Last Tuesday was a great day for low-wage workers in my hometown of Washington, D.C., when the City Council voted to mandate paid sick and safe days for many private-sector workers. The legislation could affect 200,000 District workers who do not currently have the right to a single paid sick day.

In fact, this is an indignity that exists nationwide. Neither the federal government nor any state has granted workers the right to paid sick days. (San Francisco passed a municipal measure in 2006.) As a result, more than 50 million workers in the U.S. must work when they are sick - through colds, fevers, and stomach flus - on pain of lost wages or even lost jobs.

Nearly 100 million workers can't take a day off to care for a family member, such as a sick child or elderly parent. When a worker or a loved one gets sick, she or he must either work anyway or risk losing a day's pay or even her job.

The working poor bear a particularly heavy burden. Less than one-quarter of low-wage workers have paid sick days, although they are the workers who can least afford to lose a day's pay, and whose jobs often require contact with the public or its food supply. (Unfortunately, the D.C. Council passed amendments—at the urging of D.C. businesses and the Chamber of Commerce—that will exempt many of the workers whose employers should actually encourage sick days, including waitstaff and health care workers.)

The injustice and indignity of having to choose between working while ill and losing a day's pay (or your job) is an issue in which many in the faith community have taken a keen interest. Respecting the health and dignity of all human beings is a core value for all faith traditions. This includes not just access to health care, but time away from work to recuperate from illness, as well as to tend to ill family members. Interfaith Worker Justice is working to gather the faith community behind workers and win them the right to paid sick days.

Some 20 national faith groups have already endorsed the Healthy Families Act, federal legislation that would grant seven paid sick days to private-sector workers to care for themselves or their families. These include Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, and Jewish faith bodies, faith-based organizations, and women's faith groups. And our numbers are growing.

Liz Weiss is a senior policy analyst for Interfaith Worker Justice. For more information, contact her at: lweiss@iwj.org.

Joy and I woke up yesterday morning at 5:00 a.m. to the sounds of our screaming four-year-old, Jack, who was suffering from extreme abdominal pain. We tried to console and cuddle him, but to no avail. "Don't touch me, it really hurts!" he cried, when we tried to examine or gently rub his sore tummy. This was not like him at all; he is not an overreactive kid. We had to go get him at school that day because he was vomiting and had diarrhea. He had a quiet afternoon at home and went to sleep easily, but now was literally wailing and inconsolable.

It's every parent's greatest fear - a sick child, maybe very sick, and in the middle of the night. How serious might it be? Could it be appendicitis - or something equally bad? This wasn't like Jack. Then nine-year-old Luke, who had been awakened by Jack's crying, was in our room too - tired, scared, and also crying. What should we do? I called our health provider and got a nurse advisor. After I described Jack's symptoms and distress, she said, "Take him to the emergency room at Children's Hospital." So we threw clothes on and rushed out to the garage. There was snow on the ground and ice on the steps as I carried my screaming and scared little boy. "Why didn't I put on boots with a grip?" I asked myself, as I carefully but hurriedly climbed down the treacherous steps with Jack in my arms.

We got in the car and headed into the deserted Washington, D.C. streets on our way to an emergency room we hoped and prayed was not too busy. Joy drove with Luke, who was asking all kinds of worried questions, while I tried to calm Jack (and myself) in the back seat by praying out loud that God would keep him safe. Luke joined in the prayers. We arrived at the ER, and I rushed in with Jack while Joy and Luke went to park the car.

It's the moment of panicked parenthood, rushing into the emergency room with your suffering and frightened child, almost frantically surveying the room for where you should go. "He's got severe abdominal pains; we need to see a doctor now!" I almost shout to the first person I encounter. I am in no mood to fill out papers and forms and talk about insurance coverage as I slap Jack's insurance card on the reception desk.

Fortunately, we are quickly accepted and admitted. They are all very attentive, compassionate, and professional. From the intake personnel, to the nurses, to the doctors (we were lucky enough to get the head of the ER who was on his shift just them), everybody was clearly competent and concerned. Joy and Luke rushed in soon after we did and we were all taken to a clean and quiet room where Jack was quickly and comprehensively examined. They spoke reassuringly as they looked at our little boy, telling us what they were going to do and what the possibilities were. Right away they got an IV to hydrate him and administer some pain-reducing medicine that was gentle for children. He got quieter and seemed to relax.

I saw a hospital system focus on a little boy with time, energy, concern, and (I assume) lots of financial resources. They did several X-rays of his stomach, chest, and lungs, and even did a comprehensive ultrasound to look for any sign of an inflamed appendix. The medicine was working its wonders and Jack was getting sleepy. But I had to wake him up, sit, and stand him up for the X-rays. My little trooper was a star as he stood still the best he could, even after such a traumatic morning, waiting for the technician to "take a picture of your tummy," as I told him. He looked up at me with such vulnerable and trusting eyes and said, "Even if my tummy can't smile." Afterward, I knew he was becoming himself again when he began to make several observations about the environment around him and philosophized, "When you're sad, and they turn you upside down, it turns into a smile." Yes, I said, amazed at how perspective does indeed change everything.

Joy was running Luke to school now, as Jack and I moved around the hospital for all the tests, in what we began to call his "traveling bed," which he thought was quite cool. Jack's big brother Luke was really worried and kept pressing his mom on whether Jack was okay and "wasn't going to die, right?" She assured him that his little brother was in very good hands now and would be alright. "Without Jack, life would be nothing," Luke tearfully lamented. "The first four years of my life were really boring!" he exclaimed to his moved and bemused mother.

She was back now in the hospital after dropping Luke off at school. Jack was resting comfortably back in our safe little room in the ER, and the doctor came in to tell us the results of all the testing, X-rays, and diagnosis. "Your son has pneumonia," he said, shocking us both. A nagging cough had settled into his left lung and was making him vomit while putting very painful pressure on his diaphragm and abdomen. But they were going to start administering the antibiotic right then and there, and, with a couple days of rest and quiet, he would start to get better. And there was no sign of appendicitis.

Several hours after our frightful awakening, we got Jack home and I got the antibiotic that was so critical to his healing at our health care provider's pharmacy. It was $10. And all the other care my son had received that morning was already paid for by our insurance. Jack was home, comfortable, and safe; while his mom and dad were greatly relieved. After Luke borrowed his fourth grade teacher's cell phone to call home to see how Jack was, he was finally relieved too.

But I began to think how different this all would have been if we were a family who didn't have health insurance and therefore hesitated or were afraid to go to the emergency room. Or, if we were "undocumented" and were terrified to take our child to a hospital. Or, if we were parents in Uganda living hundreds of miles from a doctor and just had to listen to our screaming child and hope that he wouldn't die.

My policy views on health care reform are very public. But this morning made it all very personal. Every parent, no matter who they are and where they live, can easily have the kind of trauma over the health of a child that we had. And every parent should have the medical care that we got. It's just wrong if they don't. What I realized most was how important it is for those who have that care to fight for those who don't. Other parents love their children just as fiercely as we love Jack, pray just as fervently for their healing, and have the right - as absolutely equally important children of God - to good and affordable health care. God loves all the children as much as God loves Jack, and its time to build a health care system in this country that respects that fundamental moral affirmation.

On Dec. 1, the world commemorates World AIDS Day, a day in which we pause and remember the 25 million lives lost to the deadly epidemic. The day also challenges us to redouble our efforts to show greater solidarity with the estimated 33 million people worldwide living with HIV. The day's slogan is "Stop AIDS: Keep the Promise". This is a direct appeal to governments, policy makers, and regional health authorities to ensure that they meet the litany of targets in the fight against HIV and AIDS - especially the promise agreed to at the 2005 G8 Summit of universal access to HIV treatment, care, support, and prevention services by 2010. The 2007 theme of "leadership" highlights the stark reality that without a revolution in political will the epidemic will continue to outpace even our best response.

Dec. 1 represents a day for remembering the 2.1 million people that lost their lives this year due to this preventable and treatable disease. While we are starting to win victories in increasing access to treatment we are still losing the war to prevent new infections. Reports still show an alarming concentration of infections in the southern third of Africa, with nations such as Swaziland and Botswana reporting as many as one in four adults infected with HIV. Even closer to home, statistics released last week in Washington, D.C., reveal a state of emergency in which one in 20 residents is HIV positive - with 80 percent of cases among black men, women, and adolescents. The report shatters the common myth that AIDS is predominantly a gay disease, as 37.4 percent of newly reported cases were due to heterosexual contact. Behind these sobering statistics are real lives, real families, and real people made in the image of God.

We can give thanks to the degree to which Christians, including evangelicals, have now embraced AIDS as an urgent and legitimate cause. This weekend Pastor Rick Warren is convening thousands of faith leaders from across the country and world for his annual Summit on AIDS and the Church. I applaud his leadership in shining a spotlight on the indispensable role of the church in the fight against AIDS. However, past conferences have often shied away from the political nature of this epidemic and failed to deliver a clear call for political action to address the systemic injustices that so often fuel it. We can celebrate major advances in global treatment due in large part to increased funding through the President's Emergency AIDS Plan and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. Still, only 20 percent of people in need in the developing world currently have access. Thanks in large part to activism through the 2008 Stop AIDS campaign, all three leading Democratic Presidential candidates have agreed to a bold campaign promise to increase President Bush's pledge of $30 billion for AIDS prevention and treatment over the next five years to a figure more commensurate with the global need of $50 billion. Now we must pressure the Republican candidates to follow suit.

AIDS tests our faith as well as our humanity. Applying Matthew 25 to the contemporary age of AIDS, I believe God will also ask us "when I was living with HIV, did you love me, care for me, and use your prophetic voice to help stop the epidemic?"

The gospel music artist Donald Lawrence came out with a song last year titled "I Speak Life." As Christians we must speak life by loving and supporting people around us living with the virus. We can speak life by using our voices to challenge Congress and the Bush administration to make good on their promises to achieve universal access to treatment by the year 2010. We can speak life by breaking down the walls of stigma in our churches and communities, raising awareness, and encouraging testing. We can speak life by addressing the underlying injustices and issues that so often fuel the crisis of AIDS, including intravenous drug use, poverty, sexual violence, promiscuity, and infidelity.

An old African American Spiritual says it best:

Sometimes I feel discouraged, and think my work's in vain.
But then the Holy Spirit revives my soul again.
There is balm in Gilead to heal the wounded soul.
There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin sick soul.

Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners.

There is a good deal of contention about President George W. Bush's reasons for vetoing the SCHIP legislation that would have provided a much needed expansion of medical coverage for America's poorest children. Bush's supporters assert that the legislation would extend coverage to middle class families with incomes up to $83,000 a year, while hundreds of thousands of poor children would remain uninsured. They also share his argument that the bill would be a major step toward "socialized" medicine and government-run health care.

Those who opposed Bush's veto, including several prominent members of his own party, dismiss these reasons as specious and disingenuous. Senator Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, calls Bush's claims "flatly incorrect." Republican Senator Orrin G. Hatch contends that rather than covering "rich" children, upwards of 92 percent of the children covered will be from families with incomes less than 200 percent of the poverty level – less than $41,300 for a family of four. Bush's opponents also contend that his stated concern that expanding medical coverage for poor children will result in government-run healthcare makes little sense, especially since there have been government-run healthcare programs for Americans for decades – namely, Medicare and Medicaid – yet America is no closer to becoming a socialist state than it has ever been.

If the reasons President Bush has given for his veto are not his real reasons, what might those real reasons be? Read the full entry »

As expected, President Bush yesterday vetoed legislation that would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

At our religious leaders' news conference on Tuesday, I spoke of the issues at stake here.

Jesus made healing a principal sign of his ministry and of the presence of the kingdom of God. From a biblical point of view, it is simply wrong when health becomes a commodity and accessibility depends upon wealth. Until something is done to make universal health care a reality in America, millions of families will remain poor. SCHIP is one bill – one program – to help fix the health care problem. No bill is perfect. But a bipartisan group of legislators think it is a good bill in the right direction.

To veto the bill, with no alternative plan instead - to simply abandon millions of poor children, to leave them to a market system that is failing to provide health care to enough people - is simply morally unacceptable. We must not allow this to become an ideological battle over the larger issue of health care systems. This is about a specific program for poor children that a bipartisan majority believes is working. This is not about health care theories - this is about children. And now, overriding a presidential veto will become the next faith-based issue.

Also speaking to the media were the heads of two denominations who also serve on our Sojourners Board. Sharon Watkins, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) said:

Mr. President, members of the House and Senate, 9 million American children are without health care coverage this day. Those children are our children. God has given them into our care. We are the responsible adults who say whether they see a doctor or not. Our hearts need to break for them because they are our own. They are our future, and we need to give them a bright future. When historians reflect back on this era, do we want to be remembered as the people who turned their backs on the uninsured children of this nation?

And Glenn R. Palmberg, President of the Evangelical Covenant Church added:

An earlier administration, some 20 years ago, tried to declare ketchup a vegetable in the children's school lunch program. It was seen as a cruel and cynical response to the plight of low-income children. I still hear that talked about as the legacy of that administration regarding poor children some 20 years later. I think this veto has the potential of being talked about 20 years from now as part of the legacy of this administration, and it is seen as a cruel and cynical response to the needs of poor children.

As the Congress now gears up for the veto override battle, I commend the words of Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), one of the primary sponsors:

I disagree with the [White House] legislative staff on all of this. Frankly, I think the president has had pretty poor advice on this. I can answer every objection that they've made, and I'm very favorable to the president. I know he's compassionate. I know he's concerned about these kids, but he's been sold a bill of goods.

This article also appeared today at Time.com

When I first heard that President Bush was vowing to veto a bipartisan bill to expand child healthcare, my immediate thought was more personal than political. What has happened to him?, I wondered. Now that he has followed through on his threat, I can't help but think about the first time we met and the conversation we had about children.

Just one day after Bush secured his election in December 2000, I received a phone call inviting me to Austin to meet with him and a small group of religious leaders. The president-elect wanted to discuss his oft-stated passion for really tackling the persistent problem of poverty and to tell us about his vision for "faith-based initiatives." I had not voted for George W. Bush, and that fact was no secret to him or his staff. But he reached out to me, and to others in the faith community across the political spectrum, because we shared a common concern. I was impressed by that, and by the topic of gathering down in Austin.

Those of us who had been summoned to Texas filed into a little Sunday School classroom at First Baptist, Austin, where we would meet with Bush. I had preached at the church before and knew the pastor, who told me how puzzled he was that his quite "progressive" church was chosen for the meeting. Inside the classroom, twenty-five of us were seated in chairs, chatting and not knowing what to expect, when Bush walked in without any great introduction. He took a seat and told us that he just wanted to listen to our concerns, to hear what we thought the solutions were for dealing with poverty in America.

And he really did listen, more than presidents often do. He also asked questions. One sounded lofty, yet it resonated with those of us seated around the room: "How do I speak to the soul of America?" My answer to that was simple: Focus on the children. Their plight is our shame, I told him, and their promise is our future. Reach them and you reach our soul. Bush nodded in agreement. The conversation was rich and deep for more than an hour and a half.

When the discussion officially ended, Bush moved around the room, talking with us individually or in small groups for another hour. I could see that his staff was anxious to whisk him away (cabinet appointments were being made that week and there were key departments yet to fill). Yet he lingered and continued to ask questions. At one point, he turned to me and said, with what I could only read as complete sincerity, "Jim, I don't understand poor people. I've never lived with poor people or been around poor people much. I don't understand what they think and feel about a lot of things. I'm just a white Republican guy who doesn't get it. How do I get it?"

I still recall the intense and earnest look on his face as he stared right into my eyes and asked his question. It was a moment of humility and candor that, frankly, we don't often see with Presidents.

My response to President-elect Bush was borne of my own experience. He should, I suggested, listen to poor people themselves, and pay attention to those who live and work with the poor. Again, he nodded his head; again, he seemed to agree. When I returned home, I told my wife Joy, also a clergyperson, about our conversation. Weeks later, we listened together to President Bush's first inaugural address. When he said, "America, at its best, is compassionate. In the quiet of American conscience, we know that deep, persistent poverty is unworthy of our nation's promise. And whatever our views of its cause, we can agree that children at risk are not at fault….Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do," my wife poked me in the ribs and smiled.

Bush talked more about poverty in that inaugural address than any president had for a long time. When I said so in a newspaper column soon after, my Democratic friends were not pleased. Nor did they like the fact that I started attending meetings at the White House with the President and members of his staff about how to best construct a "faith-based initiative." Other friends of mine, however, were appointed to lead and staff the new Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, the first the White House had ever seen. We brought many delegations of religious leaders—conservative, liberal, and everything in-between—to meet with the men and women who ran that office. Many of us dared hope that something new might be in the air.

But that was a long time ago. We don't hear much about that office or initiative anymore. Most of my friends have long left. I don't hear about meetings now. The phrase "compassionate conservatism" rarely passes the lips of anyone at the White House these days.

And now, the President has vetoed a bipartisan measure to expand health insurance for low-income children. Most of his expressed objections to the bill have been vigorously refuted by Republican Senators who helped craft the legislation. Members of his own party have vowed to lobby their colleagues in an effort to override the veto. During his first presidential campaign, Bush chided conservative House Republicans for spending cuts accomplished on the backs of the poor. Now congressional Republicans are chiding him.

What happened to this president? The money needed for expanding health care to poor children in America is far less than the money that has been lost and wasted on corruption in Iraq. How have the priorities strayed so far from those children, whom he once agreed were so central to the soul of the nation? What do they need to do to get the President's attention again?

The faithful—of all creeds and political affiliations—barraged the White House last week, imploring the President to reconsider his veto threat. Our efforts did not bear fruit. But I wonder if, before he put his veto stamp on that legislation, the President thought back to that little meeting in a Baptist Sunday school classroom, not far from where he grew up. I wonder if he remembered that day, what we talked about, what was on his heart, and how much hope there was in the room.

If he knows his Bible, the President should remember that Jesus said to suffer the little children. This, however, isn't exactly what he meant.

Yesterday Jim stood with a group of religious leaders to challenge President Bush's promised veto of a bill to expand health coverage for children. He told some of the story of Bush's early days in office that he told here last week, asking what happened to his "compassionate" conservatism, and asking why Bush would veto a bill with broad bipartisan support, abandoning America's children to a failing system. Bush's veto, which came this morning at 10 a.m., is morally unacceptable, and overriding it will be our next "faith-based initiative."

Over the weekend, conservative Republican leaders began to "spin" President Bush's expected veto of children's heath insurance (SCHIP). They said it would cover children in families with incomes up to $83,000 per year. A Washington Post op-ed points out that "up to" is a slippery phrase. The Urban Institute estimates that 70 percent of children covered would come from families with incomes less than $41,300, and most of the rest from families earning less than $62,000 - not a luxurious income for a family of four in places with high costs of living. They said it would take children off private health insurance and move then to "government-run" health care. Wrong again. About two thirds of the approximately 10 million children who would be covered now have no health insurance whatsoever. And, the SCHIP program is a government-financed program, not a government-run program.

What the conservatives fail to answer, and what never will be answered on Fox News, is what do you do when the market has failed to provide health care for almost 50 million Americans, and those who oppose covering the kids now have literally no alternative plan in mind? Their alternative—leave millions of children without health insurance. That is immoral. Bill Gates, the richest and likely best capitalist in the world, has no trouble admitting the "market failures" in the world of health care, so why can't the conservative Republicans? It is indeed about the children. My open letter to President Bush last Thursday still stands, and I ask once more: Mr. President, remember the poor children you used to talk about at the beginning of your administration. Let this bill pass or offer us a better plan.

In his Saturday radio address, The Washington Post reports that

President Bush again called Democrats "irresponsible" for pushing an expansion he opposes to a children's health insurance program. "Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed," Bush said of the measure.

So, one may wonder, just who are these irresponsible Democrats who are pushing the expansion of SCHIP?

"This legislation will get the Children's Health Insurance Program back on track and reclaim precious resources for low-income kids," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa.

Another Republican, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch, R-Utah, called the agreement "an honest compromise that improves a program that works for America's low-income children." Asked whether he would vote to override a veto, Sen. Hatch, a staunch conservative, said, "You bet your sweet bippy I will."

"I am proud to support this important bill, which will provide health insurance coverage to approximately 4 million more children who would otherwise be uninsured. I'm glad my colleagues and I were able to put politics aside and do what is right for these children," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kans.

"I'm very, very disappointed," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore. "I'm going to be voting for it."

"I am so pleased that the Senate has passed legislation to extend and strengthen this important program. Our bill, which passed with strong bipartisan support, increases funding for SCHIP by $35 billion over the next five years, a level which is sufficient to maintain coverage for all 6.6 million children currently enrolled, and also allows the program to expand to cover an additional 3.3 million low-income children," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

There is strong bipartisan support for expanding the children's health insurance program in the Congress. But President Bush promises to veto this vital program for children's health. So, who is being irresponsible?

We are approaching the 11th hour in the fight to expand health care for our nation's most vulnerable children. During the last year Sojourners has been working with you to move three legislative priorities: immigration reform, the Farm Bill, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Of these three priorities, SCHIP represents our greatest hope for a legislative win this year, with a bill recently passed by the Senate and House expanding SCHIP funding and coverage—one that will have a profound impact on the welfare of our children. President Bush has threatened to veto any expansion of SCHIP, however, based on the misleading argument that it would encourage children already on private health care to shift to public care.

Nothing speaks more persuasively to this shortsighted leadership than the testimony of those directly affected. Susan Molina is a courageous mother and leader in our partner organization PICO, which has been leading a grassroots campaign to extend SCHIP coverage to all children in need. She offered this testimony earlier this year to the House Energy and Commerce committee.

We pray that her story will inspire you to take action. If you're a clergy person, we urge you to sign on to PICO’s petitions to Congress and President Bush. If not, please send a message to your pastor asking him or her to do so.

—Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

I am here as a mother to speak on behalf of my two children, Bernadette (age 14) and Joseph (age 10). I am also speaking for the tens of thousands of parents in the PICO network who lack coverage for their children.

Almost all uninsured children (83%) live in families where at least one parent works. I am a single mom who works. I am uninsured. … I was married at the age of 17 and I had two children. My husband was a very abusive man who walked out on us when my oldest was 5. I worked very hard so that I would not become a burden to my parents. Sometimes I worked two jobs. … I say all that to say this: As a single mother who has worked to be where I am now, it's hard to know that my kids don't have health care. Somehow we are punished for bettering our lives.

When my daughter was 4 she needed a lot of dental work. I was working two part-time jobs that paid $8-9 an hour and none of us had health coverage. I remember going to the welfare department and asking to enroll in Medicaid. I told them I did not need welfare or food stamps or anything else, just help with the dental work that my daughter needed. After I did the paperwork the caseworker told me I didn't qualify unless I quit one of my jobs or had another baby.

When SCHIP became available, I was able to enroll my children in the Colorado Child Health Plus Plan and get my children health coverage. And like most kids, they needed it. While they were on SCHIP, both my children sprained their ankles, my son broke his arm, and my daughter had a bad burn. Both received good care that kept them from any permanent harm and allowed them to go back to school and allowed me to go back to work. I was not worried about how much these accidents were going to put us in debt. I just knew they were going to get the care they needed.

All that changed when we lost our coverage in September, because my new job paid slightly above the 200 percent [of the poverty level] cutoff to qualify for SCHIP in Colorado.

We talk about 9 million uninsured children. Behind these numbers are real children who go to school, have accidents, and get sick. And real parents like me, who work hard to meet their families' needs.

When insurance prices are outrageously high, as a parent I have to decide whether to put food on the table or buy health insurance. I cannot afford to pay the hundreds of dollars each month that it would cost me to buy health insurance for my children.

I worry that when my children, God forbid, have an accident or get sick I will not have the means to pay for the medical attention they need.

Both of my kids were home sick last week for a number of days. The first night I felt very sad that I couldn't just take my son to the doctor because we don't have health insurance anymore. He was running a fever, and as I drove to the store to buy him some medicine, I began to cry. I felt like a failure. My kids needed something I couldn't provide. As a parent you work to make sure they have what they need. I went into the store and picked up the generic brand of chest rub and some Motrin for the fever. As I got back into the car I felt the need to tell someone that of course I would take my children to the doctor if I felt it was an emergency. I wouldn't care if I had to pay hundreds of dollars later.

I called my friend and told her. She just heard me cry for a while, and she said that it was important that I tell this in my story so that you would know that parents go through this helpless feeling every day. She was right, and I hope you do. … Thank you for the opportunity to tell you one parent's story, on behalf of millions of parents throughout our country.

Our voices are being heard! Yesterday the House passed a bill to enlarge the State Children’s Health Insurance Program by $47 billion over five years to extend coverage to an additional 5 million children.

The Senate will be debating a similar measure to expand the highly successful program by $35 billion over five years, adding 3 million children. Despite President Bush’s ideologically-driven and mean-spirited threat of a veto, we are approaching a veto-proof majority of 70 votes in the Senate. In order to secure 70 votes we need a continuous barrage of phone calls from faith advocates from across the country adding their voices to a growing chorus that calls for a healthier future for our nation’s most vulnerable and disadvantaged children.

Call your senators today at (877) 367-5235, a free number set up by our friends at PICO National Network. Tell them that people of faith are counting on them to stand up for the millions of uninsured children in the U.S.

Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.

Imagine a popular program that has existed for 10 years with bipartisan support, providing health insurance to about 6 million low-income children. The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is up for reauthorization this year and Congress is debating how to extend the hope of coverage to 9 million children who are currently uninsured, while protecting coverage for the 6.6 million children who depend on SCHIP to see a doctor. But SCHIP is caught in the middle of a political battle—between a bipartisan majority in Congress and the nation’s governors on one hand and an isolated, defiant ideological president on the other.

A Senate bill was approved by the Finance Committee last week by a 17-4 vote, with six Republicans and all 11 Democrats supporting an increase of $35 billion over five years. Several leading conservatives were strong supporters. The New York Times reportedSenator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) as saying, "I am proud to support this important bill, which will provide health insurance coverage to approximately four million more children who would otherwise be uninsured." According to the Los Angeles Times, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), one of the original authors of the program, said: "It doesn't make me comfortable to advocate for such a large increase in spending. But it's important to note that [the program] has been tremendously successful. And one of the lessons we've learned is that it's going to cost more to cover additional kids." The bill is scheduled to be on the Senate floor next week.

For its part, the House is proposing legislation that would provide an increase of $50 billion, which would cover an estimated 5 million more children. Both versions would be at least partially funded by an increase in the federal tax on tobacco products.

Last weekend at their annual summer meeting, the National Governors Association sent a letter to the president and Congress. While not specifically supporting either bill, the governors said: "While we have not taken a position on the actual overall funding amount or the sources of revenue used as offsets, we are encouraged by the Senate Finance Committee's efforts to move a bipartisan reauthorization bill that provides increased funding ... "

And President Bush? He says he’ll veto either version. "It's a way to encourage people to transfer from the private sector to government health-care plans. ... I think it's wrong, and I think it's a mistake." A White House spokesman added that the president’s advisers "will certainly recommend a veto" of the Senate committee's proposal because of its size and the plan to fund it with a tax increase. The administration's plan for only an additional $5 billion wouldn’t even cover all the children currently insured.

Remember, this is a president who is content with spending $12 billion a month on war, yet finds spending $7-10 billion a year on making sure that kids have health insurance "wrong" and "a mistake." I can’t imagine a more clear case of utterly distorted priorities. Compassionate conservatism has been on life support for the last several years of this administration. President Bush's threatened veto of SCHIP will officially pronounce it dead.

We have been working with the PICO National Network, one of the leading groups organizing for SCHIP, to remind policymakers that children’s health coverage is a moral issue for the faith community. Father John Baumann, executive director of PICO, had this reaction to the president’s threat: "(SCHIP) is a highly successful program that has always had bipartisan support as a pragmatic way to help states reach children who are not poor enough for Medicaid but whose parents cannot obtain coverage for their children at work. SCHIP is a popular and successful program that should not be dragged down into a partisan political fight over health care ideology."

I agree. For far too long, Americans in poverty have been trapped in a partisan debate. Now, a strongly bipartisan program that works is trapped by a president who sees only ideology. Call your senators and members of Congress, and urge them to support the necessary expansion of SCHIP for America’s kids. It’s the right thing to do.

Take Action

Your congressional members need to hear that as a person of faith you believe that no child should go without treatment or depend on an emergency room for care because they lack health coverage. If we are judged by how we treat the least among us, we must make sure that all our children have coverage. Call your members of Congress today at (877) 367-5235, a free number set up by our friends at PICO National Network.

Tell them that people of faith are counting on them to stand up for the millions of uninsured children in the U.S. SCHIP has successfully reduced the uninsured rate for children by one-third over the past decade. Now Congress needs to pass a strong SCHIP bill by a veto-proof majority to provide hope to the millions of children in America who still go to sleep at night without health coverage.

For more information and other ways to take action, please visit www.coverallchildren.org.

The question of universal healthcare is shaping up to be a rather serious focus in this election cycle. With costs out of control and each year seeing more and more of us without access to affordable health insurance or health care, many see universal health coverage as the best (and, perhaps, only) longer term solution to the problem. This piece on NPR focused on the difficulties of “making ends meet without health insurance.” It isn’t a pretty sight.

While many Christians embrace the extent to which this, too, is a moral issue, sadly we still have those who seek to erect ideological boundaries by misusing scripture. On my blog, I examine one of the common arguments against universal health care offered by a writer on the Religious Right. This writer seems to think that the primary motivators of a biblical position is one that is driven by “tough love” and “personal responsibility.” Yet:

Throughout the bible, God continually models giving people far better than they deserve. In fact, if one looks at Jesus' own ministry wherein he feeds the hungry, heals the sick, and both characterizes and models God as one who blesses others without regard to merit (in the Sermon, God's goodness itself is characterized as blessing without regard to merit), the value system espoused by this writer would make Jesus, oddly, pretty unbiblical!

The author then moves to his central argument that universal healthcare is socialism, and socialism is unbiblical (presumably, something we all just know). Again, the author misses important points:

One does not have to argue that socialism is the only form of economy scripture allows, but to argue that it is precluded overlooks too much. Oddly, this writer would have to judge numerous of God's commands as "unbiblical." For example, God commands years of release, wherein debts are forgiven every seven years, as well as years of Jubilee, wherein lands are returned to their ancestral owners. God commands that garments offered as collateral by the poor be returned at night, since the poor would require them to stay warm. Amos 2 gives pretty harsh judgment of those who do not obey this command. Scripture requires that profit maximization be set aside to allow food to be gathered from the fields by the poor. Jesus commands that we give to those who ask from us, and in the Great Judgment of Matthew 25, he makes it quite clear that care for those on the margins is central to his assessment of our lives. These aspects of scripture were not missed by C.S. Lewis, who argued that, to be biblical, an economy would be more socialistic than not.

Sadly, the most serious underlying problem in the author’s evaluation is that it is driven mostly by a rather unbiblical set of precommitments:

In short, this writer has absolutized a particular vision of economies and has missed that what God intends us to make foundational is very different. [Rather than absolutizing markets and an abstract sense of freedom as the right to maximize profits, scripture makes convenental relationships central, as Walter Brueggemann notes.] We are called both to model and to defend economic relations that make neither dependence nor independence primary, but which instead make central the idea of mutual interdependence. It is the mutuality of relations that come from our owning our obligations to each other - whether embodied in governments or not - that determines whether a given system is biblical or not. Sadly, the writer missed this altogether, and, thus, missed giving us a Christian analysis.

For my full article, go here.


Chuck Gutenson is a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary and blogs at http://www.imitatiochristi.blogs.com/

In a long-awaited decision, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a congressional ban on the procedure called “partial birth abortion,” the first time a specific abortion procedure has been banned. “Pro-life” forces are claiming a great victory, and “pro-choice” advocates are lamenting a terrible defeat. Both sides hope or fear a slippery slope toward, or away from, their ultimate goals.

The procedure in question is a particularly objectionable form of abortion that Sojourners has long opposed, and even some pro-choice supporters have had problems with. And the law in question had strong bipartisan support when it passed Congress in 2003 – a 281-142 vote in the House (including 63 Democrats) and a 64-34 vote in the Senate (with 17 Democrats.) In a 2003 Gallup poll, 68 percent of Americans thought that "late term" or "partial birth" abortions should be made illegal.

The procedure involves very few abortions - about 2,200 out of 1.31 million in 2000, the last year for which numbers are available. And simply banning one procedure means that there are alternative procedures that will now be used. But the furious arguments on both sides again show how mostly symbolic the abortion debate remains when focused on primarily legal questions. After ten years of heated debate, the Court's decision does nothing to reduce the number of abortions.

Most Americans are alarmed at the nation’s high abortion rate, but don’t support criminalizing it. They want to keep abortion legal, but make it genuinely rare. In 2005, 68 percent of Americans agreed that abortion should be legal, at least in the first three months of pregnancy. We have supported a "consistent life ethic" - which seeks a dramatic reduction in the actual abortion rate in America, without criminalizing what is always a tragic choice and often a desperate one. Others also question if total abortion bans are really pro-life because of the likely consequences of back-alley abortions, especially for poor women.

It’s time for concrete action that would actually and seriously reduce the number of abortions in America. A better approach than the symbolic legal battle would be to gather new energy for a commitment to advancing real solutions. A constructive dialogue should include how best to prevent unwanted pregnancies, support pregnant women who find themselves in an unexpected situation, and effectively reduce the abortion rate.

Legislation that could make a real difference in changing the circumstances that make abortions more likely has been introduced again in the new Congress. The Reducing the Need for Abortions and Supporting Parents Act, introduced by Reps. Tim Ryan and Rosa DeLauro “aims to reduce the abortion rate by preventing unintended pregnancies, supporting pregnant women, and assisting new parents. One in five abortions are obtained by a teenager and 60 percent are obtained by women with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line.” We supported this legislation in the last Congress and will again. Other legislation may be introduced again by Rep. Lincoln Davis, and Democrats for Life continues to promote its 95/10 Initiative, which is still a good one.

It’s time that both pro-life and pro-choice supporters come together and support these measures, and actually do something serious and substantial in reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and dramatically reducing the abortion rate. Who could be against that? Let’s indeed save unborn lives. It’s time to move from symbols to substance.