Dear Member of Congress:
We are communities of faith who have supported comprehensive health care reform for decades. We have also offered vocal support - and occasional constructive criticism - of the health care reform effort over the last year. We write to you at this critical juncture to urge you to complete the task at hand on behalf of the millions who are left out and left behind in our current health care system.
Opportunities to comprehensively address our broken health care system are rare. Decades of failed attempts at reform testify to the difficulty of this task, and we know that the current effort has not been easy. However, we now stand closer than ever before to historic health care reform. Turning back now could mean justice delayed for another generation and an unprecedented opportunity lost.
We know that no comprehensive health care reform bill will be perfect. (Indeed, if any piece of legislation ever fulfills our full vision, our vision is far too small.) However, we also know - as providers and consumers of services and care - that inaction at this critical moment is no way forward:
- Without reform, tens of thousands will continue to die needlessly each year for lack of access to care.
- Without reform, tens of millions will remain uninsured and without adequate access to a full range of services.
- Without reform, health costs will continue to grow much faster than wages.
- Without reform, many millions of hard-working people and their children will join the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured.
- Without reform, businesses, staggered by increasing employee health costs, will either drop coverage or will be unable to make needed investments.
- Without reform, the nation's economy - and its ability to create jobs - will suffer.
As people of faith, we envision a society where every person is afforded health, wholeness and human dignity. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose birthday we just commemorated, famously wrote in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." Less well known is his admonition that "of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
Let us not delay health care justice any longer. This is your moment for political courage, vision, leadership and faith. We urge you to take heart and move meaningful health care reform forward.
Sincerely,
National Organizations:
• African Methodist Episcopal Church
• American Association of Pastoral Counselors
• American Baptist Churches, USA
• American Friends Service Committee
• American Muslim Health Professionals
• Buddhist Peace Fellowship
• Church Women United
• Community of Christ Ecumenical Ministries
• Daughters of Mary and Joseph
• Disciples Justice Action Network
• The Episcopal Church
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• Faithful America
• Faithful Reform in Health Care
• Friends Committee on National Legislation
• Islamic Medical Association of North America
• Jewish Women International
• Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office
• National Council of Churches of Christ USA
• National Episcopal Health Ministries
• National Ministries, American Baptist Churches, USA
• NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
• PICO National Network
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Washington Office
• Progressive National Baptist Convention
• RESULTS Faith in Action Project
• Sojourners
• The National Advocacy Center, Sisters of the Good Shepherd
• Union for Reform Judaism
• Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
• United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
• United Methodist Church, General Board of Church in Society
State/Regional Organizations:
• Arizona Ecumenical Council
• Arkansas Interfaith Alliance
• California Council of Churches
• Colorado Council of Churches
• Delaware Ecumenical Council on Children and Families
• Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon
• Florida-Bahamas Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• Florida Council of Churches
• Illinois Campaign for Better Health Care Faith Caucus
• Interfaith Fellowship for Universal Health Care of Connecticut
• Justice & Witness Commission of the Kansas/Oklahoma Conference of the United
Church of Christ
• Kentucky Council of Churches
• Lutheran Advocacy Ministry – Colorado
• Lutheran Advocacy – Illinois
• Lutheran Advocacy Ministry in Pennsylvania
• Lutheran Advocacy Ministry of Oregon
• Lutheran Coalition for Public Policy in Minnesota
• Lutheran Office for Public Policy in Wisconsin
• Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry in New Jersey
• Lutheran Office of Public Policy – California
• Lutheran Office on Public Policy in Maryland
• Lutheran Public Policy Office of Washington State
• Michigan Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Network
• Missouri Health Care for All
• Missouri IMPACT
• Missouri Jobs with Justice
• New Mexico Conference of Churches
• North Carolina Council of Churches
• Parish Nurse Ministries of New York, Inc.
• Pennsylvania Council of Churches
• Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy
• Washington Association of Churches
• Wisconsin Council of Churches
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Coordinated by the Washington Interreligious Staff Community (WISC) Health Care Working Group and Faithful Reform in Health Care