HEALTH REFORM: Faith Based Groups: "America Can Do Better"

Industry groups may be holding their ad fireworks until after the Fourth of July, but a coalition of a faith-based groups will take to the airwaves this Independence Day weekend with ads presenting health care reform as a moral and ethical imperative.

The spots will run in Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana, Nebraska, and North Carolina (states which just happen to be home to potential swing senators like Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu...). Sponsored by a coalition of religious groups, including PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners, Gamaliel, and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, the ads feature local preachers from each state. Using passages from Scripture, they argue that the status quo on health care is "not who we are as a nation" and that "America can do better." You can listen to ads here. Dan Gilgof, writing on U.S. News and World Report's God & Country, has the text of an ad to be run in North Carolina:

It's a vision first proclaimed by Isaiah: No more shall there be an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime.

This is Rev. Joe Harvard from Durham, and we've got work to do.

In North Carolina, people are being denied the care they need because of their age or an illness they had years ago. Or getting sick because they can't afford preventive care.

This is not who we are as a nation. America can do better.

The challenge is great, but God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love. And our love must be a thing of action.

This Independence Day, join thousands of people of faith in asking Senators Hagan and Burr to rise to the challenge by supporting reform that makes quality health care choices affordable for all families.

Please add your voice, and learn more at www.coverallfamilies.org. Paid for by Faithful America.

In addition to the ads the groups are also calling on local pastors to hold health care Sabbaths and encourage measures of their congregations to call their congresspersons to urge them to support reform.

New America's Len Nichols has been one of the leading voices arguing that health care reform is a not just an economic necessity but also a moral imperative. In a recent essay, Len addresses the issues of stewardship and health care as they relate to the kind of society do we want to live. Showing the core definitions of society remain the same from Thomas Jefferson to Leviticus, Len asks:

What does the right to life mean if one does not also have access to known and widely available life-preserving and life-enhancing diagnoses and treatments? How can one meaningfully pursue any individual definition of happiness if one cannot afford essential care for a sick child, a breadwinner, or a disabled spouse or parent? In short, what is life and happiness without health?

To hear more on the moral case for reform check out this video below: