Word from Winkler — Congregational malpractice

Today, we are in the midst of a ferocious battle to secure health-care coverage for everyone in the United States. Everybody should have health care. It is as simple as that. As a denomination, United Methodists say we believe health care is a human right. Our denomination has created many hospitals and clinics around the world, thanks be to God, but there are tasks beyond our capacity alone.

“The fundamental test of our society is how it treats the least powerful among us.” I have been told by some United Methodists that is a partisan political statement because it was made by an elected official. It is not. It does, however, represent a world view with which many of our own people disagree.

The United Methodist Church seeks health care for everyone in the United States.

The United Methodist Church seeks health care for everyone in the United States. And, yet, I have received e-mails from United Methodists complaining that if everyone had health care there wouldn’t be enough doctors and hospitals to go around. So we can’t do it. I kid you not. I believe, however, that if we make it a priority we can actually train enough doctors and build more hospitals, especially if vast sums are not being siphoned off for insurance company profits.

If there are those in this rich denomination who do not believe everyone in the United States should receive health care, consider what they must think of impoverished sisters and brothers in the Global South. Even as we seek health care for everyone in the United States, we are part of a denomination-wide global-health initiative. We are attempting to raise $75 million because The United Methodist Church can “Imagine No Malaria.”

Some pastors don’t want to participate in this campaign. They say they’re tired of being asked for money. Our denomination will continue to try to raise this money, though, because it will save lives.

We are all related to one another. Our safety and security is interconnected. It is not possible to wall off any part of the world from any other part of it, even though such efforts are underway along the Rio Grande and in the West Bank.

The provision of health care for all without regard to status or ability to pay is portrayed in the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:24-35). In a conversation that began with the question of how one might obtain eternal life, Jesus asserted that one must love God and one’s neighbor. In response to the next question as to who one’s neighbor is, Jesus told of a Samaritan, an outsider, who coming upon a wounded traveler, provided him with health care. Jesus described the duty to provide health care as owed regardless of the merit or ethnicity of the person in need, and owed to the limit of one’s economic capacity. By the way, this is from #3201, “Health Care for All in the United States,” 2008 Book of Resolutions of The United Methodist Church.

The provision of health care for all … is portrayed in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Occasionally, I will hear from someone that a stance of our denomination does not actually reflect a majority of United Methodists’ opinion. How, I ask, do you know that? These persons consistently respond along the line that they know no one in their Sunday school class or congregation who agrees with the stance — although the stance was approved by their elected delegates.

Everyone in the more than 41,000 United Methodist congregations in Africa, Europe, the Philippines and the United States elects delegates every year to represent them at annual conference. All congregations are represented. Every four years, each annual conference around the world elects lay and clergy delegates to General Conference, our highest decision-making body.

By mandate of the United Methodist Book of Discipline, it is the task of the General Board of Church & Society to seek the implementation of General Conference resolutions on social concerns and the Social Principles. It is not within our purview to set aside General Conference’s actions. The statements of General Conference form the basis for our action and ministry. To paraphrase Bishop James Mathews, we must move from "resolutionary" Christianity to revolutionary Christianity.

A church leader wrote recently to clergy in the district, where he is the superintendent, “The 2008 Book of Resolutions does endorse a single-payer public [health-care] system.” He hastened to add, though, “This does not have the power of church law, and is an expression of the delegates in the spring of 2008, taken before the current partisan wars began.” The District Superintendent wrote that he believes “that were the General Conference to speak in today’s climate, it would be more intentional in taking into account various means to that end.”

At least the past eight General Conferences have called for reform.

Our denomination has spoken repeatedly to this matter, not just in 2008. A look back reveals that our denomination has called for health-care reform as far back as the 1980 Book of Resolutions. At least the past eight General Conferences have called for reform. This is not a matter considered lightly or in a cursory manner.

The 1980 Book of Resolutions, for example, reads: “For all persons in the nation to have equitable access to needed health-care services, public financing must be a significant part of an overall health-insurance plan. Public funding is necessary to pay for insuring those who cannot pay part or all of the necessary premiums required. This group includes, among others, the poor and the near-poor, most of the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled, and those whose care is extremely costly.”

Each of the subsequent General Conference resolutions builds on the previous ones. This agency has not endorsed any particular legislation before the U.S. Congress. But we take very seriously these words of the General Conference: “We charge the General Board of Church & Society with primary responsibility for advocating health care for all in the United States Congress, and for communicating this policy to United Methodists in the USA.”

Right now, none of the proposed legislation before Congress will provide health care to everybody. We believe that is essential and basic. In fact, elected leaders of both political parties in the United States are competing to be the most punitive against undocumented immigrants, the overwhelming majority of whom are desperately seeking economic opportunity in the richest country in the world. The wealth of this nation is dependent on resource extraction and cheap labor in the poorest nations. Something, my friends, is askew.

There is no value in enriching insurance companies further. There is no value in fining people for not buying insurance. There is no value in denying care to undocumented immigrants.

The United States does not have the best health care in the world. It is not true that anyone can get care if they desire to have it.

I am pleased to say that many United Methodists and even some of our denomination’s leaders have joined us in this struggle. Now is the time to stand up and be counted. Any congregation that doesn’t seek health care for all of the uninsured should be sued for malpractice!