Improving Access to Healthcare

Access to affordable and adequate healthcare is a basic human necessity required for upholding the dignity of human life.

Whether provided by the state, employers, or by faith-based institutions, healthcare must be extended to the poor, uninsured, unemployed, and other vulnerable populations.

To improve access to affordable and adequate health care for all, MCC supports:

• Protection of health coverage, including preventative care, for low- and moderate-income individuals and families.
• Appropriate Medicaid funding to ensure adequate coverage for recipients and payments to providers.
• Upholding the mission of faith-based institutions and the conscience of individual faith-based providers.
• Ensuring access and adequate resources for physical and behavioral health care, including telemedicine and treatment for addictions and substance abuse.
• Ensuring patients are treated with dignity and respect.

Foundational Documents

• Catechism of the Catholic Church (1509, 1908, 2211, 2288)
• Evangelii Gaudium (Pope Francis, 2013)
• Laborem Exercens (John Paul II, 1981)
• Health and Health Care (U.S. Bishops, 1981)
• Pacem in Terris, No. 11 (John XXIII, 1963)

News Releases

1. Michigan Bishops Revise Statement to Address Moral Dimensions of New Johnson & Johnson Vaccine (03/03/21)
2. Michigan Bishops Share Moral Considerations Regarding COVID-19 Vaccines (12/18/20)
3. Governor Whitmer’s 2020–2021 State Budget Includes Highs and Lows, Says Catholic Conference (02/06/20)
4. For Second Straight Year, MCC Presented with Three Top Awards for Excellence in Public Relations (04/22/19)
5. Michigan Catholic Conference Urges ‘No’ Vote on Ballot Question to Legalize Recreational Marijuana (10/02/18)

Additional Resources

1. The Word from Lansing Column:
   1. Our Plan to Advance the Common Good This Legislative Session (02/03/23)
   2. Small Steps of Love in the State Budget Process (03/12/21)
   3. COVID-19 Vaccines and Moral Considerations (01/15/21)
   4. Water Shutoffs Are a Health Concern in COVID-19 Pandemic (12/18/20)
   5. Patience and Persistence: Advocacy Successes in 2019 (01/17/20)
2. Clean and Affordable Water for All (Focus Essay, 5/2019)
3. Proposal 1—Say No to Recreational Marijuana (Focus Essay, 10/2018)
4. Vaccinations and the Common Good (Focus Essay, 3/2018)
5. Confronting Michigan’s Opioid Crisis (Focus Essay, 6/2017)
6. Transportation, Community, and the Common Good (Focus Essay, 7/2016)
7. Healthy Michigan Plan Info
8. Department of Community Health: MiChild Health Insurance for uninsured children of Michigan’s working families
9. Health Care as a Basic Human Right (Focus Essay, 3/2010)
10. A Framework for Comprehensive Health Care Reform (U.S. Bishops, 1993)

Advocacy

• Lansing Update:
  1. Forming a Catholic Conscience Before Voting (10/25/24)
  2. Physician Shares Story of Woman Who Survived Abortion Complication in Testimony Against Abortion Deregulation Bills (10/13/23)
  3. MCC Reflections on Pope Benedict (01/06/23)
  4. What Was Left Unfinished as Legislature Ends Session (12/09/22)
  5. Bills Protecting Children Move Forward in Michigan (12/02/22)
• Letter to Senate Health Policy Committee on Opioid Package (9/2017)
• Position Paper: Medicaid Expansion (9/2013)
• MCC Video: Medicaid Expansion Legislation (7/2013)
• Statement of Guiding Principles for Medicaid Reform (MCC & Catholic Hospitals, 5/2013)