http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/issues/familyandhealth/ en Copyright 2007 Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:35:49 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss -Charter for Health Care Workers, Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance, 2/11/94 You are aware of the close relationship, the analogy, the interaction between the mission of the priest on the one hand and that of the health care worker on the other: all are devoted, in different ways, to the salvation of the person, and care for his health, to free him from illness, suffering and death, to promote in him life well-being and happiness. -Pope John Paul II, address to Catholic doctors, 12/28/78 Facts regarding Bush policy on family and health: 1. Half of the U.S. appropriation to date for development in Iraq could pay to treat every HIV-infected person in Africa for a year-1/20th of the entire cost so far. 2. The Bush Administration launched an initiative to provide $15 billion over five years to deal with HIV disease in the developing world (PEPFAR initiative). PEPFAR has refused to pay for generic medications that are not FDA-approved, which means severely limited therapeutic choices for African AIDS patients and no approved regimens that have been tested in children. Randall Tobias, the U.S. AIDS czar, was quoted in the NY Times as saying about their treatment goals for Africa, "We are well ahead of schedule.'' This was in response to news that 300,000 of the 25 million HIV-infected individuals in Africa are now being treated with anti-retroviral drugs as of December 2004. New tentative approval by the FDA January 24 for a South African drug maker's generic combination drug to treat HIV infection may signal a change, but the US goal of treating fewer than 8% of Africa's infected people by 2008 has to be described as a pitifully low expectation. 3. The withdrawal of funding from the Global Initiative for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has significantly undermined that effort: in December 2004, Congress voted to cut US funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by $200 million. The Fund, previously chaired by HHS Sec Tommy Thompson, had threatened to suspend all grants for 2005. 4. A new Medicare drug benefit was added this spring for the elderly. Aside from the deceit over the projected total cost of the program (initially estimated at $400 billion over ten years, and then revealed to be closer to $530 billion after its passage), the legislation puts significant new pressure on retirees to enroll in HMO care. The complexity of new drug discount cards that went into effect in May 2004 has left many people without the benefit by virtue of difficulty involved in using it. 5. The Medicare drug benefit bill forbids government contracting with pharmaceutical companies to negotiate volume discounts for senior citizens, dramatically increasing the cost of the legislation to the benefit of these companies. 6. The number of Americans without health insurance climbed nearly 10% under Mr. Bush, partly as a result of job losses. 7. Healthcare costs dramatically outpaced inflation despite pressures to enroll more people in supposedly cost-cutting capitated plans. 8. The Bush Administration's proposed biomedical research budget for 2006 for the first time in more than a decade fails to keep up with the rate of inflation, paling in comparison to the growth in discretionary military spending and leading scientists once again to talk about leaving academia in large numbers as they did in the 1980s. Moral scorecard: 1. The Bush Administration has begun to address the AIDS cataclysm in Africa. But the ulterior motives of protecting pharmaceutical company profits at the expense of lives, continued from the Clinton Administration, has to represent one of the great moral failings of our time. Africa represents a tiny part of the practical opportunity for profit to these companies. Now that the election is over, the Administration has moved rapidly to cut funds for international AIDS relief efforts. Their current goal is to treat 1 in 13 infected Africans by 2008, with no demonstration projects planned to explore the benefits of treating early (when infected individuals are most infectious to others). "Do not lay up for yourselves an earthly treasure. Moths and rust corrode; thieves break in and steal. Make it your practice instead to store up heavenly treasure, which neither moths or nor rust corrode nor thieves break in and steal. Remember where your treasure is, there is your heart also." Matthew 6:19-22. 2. The continued loss of health insurance to vast swaths of American citizens, including children, strikes right at the heart of the Christian mission to care for others. As the only Western nation without universal health care, despite spending far more per capita than any other country, we have a moral obligation to alleviate this pervasive suffering as Jesus relieved suffering. "I was ill and in prison and you did not come to comfort me.' Then they in turn will ask, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or away from home or naked or ill or in prison and not attend you in your needs?' He will answer them: 'I assure you, as often as you neglected to do it to one of these least ones, you neglected to do it to me.'" Matthew 25:43-46 ]]> http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/issues/familyandhealth/2007/04/family_health.html http://www.catholicdemocrats.org/issues/familyandhealth/2007/04/family_health.html Sun, 15 Apr 2007 17:35:49 -0500