Catholic Charities Focus
Why Sacrifice Health Care?
Rick Mockler February, 2003
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As a Catholic and a parent, I’d like to know how after the 1990s – a period of unprecedented prosperity – millions of families in California are still lacking health insurance. We have more dream homes, SUVs and satellite TV dishes than ever before, and yet seven million people in the state still lack their own doctor.
This issue came to the fore last month in the midst of the state budget crisis, with the Governor’s proposed cuts in health coverage for the poor. “Crisis” is a relative term here. For those of us at Catholic Charities, the real crisis is trying to find care for a child with a toothache, or affording medicine for a parent trying to control hypertension.
As California thinks about belt tightening, let’s not begin with those whose belts are already tight. During the boom of 1990s, the number of working poor did not decline, but held steady at nearly two million families. The poor did not benefit from rising wages in the 1990s – wages rose less than one percent for low-income workers, compared to a ten percent hike for upper-income employees, after adjusting for inflation.
In his budget for next year, Governor Davis proposed health cuts affecting over a half million Californians. These include lowering Medi-Cal income eligibility levels, reducing payments to clinic doctors, increasing paperwork requirements and eliminating dental care for adults. A previously approved expansion in the Healthy Families insurance program for children is to be delayed until 2006.
The federal government may add further strain – if President Bush’s new proposal to block grant Medicaid funding is adopted, the number of uninsured in California will likely rise further. The White House and Congress have to be part of the solution, bringing federal resources to bear. For example, if we were to reserve just one-third of the President’s proposed $670 billion tax cut and spend it on health care, we could insure every child in America.
Somehow, most European and other industrialized countries have worked out a way to provide health care to all of their residents. Compared to other countries, the World Health Organization ranks the United States health system 37th overall and 55th in terms of fairness. Systems vary widely, but somehow many others have managed to care for their poor, often more efficiently. They made a commitment, and then figured out a way to make it happen.
As recent popes and the American bishops have consistently emphasized, the Catholic vision upholds health care as a right, not a luxury. This comes from the dignity that God instills in every human being. The Church doesn’t believe that health care should be denied an immigrant with diabetes any more than Jesus would have turned away someone asking for healing.
Last month, leaders from four Bay Area counties made a remarkable announcement. In the midst of a recession disproportionately affecting the Bay Area, those counties declared a major expansion of health insurance for young people to age 18. The Healthy Kids Initiative, funded partially by Proposition 10 tobacco taxes, will provide comprehensive medical, dental and vision services for the area’s 31,000 uninsured children who do not qualify for other subsidized insurance.
Although the initiative won’t by itself solve the health care crisis, it is a step in the right direction. Those counties decided that health care was a priority, and then challenged themselves to find a way to make it happen. It is the same challenge that our church makes of us.
As Catholics, our voices will be critical to the state and federal budget debates. Are we willing to communicate with our legislators and convey our commitment to those in need? Are we willing to forgo the lure of lower taxes, if it is at the cost of our neighbors’ health? If health care is a God given right, what are we going to do to make it happen?
Rick Mockler is the Executive Director of Catholic Charities of California. He can be reached at rmockler@cacatholic.org.
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| Rick Mockler is Executive Director for Catholic Charities of California and serves on the board of trustees for Catholic Charities USA. Visit the Catholic Charities of California web site for more information. Rick Mockler’s e-mail address is rmockler@cacatholic.org. |