The Diocesan Task Force on Health Care

St. Luke the Physician Health Care IS a Matter of Faith
The Diocesan Day of Health Care Learning

Saturday, June 5, 10 a.m.– 4 p.m.
The Bishop Claggett Center 3035 Buckeystown Pike, Buckeystown

Sponsored by Diocesan Council and the Diocesan Health Care Task Force

Keynote address by Matthew Ellis, executive director of National Episcopal Health Ministries and National Episcopal AIDS Coalition

Breakout sessions will include personal stewardship and healing ministries in the church. Health care reform and the Church’s role will be discussed, including new ideas about how individuals and parishes can make a difference. Parishes already involved in faith-based health care ministries are encouraged to bring a display and other information.

Information and Registration

Download the agenda for the day (Adobe PDF)

$20.00 Registration fee
Register Online for this event
Registration Deadline May 24, 2010
For more information contact: The Venerable Lauren Welch

 

Our Mission

Our mission is to advocate for health care as an essential component of human life and dignity which is our Christian duty grounded in our Baptismal Covenant and therefore to encourage and work to ensure that every person has the right to and reality of adequate health care.

Jesus speakes to the one leper out of ten (Luke 17:11-19 ). Detail of the Healing Window at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Baltimore. As we love and serve Christ it is a given that we must safeguard and respect the dignity of every human being. (Refer to the Baptismal Covenant in the Book of Common Prayer, pages 304 & 305.) This simple declaration of our mission is powerful in its implication and cuts to the heart of why faith communities should accept responsibility and take action about our failing health care delivery system. We think health care equality for all citizens should be a civil right in a country as affluent as ours.

Our mission goes beyond advocacy for fair and just health care delivery. Individual and community responsibility for wellness and healing will be encouraged by promoting health ministry in the Episcopal Church through congregations, assisting them to reclaim the Gospel imperative of health and wholeness.

Fulfilling the Mission

The Task Force will:

  1. Identify and network parish, diocesan and national programs and ministries;
  2. Assist in setting up needed programs and ministries;
  3. Educate the diocese and its parishes on critical issues facing health care;
  4. Assist the diocese, and its people and parishes, to advocate on matters critical to health care.

Universal Health Care Coverage

The Episcopal Church has consistently called for passage of federal legislation establishing a "single payer" universal health-care program and for a federal law guaranteeing adequate health care and insurance for every citizen.

2009 General Convention Resolutions

D048: Adoption of a "Single Payer" Universal Health Care Program

D088: Health Care in the U.S.

C071: Health Care Coverage for All

Report of The Standing Commission on Health to the 2009 General Convention

Diocesan Convention Resolutions

We joined with the Task Force on Faith and Public Policy; the Coalition of Ministries for Justice and Peace and the Committee on Older Adult Ministries to successfully promulgate a resolution on universal health care coverage. This resolution was taken to the 75th Convention and joined with 12 other dioceses in the passage of a resolution for national church policy to advocate for affordable health care coverage for every U.S. citizen.

Click here to read Resolution 2006-1: Comprehensive and Affordable Health Care for all Citizens

Additional Resources

The Bio Ethics Committee of East Tennessee developed a Discussion Guide on Health Care for congregations. There are three sessions 1. Why Health Policy is a Christian concern 2. Personal encounters with the health system 3. What can / should we do Easy to use and facilitate.

Health Care Coverage for All Discussion Guide

 

How the 'Affordable Health Care for America Act' measures up to 'A Faith-Inspired Vision of Health Care' is now available to help people of faith consider health care legislation through the lens of justice. The reflection that informed the writing emerges from years of collaboration, conversation, and dialogue with the many faith leaders and organizations that now make up the Faithful Reform in Health Care coalition. It starts and ends with the values found in "A Faith-Inspired Vision of Health Care."

This essay is the third in the series that has been developed as the legislative process has moved forward. The document will be expanded to include the Senate proposal and the final bill. It is not intended to pick apart the details, but to help guide people of faith in their efforts to move our legislators toward the best bill possible to reform U.S. health care.

Download A Faith-Inspired Vision of Health Care

Faithful Reform in Health Care: http://www.faithfulreform.org/

Episcopal Public Policy Network: What the Episcopal Church says about HR 3269