Denver, Colo., Nov 7, 2009 / 09:55 am
Auxiliary Bishop of Denver James D. Conley has said that the health care reform proposal currently advancing in Congress is “fatally flawed” because Congress has ignored or rejected “serious concerns” about federal funding for abortion, broad access to health care and financial sustainability.
The proposed health care reform is not only “inadequate and baffling” but “insulting and dangerous,” Bishop Conley wrote in an essay posted Friday on the website of the journal First Things.
In the Church’s view, he said, access to basic health care is “a right and a social responsibility, not a privilege.” The U.S. bishops’ conference has strived “so diligently” to work with Congress and the White House in seeking compromise legislation, he reported.
“As of Nov. 5, all those efforts have failed,” he wrote.