Iowa bishop warns against healthcare rationing, ‘federal monopolization’
August 28, 2009
Commenting on proposed healthcare reform legislation, Bishop R. Walker Nickless of Sioux City writes that “the Catholic Church does not teach that government should directly provide health care. Unlike a prudential concern like national defense, for which government monopolization is objectively good-- it both limits violence overall and prevents the obvious abuses to which private armies are susceptible-- health care should not be subject to federal monopolization … any legislation that undermines the viability of the private sector is suspect.”
The Iowa bishop-- who previously served as Archbishop Charles Chaput’s vicar general in Denver-- adds, “We reject the rationing of care. Those who are sickest should get the most care, regardless of age, status, or wealth. But how to do this is not self-evident. The decisions that we must collectively make about how to administer health care therefore fall under ‘prudential judgment.’”
Echoing statements made by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Nickless also makes clear his opposition to any legislation that promotes abortion or fails to protect the conscience rights of healthcare professionals. He writes:
[T]he Church will not accept any legislation that mandates coverage, public or private, for abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research. We refuse to be made complicit in these evils, which frankly contradict what “health care” should mean. We refuse to allow our own parish, school, and diocesan health insurance plans to be forced to include these evils. As a corollary of this, we insist equally on adequate protection of individual rights of conscience for patients and health care providers not to be made complicit in these evils. A so-called reform that imposes these evils on us would be far worse than keeping the health care system we now have.
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