Health Care Advocacy

Position Statement

The Peace and Justice Committee supports actions by the church and its members to work for health care reform legislation at both the state and national levels of government that embrace the following principles:

  • Ensures all people are covered
  • Covers all medically necessary care
  • Allows patients to choose their providers
  • Reduces costs by cutting administrative bureaucracy, not by restricting or denying care
  • Sets premiums based on ability to pay.

Our faith calls us to love our neighbor:

             “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him,

              how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue

              but with actions and in truth.”(1 John 3:17-18)

Whereas currently over 260,000 Minnesotans have no health insurance and at least a million more in Minnesota have insurance but still cannot afford to pay their medical bills due to co-payments, high deductibles, and care not covered by their insurance. It is estimated that in 2017, 39 million Americans had no health insurance; and in 2016, 28 percent of working adults were underinsured. (Commonwealths Fund October 2017). Studies show that people who are un- or underinsured often delay needed care, (36,539 deaths in 2016 due to uninsurance, Annals of Internal Medicine, 2017).

Whereas compared to other advanced industrialized nations (34 countries), spending on health care per capita in the U.S. is greater than all other nations. In 2017, the U.S. spent over $10,000 per person or 17.9 percent of GDP on health care, far higher and more than twice the $3,453 average per capita spending of the other 34 countries.

Whereas recent polls, including Economist/YouGov poll, show that 60 percent of Americans want to expand Medicare to provide health insurance to every American. This includes 75 percent of all Democrats and nearly 50 percent of all Republicans.

Whereas we at House of Hope believe a solution is possible but not unless the full House and Senate work together to give the American people a health care system that works for ALL Americans. One approach would be the enactment of Medicare-for-All reform legislation at the national level or, at the state level, the Minnesota Health Plan. The Minnesota bill has had considerable debate in the Minnesota legislature and has been endorsed by the Physicians for a National Health Program. Such a plan meets our principles for reform and would provide a single statewide plan that would cover all Minnesotans for all of their medical needs. 

Whereas health care is one of the most important social justice issues of our time. “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and the most inhumane.”  (Martin Luther King)

Therefore, the Peace and Justice Committee supports the following Action Plan:

  • Regularly inform the congregation about health care reform relevant news and current information through articles in The Anchor and information tables outside the Kirk Parlour after church services;
  • Provide recommendations for contacting our state and national legislatures to make them aware of our position on health care reform. Contact information will be provided: and
  • Work to share information and actions with our local communities of faith.

We greatly appreciate your interest and involvement.