Interfaith clergy representing politically liberal advocacy organizations rallied today on Capitol Hill in an effort to defeat legislation that would repeal or change parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare.
Speakers decried changes to the ACA using religious terms, declaring it not merely an inadequate policy prescription, but immoral and sinful.
“Health care is not an option. Anything less is sin,” declared Pastor William Barber of the Moral Mondays Movement in North Carolina and an organizer of the rally. “People will die because of this policy violence.”
Barber also lashed out at white Evangelical Christians, charging that they have been insufficiently vocal on health care reform and that their alleged silence is “heresy.”
Saying it is “morally sick” to cause people to lose health care coverage, Barber was indignant. The North Carolina pastor warned that passage of a Republican-introduced bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) necessitated dissenting voices to stand up or “the very soul of this nation will be damaged irreparably.”
During the rally, participants characterized their coalition as working for justice, and the AHCA as “the [U.S. President Donald] Trump/ [House Speaker Paul] Ryan Take Healthcare Away Bill”. On a web site promoting the rally, organizers decried the AHCA as “a giant moral leap backward” and “a clear example of systemic racism and classism.”
Barber asserted that God favored and opposed differing legislative solutions in regulating the U.S. healthcare industry, claiming “the authority of Heaven to raise Hell – to expose the Hell imposed on poor people.”
“The Ryan Bill [is] not a health care bill, it is a death bill,” declared Faith in Public Life CEO Jennifer Butler, another organizer of the rally.
“This bill is not pro-life, it’s pro-rich,” denounced Associate Pastor for Young Adult and Youth Ministries Alyssa Aldape of First Baptist Church of The City of Washington, D.C.
“We are here to charge Speaker Ryan with lies,” declared Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church Pastor William H. Lamar IV. “If this bill passes millions of people will be stripped of their coverage.”
Organizations participating in the rally included the National Council of Churches, Catholic Social Justice lobby NETWORK, Red Letter Christians, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, Skinner Leadership Institute, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, Ecumenical Poverty Initiative, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and Auburn Theological Seminary.
Comment by James Rice on March 22, 2017 at 11:26 pm
I am not sure how we can continue to afford the ACA. Our rates have skyrocketed while plan quality and choice have gone through the floor. If it continues many will be out of coverage because the cost is simply out of reach.
Comment by Eternity Matters on March 23, 2017 at 11:11 am
Soros-funded Jim “the Gospel is all about wealth redistribution” Wallis and his Sojourners’ group are on the bandwagon, too. Yet these people think that crushing and dismembering children in the womb is healthcare. They know nothing of economics or how the ACA or this lame update of it will fail. And again, health insurance is not healthcare. The free market will provide more and better care than government mandates.
Comment by Meredith Long on March 24, 2017 at 1:10 am
After many years of serving in overseas ministry, my grief over abortion, especially the selective abortion of girl babies over boy babies is deep and sincere. But as a Christian public health doctor I also know that there is more than one way to cause the death of a child. Medicaid allows more than 30 million children in the US to to access medical care and the maternity and pregnancy benefits required by the Affordable Care Act provide means for many pregnant mothers to receive prenatal care. In fact that was one of the goals that we had overseas as followers of Christ in ministering to the poor. Perhaps some of the debate about should be undertaken by those of us who are not “liberal clergy.” Perhaps it’s about people and not wealth redistribution. Is it not a moral problem when 24 million of our fellow citizens, often the most needy and their children, will lose access to medical care? Perhaps we should be concerned? Can we miss the point that the biblical prophets held their leaders responsible both for the spiritual side of things and the care of widows, orphans and the poor? Yes, the ACA is flawed but the plan being discussed this evening in Washington is far worse. Can we imagine God ever greeting any of us with, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you lessened the national debt.” Sorry, but if my concern for our nation stepping away from care for our people is wrong and has nothing to do with us as followers of Christ, than mark me down as a liberal–but I don’t think so!