Where do we stand? Helath Care and the UMC

As the health care debate rages on in this country, along with all of the half truths, misinformation, and disinformation, one can be very confused around what we are talking about when it comes to health care. The true debate does not center around health care itself, which is why we are having so much trouble understanding the debate. It is actually about access to health care. Who can access health care and who cannot. When we break it down even further, it is about the money.

Many opponents of health care insurance reform go on the defensive and we hear phrases tossed around about not meddling in the "Best health care system in the world." American surely want to be the best but we don't even make the top ten in the healthiest nations in the world and we are 50th in the world in terms of average life expectancy. But opponents of reform want to set up straw man arguments when it comes to reforming the health care insurance industry. Nobody in this debate is saying that we don't have the best physicians in the world. I could make an argument that we do. Nobody is saying we don't have the best training, nor the best medical facilities, nor the best medical equipment in the world. But when it comes to access to these great resources because of lack of insurance coverage, denial of coverage, or simple inability to pay, many people including the 47 million plus people who do not have any insurance, they are left out in the cold.

The United Methodist Church long before this most recent debate has started, has held and still does hold the understanding that access to adequate health care is a basic human right.(Book of Discipline para 162 V) Further we believe that the government bears a responsibility to provide this for this right to all of it's people. It is also the preference of the church that this nation work its way toward a single payer health care system. (Resolution 3201 Book of Resolutions 2008 )

I encourage everyone especially at this critical junction to support the measures in making health care more accessible, and more affordable, by letting your legislators know where the United Methodist Church stands on this important issue. We may not get it all done at once, but 1 million miles begins with the first step. Let's us be a nation where all of Gods children have access to the medical care that is needed.