Our approach to health care is shaped by a simple, fundamental principle:  every person has the right to adequate health care. This right flows from the sanctity of human life and the dignity that belongs to all human persons who are made in the image and likeness of God.  Health care is more than a commodity; it is a basic human right, and an essential safeguard of human life and dignity.  Our constant teaching that each human life must be protected and human dignity promoted leads us to insist that all people have the right to health care.

The current health care system is inequitable, due to the disparities between rich and poor and those with access and those without, resulting in a system that is unjust.   2.8 Million Floridians lack health insurance.   Our heath care system should be measured against how it affects the weak and the disadvantaged including unborn children and the elderly near the end of this life.    Health care reform should ensure a decent level of health care without regard for the ability to pay.

Government has an important role to play, not so much in delivering health care, but in ensuring the rights of all people to adequate health care.  We support expansion of coverage in Florida to as many people as possible, and ultimately, comprehensive reforms that will ensure an adequate level of health care for all.

Health care implies care for and preservation of human life and health, especially the most vulnerable.  This includes infants, from conception to birth, and throughout childhood, as well as the elderly, the dying and the handicapped.  In much of the deliberation on health care reform, payment for abortion, the termination of an unborn baby's life, seems to be taken for granted.  We stand for the unborn and strongly urge exclusion of abortion from coverage; provision of conscience rights for health care institutions and providers, as well as those of employers, employees and purchasers of insurance.

Our priorities will include respect for all life regardless of status; opposition to rationing; protection of the medically needy; health care for pregnant women and children; strengthening of Medicaid and health care for those with disabling conditions; protection against coverage for termination of human life by abortion or assisted suicide.