There are two overriding issues in the current healthcare conversation.  Both are essentially moral issues.  The first is access to affordable, high quality, and consistent health care.  There are millions of people, including families, who do not have medical insurance today.  That number is increasing by more than 10,000 people every day.  Even the many families and individuals who have adequate and affordable medical insurance face the prospect of losing it seemingly at the whim of an insurance company.  When people change jobs, pre-existing and chronic conditions might not be covered.  The prospect of serious illness, even with medical insurance, can mean crushing indebtedness for virtually any one of us.

The second issue is also a moral one:  cost.  It is immoral to saddle our grandchildren with large deficit-induced debt.  Healthcare reform has to include restructuring a system that is now spiraling out of control financially.  The costs keep going up for everyone!  The government-based Medicare program will run out of money in eight to ten years at the current rate, yet Medicare is vital for the health of most senior adults.

Healthcare legislation is complicated.  The bill that eventually comes out of Congress will undoubtedly be hundreds of pages in length.  And yet the underlying questions we must answer are very simple.  Will we be satisfied as people of faith and citizens of a society to continue to withhold access to healthcare to those who cannot afford it?  Will we as citizens accept the current system that is moving us toward financial ruin?  My answer to both questions is, "No."  Some 2000 years ago, Rabbi Hillel said these words that challenge us on this issue of healthcare, "If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, when?"  

The healthcare issue has become so highly politicized these days that many people of faith hesitate to enter the discussion in a public way for fear of being perceived as politically partisan.   With the stakes so high and the needs so great, however, none of us can afford to be silent or passive.  Firmly grounded in the church's role to be a prophetic voice to the powers of society, I am speaking out and acting to support a reform of our national system of healthcare.  Our own self-interest, individually and as a society, lies along the path of reforming the healthcare system in a fundamental way for cost and coverage.  Our best journey as people of faith is to hear the cry of those living in the shadows and on the margins of our society - without desperately needed healthcare.  Now is the time to act.  

Thanks for continuing to bless me as we journey together.
  
Jack Price

FYI - Jack has published several articles at: http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Jack_F_Price

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