Obamacare Would Put Hospitals in Moral Bind
(Editor: The following is an excerpt from an opinion piece by Margaret Bengs which ran in the Sacramento Bee on September 1.) 
The Obama administration's health reform plans may force California's Catholic hospitals into a serious dilemma….
There are 52 Catholic hospitals in California, including several in the Sacramento area. Catholic health care providers constitute about 16 percent of all California hospitals.
The tightrope Catholic hospitals are walking is exhibited by the California Catholic Conference's website, which features the "I can't wait" for health reform campaign calling for "100 percent access" alongside a July 29 letter from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops urging the House Energy and Commerce Committee to amend HR 3200, the House of Representatives' version of health care reform, to retain long-standing government policies on abortion and conscience rights.
Several features of the bill constitute a "radical change" that would grant the federal government the power to make abortion a basic or essential right in all health plans, the USCCB letter states. The federal Hyde Amendment and other measures have prevented direct federal funding of abortion for more than three decades, except in rare cases. However, it applies only to the annual Health and Human Services appropriations bill and not to any new streams of federal funding authorized by the reform legislation. Despite the bishops' plea, the committee voted down amendments that would have excluded abortion from federal health care coverage.
To read entire opinion piece, click here.
