WASHINGTON (ABP) — Perhaps only a problem as daunting as the 40-plus million Americans lacking health insurance could bring together officials from groups as diverse as the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Council of Churches, and the Islamic Society of North America.
Those groups as well as Catholic, Jewish, Pentecostal and other religious organizations have joined forces to draw attention among the nation's faith communities to “Cover the Uninsured Week 2004,” scheduled for May 10-16.
The effort is sponsored by several different religious and charitable groups and is being coordinated by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The effort features a National Interfaith Advisory Board whose members include Richard Land, president of the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; and Eileen Lindner, deputy secretary for the National Council of Churches.
“I think the very ability to put together such an extensive religious and interfaith coalition is a testament to the high moral stakes of this issue,” Lindner, the advisory board's chairperson, said. She added that her group's “primary role” in involvement with the week is “to help encourage and enliven our religious communities” in their attention on what she called “the scandal” of 44 million Americans — 8.5 million of them children — who do not have health insurance.
According to figures provided by the foundation, that comprises 15 percent of the United States' population. More than 80 percent of those uninsured either work or are in working families.
Elaine Arkin, a consultant with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, said this is the second year that the emphasis has incorporated a religious component. “We have asked the faith community to join us in this Cover the Uninsured venture…because in addition to physical and financial consequences, [being uninsured] has moral and ethical dimensions,” she said.
Lindner emphasized that many of the religious groups involved in the effort may differ in opinions on how best to achieve the goal of extending health insurance — but that all believe in encouraging religious congregations and denominations to do more on the local level to improve health care.
“Our task… is to call the churches, mosques, temples back to the vocation of raising up this issue,” Lindner said. “We are diminished as a society when we have such a large population lacking in health care. They are denied their liberties not only as children of God, but their liberties as Americans.”
The coalition sponsoring the week has produced several resources for religious leaders and congregations to use in calling attention to the issue. They include bulletin inserts with information about the health-insurance crisis. They also include sermon notes and church newsletter articles containing reasons for being concerned about the uninsured. The reasons are drawn from the texts of each of the three major religious traditions represented in the advisory board.
Church leaders can order or directly download that information on the effort's website at www.covertheuninsuredweek.org. The site also has information on finding already-existing health care help for the uninsured in communities across the U.S.
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