Catholic Medical Association evaluates health care reform proposals

Washington D.C., Sep 24, 2009 / 07:12 am (CNA).- The Catholic Medical Association on Monday wrote an open letter to Catholic organizations and individuals to express its views on “key prudential aspects” of health care reform proposals. Some provisions risk violating the patient-doctor relationship and could threaten the dignity of human life, the association says.

The letter, signed by Catholic Medical Association (CMA) president Louis C. Breschi, M.D., expressed a desire to collaborate with others to shape legislation “in harmony with the Catholic faith.” The CMA said its views reflect years of experience in serving patients.

“We believe we are facing a crisis, not only in health-care financing and delivery, but in the health-care reform process itself,” the CMA wrote.

The country has the opportunity and obligation to craft “effective, ethical” responses to the crisis in health care financing and delivery, the organization continued, but it warned there is a danger that “misguided legislation” could worsen the problems.

According to the CMA, problems in health care include a lack of “consistent access” to affordable insurance and to appropriate health care. Services are also “expensive and fragmented.”

These problems, the association claimed, result largely from “misguided” tax, employment and government policy incentives. The organization criticized “increasing third-party payer intrusion” into the patient-physician relationship.

While Catholic ethical and social principles should be the subject of agreement, the CMA said these principles’ application is the main question.

In the association’s view, present reform proposals rely heavily on the federal government to “dictate” solutions and will empower “a small group of unelected government bureaucrats and committees” to determine the composition and cost of health insurance policies, the reimbursement of providers and the approval of treatments.

“We think this government-controlled approach is flawed in principle and ineffective, if not dangerous, in practice,” the CMA wrote, charging that the approach “clearly violates” the principle of subsidiarity and will be ineffective.

According to the CMA, Medicare will be insolvent by 2017. Further, Medicaid costs have run out of control to the point that 40 percent of physicians no longer accept it because of money-losing reimbursement rates.
The current health care reform proposals are also “dangerous” because of the presidential administration’s “repeated failures to accord proper respect for the dignity of human life.” The CMA cited the reversal of the Mexico City Policy and funding for human embryonic stem cell research, claiming that the Obama administration wants to make such policy decisions difficult or impossible to overturn
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Saying there have been some “misunderstandings” about health care provisions concerning end-of-life consultations, the CMA said “serious concerns” remain about funding the care of the seriously ill and the dying.

“Giving the federal government the power, and primary responsibility, to contain medical expenditures could threaten the provision of medical care to the most vulnerable, the elderly and chronically ill,” the organization said.

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Bishop Murphy Addresses Health Care Reform

 Bishop William Murphy, chairman of Domestic Justice and Human Development for the U.S. bishops, addresses the need for health care reform that is available to everyone and protects the life and dignity of every person. He mentions that health care be provided for legal immigrants who live here, work here, and pay taxes.