If the current versions of the health care bill do not change, the answer to that question is yes. The Bishop's Conference and the Catholic Health Care Alliance have been aadvocating for real reform for decades. It is a shame that we may have to oppose the bill. But the reason is a good one. Presently, the versions of the bill do not make it certain that federal money will NOT be spent on abortion. Our message is: Health Care Reform is about Saving Lives, not Destroying them. In short, abortion is not health care because killing is not healing. The current versions of the bill are also seriously deficient on conscience rights and do not provide adequate access to health care for immigrants and the poor.

I was stunned to learn that the bills do not provide anything for LEGAL immigrants. What is that about? It seems very discriminatory let alone bad health policy to leave a significant portion of the population outside of the reform. Hopefully, enough Catholics will take notice of this and advocate with their legislators to get these provisions in the bill. We want to support health care reform... but we will not with such gaping holes in the bill.

 

Testimony of a Rwandan religious, Sister Genevieve Uwamariya at the Synod on Africa, Vatican City. In 1994 upwards of one million people were massacred in a hundred days time in Rwanda, Africa. Sister Genevieve's personal story of transformation through a horrible crime.

I am a survivor of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda 1994.

A large part of my family was killed while in our parish church. The sight of this building used to fill me with horror and turned my stomach, just like the encounter with the prisoners filled me with disgust and rage.

It is in this mental state that something happened that would change my life and my relationships.

On August 27th 1997 at 1 p.m., a group from the Catholic association of the “Ladies of Divine Mercy” led me to two prisons in the region of Kibuye, my birthplace. They went to prepare the prisoners for the Jubilee of 2000. They said: “If you have killed, you commit yourself to ask for forgiveness from the surviving victim, that way you can help him free himself of the burden/weight of vengeance, hatred and rancor. If you are a victim, you commit yourself to offer forgiveness to those who harmed you and thus you free them from the weight of their crime and the evil that is in them.”

This message had an unexpected effect for me and in me....

After that, one of the prisoners rose in tears, fell to his knees before me, loudly begging: “Mercy”. I was petrified in recognizing a family friend who had grown and shared everything with us.

He admitted having killed my father and told me the details of the death of my family. A feeling of pity and compassion invaded me: I picked him up, embraced him and told him in a tearful voice: “You are and always will be my brother”.

Then I felt a huge weight lift away from me... I had found internal peace and I thanked the person I was holding in my arms.

To my great surprise, I heard him cry out: “Justice can do its work and condemn me to death, now I am free!”

I also wanted to cry out to who wanted to hear: “Come see what freed me, you too can find internal peace”.

From that moment on, my mission was to travel kilometers to bring mail to the prisoners asking for forgiveness from the survivors. Thus 500 letters were distributed; and I brought back mail with the answers of the survivors to the prisoners who had become my friends and my brothers... This allowed for meetings between the executioners and the victims....

From this experience, I deduce that reconciliation is not so much wanting to bring together two persons or two groups in conflict. It is rather the re-establishment of each in love and allowing internal healing which leads to mutual liberation.

And here is where the importance of the Church lies in our countries, since her mission is to offer the Word: a word that heals, liberates and reconciles.

Blessed Theresa of Calcutta (Mother Theresa) was very strong in her opposition to abortion. She would often shock the secular political establishment by firmly and simply calling abortion what it is - a mother killing her child. She did this at the National Press Club with the then President Clinton by her side and she did it when accepting the Nobel Peace Prize. Often people would ask her: "But Mother, what about all the unwanted children?" (This would be their way of saying that we need abortion to keep the already overpopulated (in thier minds) world with fewer problems.) Her answer: "Have you ever seen an unwanted flower?"

The Catholic Church has a great investment in health care reform in the United States. For Catholics, and many other people of faith, health care is a ministry that we do as a way of acting out our faith. Even though health care is big business, most people of faith and certainly the Catholic Church, do not primarily see health care as a commodity to be bought and sold for a profit, but a service of compassion offered to all. Catholic teaching insists that basic health care is a right and is essential to protect human life and dignity.

Health care reform is important to us because one out of every six hospital patients in the country is in a Catholic hospital. Catholic institutions include 624 hospitals, 499 long-term nursing care facilities, 164 home health agencies, 41 hospice organizations, 773 other health care facilities such as those that offer assisted living, adult day care and senior housing.

The American Hospital Association reported in its 2007 annual survey that Catholic hospitals provide nearly 17 million emergency room visits and nearly 93 million outpatient visits in one year. Catholic hospitals counted 5,542,314 admissions the same year, notes the Catholic Health Association.

Almost all of these institutions were founded by Religious Orders (mostly Sisters) who many years ago saw people in need and responded. They did it not for material gain, but for the fulfillment of their faith mission.

Locally, St. Francis Memorial Hospital, St. Mary’s Medical Center and Seton Medical Center in Daly City do a total of $10.8 million in charity care yearly.

“Charity care” means that portion of patient care services provided by a hospital for which a third-party payer is not responsible, and for which a patient has the inability to pay. Charity care does not include bad debt, contractual adjustments, or Medicaid/Medicare “shortfalls.”

These Catholic hospitals have been in the forefront of advocating for health care reform. They are solidly invested in providing quality care to all as a central part of their mission and a necessary part of their very reason for existence.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Archdiocese of San Francisco are calling for universal health coverage which protects the life and dignity of all, especially those who are poor and vulnerable. We believe that genuine healthcare reform which protects human life from conception to natural death is a moral imperative and urgent national priority.

There are many paths to achieve health care reform with valuable ideas from all parts of the political spectrum.

Based on Catholic Social Teaching, we believe that the general framework for genuine reform must include the following:

1. Include health care coverage for all people from conception until natural death, and continue the federal ban on funding for abortions;

2. Include access for all with a special concern for the poor;

3. Pursue the common good and preserve pluralism, including freedom of conscience;

4. Restrain costs and apply costs equitably among payers.

It is a scandal that 45 million Americans have no health care coverage or inadequate coverage and access in the richest nation in the history of the world. The people of the United States of America must do better.