a chilly morning in July in the mountains as I watched, sipping my cup of coffee.  A man approached, maybe in his mid 30s, somewhat shabbily dressed, maybe homeless, certainly poor and down on his luck, and asked me, “Mister, where did you get the coffee?”  I directed him to a nearby snack table, and then he asked, “Do you need any money for that?”  I assured him that he was very welcome to free coffee, and encouraged him to help himself.  He stared at the snack table for a moment, then looked back at me and tears (of gratitude? of relief? of embarrassment?) streamed down his face.  Because of the gift of a simple cup of coffee, something everyone I know takes for granted every day.

Welcome to Appalachia, to a beginning of understanding how different, how foreign this part of Virginia is to those of us who live in wealthier areas.  And welcome to my beginning to understand the mission of The Health Wagon, and how urgently it is needed.  And to my gratitude to the late Bishop Walter J. Sullivan, the Catholic Diocese of Richmond and Sister Bernie Kenny.

She was 19, a year out of high school, when Sr. Bernie heard a calling to care for people who were hurting, by providing them health care.  She became a Catholic nun, joined the international order of the Medical Missionaries of Mary, serving 10 years in Africa.  Eventually, at the request of Bishop Sullivan, the Medical Missionaries began their very first mission in the United States, sending Sister Bernie and two others to Dickenson County in 1978 to answer Christ’s call to care for the sick and the needy.

She found conditions there similar to the Third World African nations she had left:  infant mortality was six times greater than Virginia’s average.  Young, pregnant women weren’t getting prenatal care.  Their nutrition was poor.  There was no local hospital.

So Sister Bernie loaded up her 1968 red Volkswagen Beetle and began ministering to the health needs of the locals, puttering from town to town, holler to holler, and when needed driving people to St. Mary’s hospital in Wise county for treatment.  That caring, no-cost legacy lives on today as The Health Wagon, a ministry which continues to rely on generous funding from the Catholic Diocese of Richmond and others. In the last two years alone the Diocese, through its annual parish collection for the Health Wagon, contributed more than $250,000. Earlier, with the permission of Bishop DiLorenzo, the Diocese also managed a grant fund which released another $100,000 for the Health Wagon’s new clinic in Wise, and $144,000 for its new roving medical RV.

Bishop DiLorenzo enjoys a light moment with a member of the Health Wagon’s medical team

The Health Wagon is a free nurse managed health clinic now consisting of two stationary and two mobile clinics. The Health Wagon serves some of the poorest people in Virginia and the nation.  As Southwest Virginia’s only dedicated safety net clinic, the Health Wagon promotes the mission of providing quality, affordable, accessible care to all with an emphasis on serving the underserved.

Go!  Visit!  Volunteer at the RAM Wise Health Expedition – the largest of its kind in the nation – on July 20, 21 and 22.  Finally, consider supporting The Health Wagon at P.O. Box 7070, Wise, VA 24293 or https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/thehealthwagon.  The Health Wagon is registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Contributions to the Health Wagon are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

August Wallmeyer, a member of the VCC Management Committee, is a former broadcast journalist, a semi-retired lobbyist, and the president of August Wallmeyer Communications.  His book, “The Extremes of Virginia,” can be purchased here.

This is the third and final part of what was planned as a five-part series on the USCCB’s moral principles for health reform.  As a result of recent developments in Congress, the series has been shortened.

Part III: Where do we go from here?

By Michael Lewis, Associate Director

The Republican-proposed American Health Care Act, offered as a replacement for the 2010 Affordable Care Act, was abruptly pulled from the House floor Friday because it did not have the votes. In the wake of the ACHA’s defeat, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said, “We’re going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future,” as Congress is expected to pivot to other issues such as tax reform and infrastructure.

While politicians and pundits assign blame for the breakdown of health care discussions, the U.S. health care system remains in urgent need of reform to better serve the needs of all Americans, regardless of income, age or health status.  The USCCB recently outlined five moral principles that should guide any discussion of reform.  Over the past two weeks, we’ve explored the first two criteria of respecting the dignity of human life and honoring conscience rights.

The future of the health care debate is uncertain; however, the USCCB and, in Virginia, the Virginia Catholic Conference, will continue to advocate for reform that includes the two moral principles mentioned above as well as the following values:

• Access for all: Even with the Affordable Care Act, lack of health care access for the poor continues to be a problem. The ACA provided funds for states to expand their Medicaid programs to provide health care to low-income individuals, but several states—including Virginia—have refused to expand their Medicaid programs. Other states have extended access to health care for millions of individuals. The Virginia General Assembly’s refusal to expand Medicaid has left 400,000 low-income Virginians without access to health care.  As the USCCB writes, “[H]ealth care is not a privilege, but a right and requirement to protect the life and dignity of every person.”

• Truly affordable: Even as 19 million Americans gained health care coverage from 2010 to 2015, many have faced skyrocketing premiums, substantial deductibles, and a lack of choices.  Others who previously had plans they were satisfied with lost them because they were not compliant with new mandates under the ACA.  Any future health reform efforts must encourage employers who seek to be more generous with health benefits than the law requires, and support the financial needs of low-income families and individuals by maintaining expanded Medicaid coverage or providing substantial premium subsidies.

• Comprehensive and high-quality: In many cases, having health insurance does not equate to having access to health care services.  Many health care providers do not accept Medicaid due to low reimbursement rates, making it difficult for many low-income Americans to receive medical care.  As the bishops write, “Access to health care which is necessary and suitable for the proper development and maintenance of life for all people must be a goal of our society.”  To that end, incentives for prevention, early intervention, provider choice and equitable provider compensation are critical components of a comprehensive and high-quality health care system.

The ongoing need for substantial and comprehensive health reform is clear.  The ACA is seriously deficient. It funds abortion with taxpayer money, mandates coverage for contraception and abortion-inducing drugs, and lacks conscience protections. But the ACA has also expanded access to health care for millions.  Let us pray for authentic reform that covers all and protects all, born and unborn.

This is the second part of a five-part series on the USCCB’s moral criteria for health care reform.

Part II: Honoring Conscience Rights

By Michael Lewis, Associate Director

St. Paul says, “For freedom Christ set us free.” (cf. Gal. 5:1, 13-18)  This freedom to serve is at the heart of the Church’s provision of quality health care services and quality health care coverage.  It is a response to our call to care for the sick and to affirm the dignity of all human life.  The Catholic Church is a leading provider of health care both here in Virginia and across the United States.  But is the freedom to serve diminishing in our own country – a nation that established religious liberty as its first freedom?  Recent events raise fundamental concerns.  Here are just two examples:

• For the past several years, religious groups such as the Little Sisters of the Poor, as well as Catholic and other faith-based colleges and universities, have been engaged in a protracted legal battle after the Department of Health and Human Services issued a mandate that all health insurance plans cover contraception, sterilization procedures, and abortion-inducing drugs such as the “morning after pill” as part of the Affordable Care Act.

•  In New Jersey, a lawsuit was filed against a Catholic hospital after it refused to perform an elective procedure that was found to be part of a patient’s plan to “change genders.”

As these and many other similar situations show, health care legislation now being considered by Congress must address the right to conscience protections, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has rightly said in its March 8, 2017 letter to Representatives and Senators. ”Congress should expressly provide conscience protections as part of any health plan for those who participate in the delivery or coverage of health care services.  Such protections should extend to all stakeholders, including insurers, purchasers, sponsors, and providers and should cover any regulatory mandates,” the Bishops say in their letter outlining five moral criteria for health reform.

However, the American Health Care Act, which Republicans have presented as an alternative to the Affordable Care Act, still lacks any protections for conscience rights. In a March 17 letter to members of the House of Representatives, Bishop Frank DeWine of Venice, Florida and Chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, noted that the reforms currently being debated in Congress still fail to offer meaningful conscience protections against federal mandates requiring the provision of morally objectionable “preventive services” such as contraception, abortion, sterilizations and others.

The Church’s history is one of perseverance and service, even in the face of grave threats.  As Catholics, let us remember why Christ set us free.  As Americans, let us preserve this freedom, knowing that the common good of our country depends on it.

This is the first of a five-part series on the USCCB’s moral criteria for health care reform.

Part 1: Affirm the dignity of life

By Michael Lewis, Associate Director

Health care reform is once again dominating our national political discussion.  During the recent election campaign, both parties pledged to revisit the Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, promising everything from tweaks to the existing health care program to a wide-reaching repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act.  Last week, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) unveiled the American Health Care Act, a proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

As Congress begins its debate on reforming health care, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has sent a letter to members of the House of Representatives and the Senate outlining five moral criteria that should guide any and all discussion of health care reform. They are:

1. Respect for life and dignity
2. Honoring conscience rights
3. Access for all
4. Truly affordable
5. Comprehensive and high-quality

As Catholics, caring for our brothers and sisters—materially and spiritually—is a moral obligation.  Health care, therefore, is a “fundamental issue of human life and dignity,” and a “critical component of the Catholic Church’s ministry,” the USCCB writes.  Indeed, one in six Americans receives health care from a Catholic hospital.  Here in Virginia, the Sisters of Bon Secours run one of the largest health care systems in the Commonwealth, serving the greater Richmond and Hampton Roads regions, providing $159 million in combined charity care and other community benefits.

Let’s take a closer look now at the first, and bedrock, criterion: Respect for life and dignity.  The provision of health care must recognize the fundamental dignity of each and every patient, born and unborn.  Health care, the bishops write, “is not a privilege, but a right and a requirement to protect the life and dignity of every human person.”

The art of medicine aims to heal and preserve life, not end it.  Abortion, therefore, is not “health care.”  In fact, the Hippocratic Oath, which has historically guided the ethics of the medical profession for thousands of years, says, “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.  In purity and in divine law will I carry out my life and my art.”

In keeping with medicine’s purpose of healing and preserving life, abortion has no place in genuine health reform.  As the bishops write, “no health reform plan should compel us or others to pay for the destruction of human life, whether through government funding or mandatory coverage of abortion.”

Many details of the American Health Care Act remain murky and numerous concerns have surfaced, but there is reason to hope that any future reform will reflect the bishops’ call to extend Hyde Amendment protections to all relevant health plans.  Meeting last week with pro-life leaders, Vice President Pence pledged the administration’s opposition to any subsidies for abortion on demand in the health care reform bill.  The American Health Care Act prohibits any federal funds or premium tax credits from being used for health plans that cover abortion on demand, and strips funding from Planned Parenthood, the leading provider of abortion in the United States.  In fact, the President recently challenged Planned Parenthood to stop doing abortions in exchange for maintaining its access to federal funds, a proposal that, unfortunately, Planned Parenthood rejected.

As the debate on health care reform moves forward, we look forward to bringing you the other four parts of this blog series and invite you to join your voices to those of Church leaders as they continue to provide a much-needed vision for compassionate, accessible, life-affirming health care.  Please stay tuned!