(Click here to send the below letter directly to your members of Congress.)
[ Date ]
Dear [ Representative / Senator ]:
More than 47 million Americans— disproportionately African-Americans, Hispanics and the working poor— are uninsured. As a result, they lack ready access to care, which causes unnecessary deaths, increases morbidity among the acutely and chronically ill and results in higher costs. This situation is immoral and intolerable.
I call upon the U.S. Congress to enact bipartisan legislation that assures access without barriers to affordable, basic, quality health care for all. Specifically, I urge Congress to:
- Support a health care system in which risks, costs and responsibility are shared by all. There is enough for all, if all share health care resources, recognize limits and seek to be caretakers of health. We can learn from the experience of countries with exemplary records of assuring access and controlling costs. In these countries, health care is seen as a human or social right that helps bind a society together. Those with means help to shoulder the cost for those without, and costs are controlled with cooperative bargaining power.
- Eliminate financial and health status as barriers to health care access. My faith tradition teaches me that special care is to be extended to the weakest and most vulnerable members of society. Health care for all joins the United States with all other developed countries in providing basic, affordable health care for all.
- Strengthen public health systems in order to help create healthy communities. In order to effect long-term improvement in our nation’s overall health, increasing access to health care must go hand in hand with improving public health and reducing poverty. Public health measures will help eliminate unhealthy environmental factors, provide education and incentives for healthy life-style choices and inform the public about the effectiveness and efficiency of health care measures.
- Support and strengthen public insurance programs for vulnerable populations while comprehensive reform is being enacted. Programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) currently provide health coverage for more than 50 million individuals— including children and adults in low-income families, the elderly and the disabled. Still, many people who need coverage do not qualify and many states and programs don’t cover needed services.
- Openly address issues of quality, efficiency and limits. The quality of health care delivery is profoundly uneven— even for those with insurance— and sizable health care costs are due to advertising, administration and redundant tests. No system can afford to give everyone every medical procedure or treatment that they want or from which they might benefit.
As a Christian, I believe that a biblically-compatible health care system will celebrate God’s generous provision of resources, assuring enough for everyone when shared equitably by all; promote the flourishing of the whole community, including each of its members; and protect the well-being of the weakest and most vulnerable members of society.
Sincerely,
[ Your Name ]
August 3, 2009 at 9:22 pm
A single-payer form of health insurance financing would spend less money than we are curtently spending for health care and cover everyone. This would, in essense, extend an imporved medicare to all. This is possible now, and is in the bill, House Resolution 676, which will be debated and voted on the house floor after summer recess. Private insurance adds NO VALUE to our nation’s health care; their excessive profits and administrative costs take 31% of each health care dollar. Medicare takes less than 5% for admnistration. We need to strongly urge passage of HR 676.
Carol Grieb, member, Peace Mennonie Church
November 29, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Health reform will not cover very much long term care, at least nothing close to what long term care insurance covers.