Moments before Sunday night’s passage of a mammoth health-care bill that the New York Times described at the “most sweeping social legislation enacted in decades,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi specifically thanked the United Methodist Church for “endorsing” the controversial bill.
[W]e are proud and also humbled today to act with the support of millions of Americans who recognize the urgency of passing health care reform — and more than 350 organizations, representing Americans of every age, every background, every part of the country, who have endorsed this legislation.
Audio of Speaker Pelosi thanking the UMC (1:10) Our coalition ranges from the AARP…to the American Medical Association, the Catholic Health Association, the United Medical — the United Methodist Church, and Voices of America’s Children.
The 2,685-page bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 219-212 (50.8%-49.2%). Every Republican and 34 Democrats voted no.
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The role of the United Methodist Church in securing passage is difficult to gauge.
In addition to participating in rallies and creating a web site focused on pushing a health-care overhaul, the UMC’s General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) was closely involved with Faithful Reform, a coalition of “faith groups” advocating greater government involvement in health care.
The coalition sent a letter to President Barack Obama and Members of Congress last month urging them “to complete the task at hand on behalf of the millions who are left out and left behind in our current health care system.” The letter (PDF) was signed by Bishop Gregory Palmer, president of the United Methodist Council of Bishops, and endorsed by GBCS.
Graphic from a GBCS web site
The General Board of Church and Society’s advocacy efforts on behalf of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act were premised on language approved by the 1996 and 2008 General Conferences.
The language — written and submitted by GBCS — asserted that “heath care is a basic human right.” (The logical problems with this assertion are detailed here by UM pastor and blogger Donald Sensing.)
The GBCS-authored language was not debated on the Conference floor in either 1996 or 2008. In both cases, the “health-care-is-a-right” legislation was passed hurriedly in omnibus fashion along with other legislation.
(For details, see “How Did the UMC Come to Define Health Care As a ‘Right’?” Also, see this 2008 report (PDF) from the RENEW Women’s Network, which concludes that the UM Book of Resolutions — a document also widely quoted by GBCS in support of its lobbying efforts — “has become a mouthpiece for a few of the boards and agencies within the church and several caucus groups and [is] not representative of the United Methodist Church as a whole.”)
In a written statement issued March 22, Jim Winkler, chief executive of GBCS, referred to the health-care language authored by his agency and passed by the General Conference.
“The United Methodist Social Principles declares health care [to be] ‘a basic human right,’” he wrote. “The United States took a huge step toward affirming this right [Sunday] night when the House of Representatives passed health insurance reform legislation.”
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Critics of the bill, such as the Wall Street Journal editorial board, have argued the legislation is likely to be destructive to the U.S. health care system and therefore harmful to individuals.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates [that the bill] will cost taxpayers $200 billion per year when fully implemented and grow annually at 8%, even under low-ball assumptions. Soon the public will reach its taxing limit, and then something will have to give on the care side. In short, medicine will be rationed by politics….
As in the Western European and Canadian welfare states, doctors, hospitals and insurance companies will over time become public utilities. Government will set the cost-minded priorities and determine what kinds of treatment options patients are allowed to receive. Medicare’s price controls will be exported to the remnants of the private sector.
All bureaucratized systems also restrict access to specialists and surgeries, leading to shortages and delays of months or years. This will be especially the case for the elderly and grievously ill, and for innovation in procedures, technologies and pharmaceuticals.
Eventually, quality and choice — the best attributes of American medicine in spite of its dysfunctions — will severely decline.
Other critics took issue with the bill because the legislation could result in federal subsidies for private insurance plans that cover abortion. Just before Sunday’s vote, National Right-to-Life characterized the bill (PDF) as “the most abortion-expansive legislation ever to reach the House floor.”
Winkler speaks at health-care 'vigil' in Dec. '09
In contrast, Jim Winkler of GBCS described the sweeping health-care legislation as being an extension of the work of Christ.
“Jesus’ ministry serves as an example and a call to serve the least and the last among us,” Mr. Winkler said in a written statement.
“He asked us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves — setting forth a faith grounded in God’s abundance, generosity and a capacity for love that knows no bounds,” he wrote.
In a March 24 statement, Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and author of the 2008 book, Taking Back the United Methodist Church, said GBCS is among many “Religious Left” organizations that equate the love of Christ with larger and more intrusive government.
The Religious Left version of Jesus’ love is an unceasingly expanding federal welfare state that coercively seizes assets from one segment of society for redistribution to other segments, according to coarse political calculations, and with all the efficiency and compassion for which mammoth state bureaucracies are renowned.
Good News, the flagship United Methodist renewal ministry founded in 1967, issued a statement registering “deep disappointment” with GBCS.
Rather than engage the issue of health care reform in a manner representing the hopes and concerns of all United Methodists, [the General Board of Church and Society] has once again embraced and advocated for the most liberal and polemical position. Unfortunately, the board chose to feverishly work for a particular plan that divided United Methodists….
By so publicly making common cause with a partisan plan, many church members will view GBCS more as an agent of a particular political party, and less as an agent of the kingdom of God….
Throughout the debate, GBCS failed to seriously acknowledge or fairly represent other proposals for meeting the health care needs of Americans.
Once again, GBCS alienated thousands of United Methodists, and caused many to wonder whether the board can ever fairly represent them in the public square, even going so far as to advocate for the most extreme iterations of the bill that included federal funding for abortion.
Of the 44 United Methodist members of the House of Representatives, 18 voted in favor the health bill while 26 voted against it, according to the United Methodist News Service.
In December, when the Senate passed the health bill, four United Methodist senators voted in favor, five were opposed.
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Thus far, more than one-fourth of state attorneys general have joined in a federal lawsuit (PDF) against the new health-care law, arguing that it imposes an unconstitutional direct tax, violates the 10th Amendment, and exceeds Congress’s defined powers to regulate interstate commerce. The new law requires all Americans to have health insurance or faces fines.
It angers me that the GBCS assumes it speaks for the entire UMC! I do not want to be associated with a group that condones murder of the unborn and then celebrates when the government will actually start paying for it!
And don’t say the “Executive Order” keeps that from happening. The EO isn’t even worth the paper it is written on and if the Senate wants to make paying for abortions law, it will supersede the EO!
I am disgusted with the power the GBCS has within the UMC and that the rules of the Book of Discipline do not seem to apply to them!!
I was listening to Speaker Pelosi’s remarks live, just before the bill was voted on. I almost came out of my chair, shocked and angered by her assertion that the United Methodist Church endorsed this bill. I don’t know if Rep. Pelosi was purposely misrepresenting the situation (seemingly not a problem for her), or if she really thought the UMC officially endorsed the bill.
It goes to show you, once again, how sneaky the UM General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) is. Did the agency suggest to Ms. Pelosi that their position was the “official” one of the UM Church? Let’s face it, the GBCS is little more that a left-wing political lobbying organization that uses the church for funding and political cover. They replace trust in God with trust in government.
I am an eye doctor who accepts Medicaid patients. There are fewer and fewer of us around. Medicaid is a compassionate safety net that we have already. No restrictions on pre-existing conditions, available to anyone in financial need, etc. You wouldn’t necessarily know that from the spin of the press and the Obama administration. Some Medicaid patients are in their financial situation due to no fault of their own, but many are there because of poor choices they have made. As I write this I have a Medicaid patient waiting to see me. She is overweight, diabetic, and rarely complies with treatment recommendations. Nevertheless, she is a child of God deserving of treatment. (Whether or not she has a “right” to treatment for anything other than a life-threatening condition is an entirely different matter.)
I am able to see Medicaid patients, and survive financially, because of other, higher-paying patients (some of their payments come via insurance, some via private pay). Doctors cannot survive solely on Medicaid patients. While it won’t happen immediately, this health care bill eventually will turn a much higher percentage of our population into Medicaid recipients. Roughly half of the 32 million people that this massive health care bill will cover will be under Medicaid. When this bill is fully implemented, the patient I just mentioned will have to wait longer to be seen (assuming both of us are still around). She will suffer from de facto rationing.
This bill removes $500 billion from an already struggling Medicare system. It does not include the so-called “doctor fix,” necessary to keep Medicare sustainable. If you include this in the financial calculations, this newly enacted health bill will add even more to the national debt (already almost $14 trillion!) based on CBO calculations.
Of course, all these calculations suffer from one major flaw: no one can predict the future. Historically, projections on health care expenditures have grossly UNDERestimated actual expenditures.
Is it moral to cause public dependence on a system that will eventually fail? This whole thing is built on a fiscal house of cards. And that doesn’t even address the abortion concerns.
Well said Mark!
Actually, I’m glad she namechecked the UMC — hopefully it will wake up the people in the pews who are clueless as to the ideologies that are pervasive in the general agencies and Council of Bishops.
Despite their half-hearted protests to the contrary, far-left leaders of the church DO NOT represent the views of the majority of the UMC laypeople.
Tom makes a good point. Maybe Rep. Pelosi’s remarks will wake up some people in the UMC.
I would also point out that the far-left leaders, like many on the Council of Bishops and pretty much the entirety of the GBCS, don’t just contradict the majority of United Methodists, they often — in ways both covert and overt and in ways that give them “plausible deniability” — ignore the admonition and teaching of the Book of Discipline and Scripture.
If they were confident in the rightness of their actions they would be more up front and transparent with respect to what they do. These are serious matters.
As a new Methodist, I’m outraged by these actions by the GBCS. They certainly do not represent me — or any Methodist I know. What can be done to stop them?
To Bishop Gregory Palmer,
I have been a Methodist all my (67 years) life. Shame on you for using the UMC to help pass this health care bill. Sometimes smart men do dumb things in the name of Christ — and you’ve proven that.
What is next? Amnesty for illegal immigrants?
Danny,
That is exactly what they’re planning to do. I can already tell due to the increased amount of articles on umc.org.
I guess they’ll need somebody to take up the membership slack.
Many people in the pew have been complaining about what the heads of GBCS and other committees, agencies, and boards are doing in the name of United Methodist with total disregard to following the Discipline, General Conference guidelines, or the Bible. The key word is accountability.
The Council of Bishops, fellow clergy, or our own news media will not take an adequate stand against these egregious positions taken by these leaders and hold them accountable. Our Church needs a Nehemiah to take a stand, whereby the people of the pew could unite and restore our Methodist heritage, traditions and biblical worldview.
We wonder why the UMC is losing membership so fast. Where there is no vision the people perish. Many of the current leaders have a form of religion and a misleading communication vocabulary, but they deny the power of true religion faith.
As a Christian, my question would be, “What would Jesus do?” Would Jesus want this health care bill to pass, so that more people would be able to receive proper treatment for their health? Or Jesus would want people to have freedom to choose?
Freedom goes with power to choose, and there are people who have no power, economically, to choose in this matter.
I am now a former Methodist, in part because of this last straw. I live in a conference where the Bishop has just — to put it in a Christian way — incorrectly recited the facts in e-mails to Methodists who are shocked at what has been done by the GBCS in their name. This has happened before with this Bishop when the GBCS endorsed the Freedom of Choice Act, in direct violation of our (now, your) statements in the Book of Discipline on abortion.
God will reward churches as they deserve, and this conference is getting just that as it declines at twice the rate of decline in the UMC nationally. God bless all you in strong, true conferences that hold to the word of God. The UMC’s future is yours.
Candy,
You ask, “What would Jesus do?” In your hypotheticals you miss the most obvious answer: the Church should be taking the lead, as it has done since day 1, without government intervention. If we are not providing sufficiently for the poor as the body of Christ, we need to step up our game, not go running to big daddy government to play an Orwellian Robin Hood.
Jesus didn’t have much use for institutions of man. And I’m pretty certain that so-called “charity” via threat of government fines or imprisonment isn’t what He had in mind with the parable of the Good Samaritan.
Tom,
I think we have had a plenty of time to step in as a church. Have we done good enough job in terms of making health care affordable for the poor? People are suffering daily by not having enough medical care; how long do they have to wait, until we, the church set every thing straight?
I don’t think there is “perfect” health care system in the world. I came from a country that has universal health care. I know there is flaw in the system. However, people do not have to choose between grocery bill and medical bill, or which leg to save because of the economic situation they are in in my country.
There are some systems that needs the government getting involved, such as civil rights and abolition. In both of them, the church was involved.
In this country people are treated whether they have health insurance or not. While it may, in some cases bankrupt them, in the “socialized medicine” countries many couldn’t even obtain treatment and might die waiting for their names to come up on the list.
This issue has been so misrepresented! The U.S. the best health-care system in the world!
I really doubt Jesus would have said, “Reach into your neighbors pocket to pay for your good works”!
I have been a Methodist for 47 years since confirmation at age 12 and three generations before that. The endorsement of the UMC of Obamacare will be the downfall of America as we know it.
It’s very warm and fuzzy of you who drink the Kool Aid and believe everyone can get the same level of care and yet contain costs at the same time. I served in the Public Health Service and saw that this won’t work. No one thought to ask the healthcare providers.
They promise, “You can keep the same doctor” — but HELLO,what if your doctor doesn’t want to keep you.
I have left the UMC. The “endorsement” of Obamacare was the last straw for me.
I have been willing to overlook obvious left-wing bias by bishops in the past, but this was just too much.
How can the UMC endorse something most Methodists oppose? The endorsement of the Obamacare legislation is an insult to the majority of Methodist members. Just as our government is making laws that the majority of Americans oppose, our church is making decisions that a majority of members oppose.
Each member must make his or her choice about how to respond. I have decided to donate the money that would normally go to the church to support congressional candidates opposed to this kind of legislation that violates constitutional freedoms.
Many other insulted members will drop out of the United Methodist. I may do this eventually if this kind of misuse of the UMC authority is continued.
I would like to know the names of the individuals who made the decision to give official UM to support this piece of legislation. They have betrayed the trust placed in them.
My husband and I left the United Methodist Church several years ago when we noticed its growing involvement with liberal groups and politics.
The fact the United Methodist Church supported health-care legislation based on a bunch of lies is unbelievable.
Hello! $500 billion in cuts to Medicare WILL hurt the health care of old folks, according to a Medicare analysis of the bill made public before the bill’s passage. In a compassionate, dare I say Christian, world the Medicare actuary report should have been enough information to kill the bill.
The United Methodist Church had to be aware of this report, yet still supported the bill. That seems pretty contrary to Christian principles — unless you believe throwing grandmother under the bus is the Christian thing to do.
I am sure no one in my small country church is aware of the true nature of the UMC. After the endorsement of the “One Nation Working Together” (to steal other people’s money) rally, I resigned my membership.