A Progress Report on the PC(USA) Funded Seminars
Educating about & Advocating for Single-Payer Universal Healthcare Reform
Presbyterian Association for Community Transformation (PACT)
Background
In the fall of 2007, the Leadership Team of the Presbyterian Association for Community Transformation (PACT), a network of the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare Association (PHEWA), decided to take the issue of healthcare reform to its network meeting at the PHEWA Biennial Social Justice Ministries Conference in New Orleans in January. At the conference, the network drafted a resolution recommending support for House Resolution 676, the single payer bill pending before Congress, and the membership of PHEWA enacted the endorsement of the legislation.
Bebb Stone, of the PHEWA Board of Directors, brought the issue of endorsing HR 676 to the Pittsburgh chapter of PHEWA and to the Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Single Payer Healthcare. These groups brought a proposed overture favoring the single payer approach (but not specifically HR 676) to Pittsburgh Presbytery, which approved the overture for consideration at the upcoming General Assembly. Former hospital administrator Hal Sanders, member of East Liberty Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh and of both endorsing groups, was appointed as Overture Advocate.
At the meeting of the 218th General Assembly in San Jose, California in the summer of 2008, the proposed overture, with edits suggested by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy, was passed by the Health Issues Committee of the Assembly by an overwhelming majority. It then went to the plenary floor where, in one of the last actions of the Assembly, it was approved by a 60-40 vote.
The overture endorsed “in principle the provision of single-payer universal health care reform in which health care services are privately delivered and publicly financed.” It also directed “the General Assembly Council, through appropriate offices…to advocate for, educate about, and otherwise pursue the goal of obtaining legislation that enacts single-payer, universal national health insurance as the program that best responds to the moral imperative of the gospel.” The action directed “that $25,000 from the mission budget of the PC(USA) be sent to the PACT Network of PHEWA for the purpose of holding ten regional, one-day seminars supporting single payer universal healthcare reform.”
The Committee
PACT designated the Rev. A. David Bos, then Co-Chair of PACT, to gather a committee for coordinating the one-day seminars project, in consultation with the Rev. Nancy K. Troy, then Executive Director of PHEWA. In the fall of 2008, Nancy Troy, David Bos, Hal Sanders, Sandy Fox, board member of Healthcare Now! (a national single payer advocacy organization), and Claudia Detwiler of the Western PA Coalition met to consider guidelines for the project.
The Single Payer Seminars
Because of the 218th General Assembly's vote in 2008 to endorse single payer universal healthcare reform in principle and to back that endorsement up with $25,000 in mission monies, for education and advocacy seminars, the Presbyterian Church (USA) has been able to proclaim good news of support for healing, health, and wholeness in such
a variety of contexts over the past year and a half. The health care bill that recently became law, with no public option, and with no consideration of the single payer approach (i.e. Expanded and Improved Medicare for All), was but a politically expedient stopgap. Scholarly analysis has already shown that its shelf-life of amelioration will last but a few years before rising costs and rising premiums force another answer.
Thus, the Single Payer folks are not unpacking their movement. Rather they are expanding it, understanding that this civic conversation that intends health and healing for neighbor as well as self is a moral good in its process as well as its content. This movement is for today, as well as tomorrow.
Healthcare-NOW!, a national single payer movement, and Physicians for a National Health Plan, organized support for a teach-in at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City on Saturday, April 24, 2010. PHEWA President, the Rev. Bebb Wheeler Stone, PhD was asked to participate on a panel with a labor organizer, two physicians (Dr. Margaret Flowers, being one), an organizer from Healthcare- NOW, and a political organizer. The questions from the crowd of slightly over 100, with gratifying Presbyterian participation, kept the panel at work for almost two hours. This was the 8th PC(USA) funded seminar
educating about and advocating for Single Payer Universal Healthcare Reform. Currently, funding remains for two more. The other seven seminars were:
- In Pasadena, CA at the First Presbyterian Church on May 9, 2009. 375 persons in attendance.
- In Albany, New York at the Westminster Presbyterian Church on March 31, 2009. 325 persons attended.
- In Princeton, New Jersey at the Mackay Center of Princeton Theological Seminary on May 31, 2009. 175 persons attended.
- In metro Louisville, KY/New Albany, IN at Indiana University Southeast on May 40, 2009. 160 persons attended.
- In Towson, MD at the Towson Presbyterian Church on May 30, 2009. 100 persons attended.
- In Pittsburgh, PA at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary on June 14, 2009. 200 persons attended.
- In Houston, TX at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church on September 13, 2009. 100 persons attended.
The Impact
The Albany, New York seminar received coverage in the local Albany Times-Union before and after the event. About two weeks after the event the paper ran an editorial endorsing the single payer concept. Shortly after that, an Upstate New York congressman declared his support for a single payer bill. At Pasadena, the event got coverage by local print media. At all successive events, local and national level lawmakers attended as presenters and observers, as well as a variety of endorsing organizations- physicians, nurses, interfaith partners, organized labor, business and other groups, with local print and often television media present. In each of the events, participants wrote letters and/or sent cards to their congressional representatives and senators. Because all of these events are being planned and implemented by coalitions who have a strong history, the action and advocacy continues.
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) action has had an impact on other denominations, as well. The 76th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, meeting in Anaheim, California from July 8-17, 2009, voted in both their House of Bishops and House of Deputies to, “along with our Presbyterian cousins,” work for Single Payer Universal Health Care Reform.
