The United Methodist Church and Health Care Reform

This comes from an official email periodically circulated through the United Methodist Church’s in the Central Texas Conference:

Reactions to the health care reform legislative continue to circulate around the nation and our Central Texas Conference. It is important to recognize that The United Methodist Church has been fully involved in this conversation since John Wesley’s time and certainly over the past 8 General Conferences, always affirming the need for comprehensive health care that extends to all. We are a diverse people with many perspectives on most every issue — including health care. The UMC’s position is not for or against any political party or the specific bill passed late Sunday by the U.S. House of Representatives. It is simply in support of health care for all.

From a UMNS story released Tuesday: An attack on U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (a UM clergy elder in the Missouri Conference) — who was spat upon and called a racial slur by protesters outside the Capitol—offers an opportunity to model civil discourse and point to a different path. “It saddens me, the acrimonious debate both in Congress and in the public at large. We have failed to carry on serious debate without personal attacks and name-calling,” said Bishop Gregory V. Palmer, president of the UM Council of Bishops and leader of the denomination’s Illinois Great Rivers Annual (regional) Conference. “My hope is that the church would do such an effective job at managing its own difficult conversations that we might be a model for how the world can manage difficult disagreements,” he said. Read the full story at http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=5259669&ct=8114773&tr=y&auid=6110074.

For those who wish to deepen their understanding of the UMC’s views on health care, read on the conference website under “Church and Society” the 2008 Book of Discipline paragraph 162.V (http://ct.brickriver.com/files/oFiles_Library_XZXLCZ/2008_Book_of_Discipline_Right_to_Health_Care_XYHJAQCL.pdf) and Resolution 3201 (entitled Health Care for All in the United States) from the United Methodist Book of Resolutions (http://ct.brickriver.com/files/oFiles_Library_XZXLCZ/2008_Book_of_Resolutions_HEALTH_CARE_FZ5YQBYY.pdf). Other helpful resources:

GBCS’s The Bible and Health Advocacy:  Ancient Vision, Modern Imperative

http://www.umc-gbcs.org/atf/cf/%7B689fea4c-8849-4c05-a89e-c9bc7ffff64c%7D/GBCSHEALTHCAREGRID2009.PDF

John 10:10  — A Justice-Filled Prescription for Health Care

http://www.1010challenge.org/site/c.olIZIfNYJwE/b.5337789/k.C006/Home.htm

Also, view the following video clips to see the UMC’s responses to the need for compassionate health care in local settings:

First UMC, Los Angeles:

http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2022489&ct=7130479

Pathways in Petersburg, Va:

http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=2022489&ct=6759761

La Clinica in St. Louis, Mo: http://umtv.org/video/[20031001]/la_clinica.mov