Dear CMF Friends:
As the 2007 Reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP), demonstrated, our nation's system for regulating health plans is broken. Your immediate financial assistance will enable Christus Medicus to continue to identify the threats public and private health plans pose to our families, faith values, and right of conscience. Your support will also enable us to provide leadership in educating policy makers and developing concrete policy solutions.
Enclosed is a copy of a letter from Grace Marie Turner, President of the Galen Institute, a leading tax policy and research organization. This letter acknowledges the significant role Christus Medicus played in the debate over the reauthorization of the State Children's Health Insurance Program(S-CHIP). Postponing the reauthorization of S-CHIP until March 2009 was an incredible accomplishment. This reauthorization, which was vetoed by President Bush three times, was the platform for national health insurance, for removing protection of the unborn child and for expanding nationwide subsidized family planning with federally required confidential contraceptive coverage for children at any age.
Expansion of confidential coverage of these evil procedures is an increasingly alarming threat to all our children, the future of America. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) just released a study showing that 25% of the nation's teenagers now have some form of sexually transmitted disease. It is chilling to contemplate the health of these children in 20 years. Our current laws and secular culture are heavy contributors to this health crisis.
Federal and state laws and regulations are behind the loss of freedom, right of conscience, and parental involvement in healthcare. Things would be much worse if CMF had not been around the last ten years providing the leadership to:
- Reverse in 2001 the Clinton Administration HIPAA rule that denied parent's the right to their children's medical information,
- spearhead the right of conscience movement that resulted in passage of The Hyde Weldon Amendment in 2004 protecting healthcare providers and payers from abortion,
- establish the first ever faith-based health plan for federal employees in 2004, and
- postpone, until March, 2009, the expansion of abortion, contraception, sterilization and infertility procedures in the reauthorization of S-CHIP, to allow for further debate.
CMF's 2008 goal is to identify ways that Catholic, Biblical and culture of life teaching can be preserved in the healthcare field. We seek to:
- Identify ways that spiritual leaders can begin to turn the cultural ship using such tools as public relations, advertising, preaching, and pastoral letters to provide support for policy leaders working to change the culture.
- Establish state healthcare reform committees nationwide to:
- Re-assert parents' control over the sex education and sexual behavior of their children.
- Provide strong conscience clause protection for religious providers, payers and individuals that protect them from culture of death healthcare legislation.
- Eliminate culture of death procedures from national and state health plans, particularly as it applies to children and teenagers.
- Create an environment where options for private health insurance can flourish and ultimately reduce national dependence on state and federally sponsored health insurance.
According to the Allen Guttmacher Institute (AGI), public expenditures for family planning, without parental consent/and or knowledge, totaled 1.8 billion dollars in 2006*. Two-thirds of this money came from Medicaid and SCHIP health plans. Of the 17 states that require health plans to cover abortion for any reason with public funding; only three have parental consent laws. In all 50 states, where public and/or private health plans cover family planning (birth control pills, IUDs, Depovera, and the Morning After Pill), children are covered without parental consent or notification. AGI also
reported that 86% of all medical plans routinely cover sterilization and two-thirds cover abortion.** How much have private health plans spent killing babies, corrupting our children, endangering their health, and undermining parental authority?
The reason we have lost control of our freedom in healthcare is that we have withdrawn from the healthcare debate and allowed those who are engineering a culture of death to shape the debate. It is urgent that we proactively become engaged at the state and national level to protect our children, parental authority and Catholic and Biblical values in healthcare reform.
Help us continue providing the leadership to protect our children by making a tax-deductible contribution to the Christus Medicus Foundation (CMF) today! We need your immediate help in raising $40,000. This letter is being mailed to 400 individuals. If everyone donates $100, we will reach our goal. If you can give more, please do. It will make up for those who cannot afford to give. If you cannot give $100 now, please donate $36 to become a CMF member. You can also make an online donation, visit
www.christusmedicus.com
Together, with pro-lifers, policymakers and Catholic and other religious leaders, we can build a new healthcare "culture of life". We urgently need your prayers and financial assistance. I am convinced we are at a tipping point; our work in 2008, 2009, and 2010 will shape the future of healthcare! The future for our children and America are at stake. As Pope John Paul II said:
"All together, we must build a new culture of life (Evangelium Vitae, 95)"
Very truly yours in Christ,
Michael J. O'Dea
Executive Director
P.S. If you have not read Grace Marie's letter or made your contribution to Christus Medicus, please do.
P.S. Because of our budget constraints, we can no longer send our Newsletter without an annual membership fee of $36. Please return contribution and/or return card in the enclosed envelope.
*Public Funding for Family Planning, Sterilization and Abortion Services,
Guttmacher Institute, Jan. 2008
**Uneven & Unequal Insurance Coverage for Reproductive Health Services,
Guttmacher Institute, Dec. 1993
