Access to Adequate Health Care a Basic Human Right?

Louisville Courier-Journal
December 8, 2006

Catholic bishops: Health care a 'moral right'
By Peter Smith

Kentucky and the nation have a moral obligation to improve a situation in which millions of people lack health care and many more face cuts in Medicaid services, the state's Roman Catholic bishops said yesterday.

The four bishops issued a seven-page document citing the "moral right" to affordable and quality health care.

"Access to adequate health care (is) a basic human right, necessary for the development and maintenance of life and for the ability of human beings to realize the fullness of their dignity," Louisville Archbishop Thomas C. Kelly, chairman of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky, wrote in a statement accompanying the document.

"A just society is one that protects and promotes the fundamental rights of its members with special attention to meeting the basic needs of the poor and underserved, including the need for affordable health care," Kelly wrote.

The joint statement comes as Kentucky officials plan to raise costs and cut some services, changes that would affect nearly 700,000 state residents who receive some form of Medicaid.

The state, facing a $425 million Medicaid shortfall in its current budget year, is seeking federal approval for the actions.

More than 500,000 Kentuckians, or one in eight residents, lack health insurance, according to statistics from the Census Bureau and the Kaiser Family Foundation. The foundation estimates that more than 45 million people are uninsured nationally.

"Affordable and accessible health care for those not covered by Medicaid is an essential safeguard of human life, a fundamental human right, and an urgent state and national priority," the bishops said in their statement.

"Reform of the state's and nation's health-care system, rooted in values that respect human dignity … is a moral imperative."

In addition to Kelly, the statement was signed by Covington Bishop Roger J. Foys, Lexington Bishop Ronald W. Gainer and Owensboro Bishop John J. McRaith.

[To read the Kentucky Bishops' statement, click here.]
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