For Whom Does the USCCB Speak in the Health Care Reform Debate?

Before we as a free people choose to reform our medical system, we should take time to reflect on a medical care delivery system which by any standard has vastly improved our lives and the lives of many throughout the world. Market and economic incentives have produced magnificently trained doctors and health care professionals, miracle drugs and treatment regimens, and evolving and ever improving technologies. Perhaps we are taking these things for granted which in turn means that we also fail to appreciate how the tools and talents of modern medicine even come to exist. Consequently, through acquiescence, acceptance or imposition of Obama-style reform, we will institutionalize damage to our system of medical care delivery which quite literally will be to our peril. The irony of the “reform now” movement evidenced in our politics and by the community organizing of the USCCB and its affiliates is that much of the infrastructure for medical care delivery was developed, and continues today through the pastoral care and charity of religious organizations, especially the Catholic Church.