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Health
Access Education Project
Expanding the Health Care Access Policy Debate
Within California’s Faith Communities
This past year the issue of the cost of health insurance and
health care has been at the heart of labor negotiations, state
budget deliberations, presidential candidacy debates, and
the business community’s financial outlook – in
addition to family budget struggles. In the faith community,
denominational retirement programs are being seriously impacted
as leaders come face to face with the reality of not being
able to keep promises made to retiring clergy – that
their health insurance premiums would be paid for their lifetime.
In 2003 the overall cost of health insurance premiums in California
rose by nearly 16%. A recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation
noted that in the past year premiums for family coverage increased
about 42% for employers, but worker contributions for family
coverage increased nearly 70%.
Nearly 44 million Americans have no health insurance at all
– and 80% of these folks are employed. Eight and a half
million of the uninsured are children under the age of 18.
This reality has serious negative consequences and economic
costs not only for the uninsured themselves but also for their
families, the communities they live, and the whole country.
What do people of faith have to say to these realities? How
can we address the issue of the UNinsured and the UNDERinsured?
Our sacred texts and teachings remind us of God’s intention
for the health and wholeness of God’s beloved people.
At the California Council of Churches we believe it is time
for people of faith to be actively engaged in a process of
dialogue and discernment as our communities, state and nation
struggle to find an approach to health insurance that will
promote better overall health and provide everyone with access
to necessary, appropriate and effective health services.
The California Council of Churches has recently received a
grant from
The California Endowment to support a two-year project to
help bring the concerns and the debate about universal access
to health care into California’s religious community.
In the next few months we will be creating a study guide to
help congregations look more closely at various proposals
being put forth at state and national levels. We will create
resources to assist with the process of articulating a moral
and theological basis for concerns about health care access.
We will also be creating a website in partnership with the
University of Southern California’s Center for Religion
and Civic Culture that will help congregations follow the
evolving state and national conversation and also link to
resources for study materials.
In the next year additional programs and workshops will be
offered as we engage in a process of moral deliberation, and
begin to build a statewide grassroots network of concerned
and informed individuals and congregations who can participate
in public policy discussions about these issues. Watch this
site and check our Justice Seekers Newsletter for ongoing
updates on this project.
For more information on this project please be in touch with:
Nancy Nielsen, Project Coordinator
nnielsen@calchurches.org
or 916 442-5447.
* Some of the files on this page are PDF documents. An
Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view them. If you do not
have a Reader, you can download
the program for free from Adobe.
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