The Democrats have built their majority by expanding their tent; as a
result there is now a sizable group of antiabortion Democrats in
Congress. The new abortion divide—intra- along with inter-party—has
shaken the Democratic consensus on health insurance reform.
After rumors circulated that President Obama’s health-care reform would institute “death panels” for the elderly, Congress quickly abandoned any effort to address end-of-life issues in health-care legislation. It didn’t matter that the rumor-mongering reflected a willful distortion of section 1233 of a House bill that would have let Medicare reimburse physicians for helping patients develop a plan for end-of-life care.
The presiding bishop of the historically black Church of God in Christ, one of the largest Pentecostal denominations in the U.S., has announced that its leadership supports the White House healthcare reform proposals, including an optional government-run plan.
In a little-noted statement, Presiding Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr. of Los Angeles, speaking for the Memphis-based COGIC, called upon the broader faith community “to set a moral example which moves our country beyond the noise of racial division and partisanship by supporting President Obama’s courageous initiative.”
America’s fundamental problem with health care isn’t economic. It’s moral. So believes T. R. Reid, a longtime Washington Post correspondent who recently completed a yearlong study of health-care systems in wealthy nations around the globe. “If we want to fix American health care,” he writes, “we first have to answer a basic question: Should we guarantee medical treatment to everyone who needs it?”