USCCB and community health centers
The USCCB has written a rather good letter on budgetary matters, calling for “Congress to place the needs of poor, unemployed, hungry, and other vulnerable people first, both home and abroad”. The letter puts the life issue front and central, supporting the retention of “appropriations riders against abortion funding”. A few sentences later it decries the cuts to community health centers: “The USCCB has long called on Congress to work to ensure adequate and life-giving health care coverage to those in need. The proposed cut to Community Health Centers will deny health care to nearly eleven million poor and vulnerable people including mothers and children at risk. These centers are often the only access to health care for tens of millions of people in our country.”
I assume that the USCCB no longer entertains the possibility that the community health centers are funding abortions. Otherwise, they would never have made such a strong and unequivocal statement. This is good. One of the lowest points in the entire health care debate was the attack on community health centers, which are devoted to providing basic health care to tens of millions of poor and the marginalized people. This attack, which I believe originated with the National Right to Life Committee, was part of a shameless attempt to use any means possible to delegitimize the Affordable Care Act. At the time, the USCCB caught caught up with this bandwagon. Now, as the same people who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act are trying to defund the community health centers, their true value becomes evident. Of course, I would argue that the baseless attacks on community health centers paved the way for this attempt to strip away their funding. The USCCB, which had the best of intentions during the health care debate, made some pretty blinkered decisions. Thankfully, they seem to have found their voice again.
Comments are closed.
Thanks for this info MM and thanks to God for this clarity on this critical life issue as a whole.
Helping the poor is an ethical and noble cause but protecting the unborn takes precedence IMHO. Do you know whether there were any amendments added to the Affordable Care Act since the USCCB released this statement last year? Any additional protection given to the unborn?
“The Senate Health Care Reform Bill: Funding Abortions at Community Health Centers
Confusion has arisen over the question of federal abortion funding in the Senate health care
reform bill (H.R. 3590). In particular: As currently written, does the legislation require largescale funding of abortion at federally regulated Community Health Centers (CHCs)?
Unfortunately, the answer is yes. Understanding why requires some knowledge of current federal
law and past judicial history on abortion.
Everyone agrees on these basic facts: Sec. 10503 of the bill authorizes a new “CHC Fund” to
expand funding for the CHC program (which was established by Section 330 of the Public
Health Service Act). More unusually, the Senate bill also directly appropriates its own new
funds for these services, instead of leaving that task to the annual Labor/HHS appropriations bill
that generally funds programs at the Department of Health and Human Services. For Fiscal
Years 2011 to 2015, the bill appropriates $7 billion for services (to be increased to $11 billion
under the President’s new proposal), $1.5 billion for construction and renovation of CHCs, and
$1.5 billion for the National Health Service Corps.”
The information is found here: http://www.nccbuscc.org/healthcare/communityhealthcenters.pdf
Do you know whether there were any amendments added to the Affordable Care Act since the USCCB released this statement last year? Any additional protection given to the unborn?
No, there were no amendments. Experience has shown that abortions are not being funded and cannot be funded thorugh CHCs. The USCCB’s advisors erred in their analysis.
It is to their credit they are now moving forward in aiding the poor and objecting to these cuts.
The Bishops’ objection to PPACA’s funding of CHCs is an objection to *PPACA’s* funding of CHCs, because THAT funding contains no restriction in it nor a restriction applied to it (Hyde) limiting the funding from being used for abortion. Obviously you disagree with the USCCB on this analysis, and we have beaten that horse to a pulp. But the annual budget does contain Hyde restrictions. So the USCCB’s support for CHC funding in that budget is in no way inconsistent with its opposition to abortion funding loopholes PPACA. Nor does this latest support in any way take away the USCCB’s objection to abortion funding loopholes PPACA. The USCCB’s objection to abortion funding loopholes PPACA is still in place. You may not like that, but you can’t just make it go away by saying it is gone, while citing their support for different funding.
We are approaching a year into the supplimental funding of CHCs and not one dime has been spent on abortions and now we are to the point of giving them new funds to CHCs to continue their (worthy) programs and replace funds that have been exhausted.