(Albany, NY) The Faith and Hunger Network today urged President Obama and Congress to recognize health care as a human right. The group urged the national leaders to support creating a universal health care system that guarantees all Americans the right to quality health care regardless of their employment status, age, gender, race, wealth, marital status or national origin. The President will deliver an address to a joint session of Congress later this evening.

The group said that the proposals being considered by the various committees in the House and the Senate all fall significantly short of the goal, leaving tens of millions without health insurance and many more with expensive and inadequate health insurance. The groups pointed out that mandating that everyone buys health insurance – the main Democratic proposal - is not the same as guaranteeing access to health care. For instance, the vast majority of Americans who go bankrupt due to high medical bills had health insurance when they became sick.

“Adequate health care for everyone in the United States is achievable,” said Robb Smith, Executive Director of Interfaith Impact of NYS. “Now we need to join together and make it happen. Health care is a human right that gets at the very foundation of what it means to be human and live in community. Let’s stop allowing human pain and suffering to be treated as a commodity. This is a fundamental moral issue, and our faith traditions call out for us to resolve this impasse,” said Smith.

“The belief that health care is a human right is supported by many faiths. Health care is a right, not a privilege or a commodity. It is long past time for the US to join the other industrial nations in ensuring that everyone has the right to quality health care. Denying this basic right literally kills tens of thousands of Americans annually,” noted Barbara Zaron, a member of the Steering Committee of the Reform Jewish Voice of NYS

“The basic test must be to make health care a right. Everyone in, no one out, without pre-conditions. This goes far beyond the debate over a public option or the so-called ‘death panels’. The moral imperative of providing quality health care to everyone seems to have gotten lost in the political debate,” added Rev. Deb Jameson of FOCUS Churches in Albany.

“How provision is made for children in the dawn of life, the elderly in the twilight of life, and the sick, needy and those with disabling conditions in the shadow of life are clear indices of the moral character and commitment of a nation. Our call for health care for all is rooted in our faith traditions’ mutual call to heal the sick and to serve ‘the least of these,’ the priorities of justice and principle of common good,” added Zaron.

The US Catholic Bishops have recognized that “every person has the right to adequate health care. This right flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that belongs to all persons.” The American Baptist Church “believe(s) that health care should be viewed as a right, not a privilege, and the basic goal for health care reform should be universal access to comprehensive benefits.” The United Methodist Church regards healthcare as a basic human right, as well as a responsibility both public and private.

The Presbyterian Church USA states “Good health—physical, mental, and spiritual—is both a God-given gift and a social good of special moral importance.”  The Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) has consistently supported universal health care coverage. A 1975 URJ Resolution on "Health Care and Healthy Insurance" called for a "national comprehensive prepaid single benefit standard health insurance with no deductible, to cover prevention, treatment and rehabilitation in all fields of health care."

The group said that single payer proposals such as HR 676 achieve the goal of making health care a right. The group noted however that while some countries have been able to achieve universal health care under a multipayer system, all have eliminated the role of for-profit health insurance.

“Treating health care as a human right is inconsistent with allowing companies to profit from treating care as a commodity. It is immoral to allow people to suffer or even die in order to increase the profits of others. Figuring out how to provide quality health care to all Americans while controlling costs is not a difficult task. What appears to be difficult is convincing elected officials and special interests to put human needs ahead of human greed,” observed Mark Dunlea, Executive Director of the Hunger Action Network of New York State.