Dr. Gene Rudd, senior vice president of the Christian Medical Association, says they're worried they could be forced to facilitate abortions or prescribe drugs that violate their convictions.
Rudd says many of them have avoided hiring and taking on new patients due to uncertainty over Obamacare.
Thousands of the doctors provide care for the poorest areas of the United States and feel called by God to help the sick, but say they need to be able to do so with a clear conscience.
| Commentary |
CMDA Senior Vice President Gene Rudd, MD: “I rarely
view or read media reports after I have been interviewed. (In part, this is
because someone else at CMDA does that.) But being asked to comment on this
article that was based on what I said to a reporter reminded me of how the media
uses their perspectives and agendas to create the news. Too frequently I find a
failure to report ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth.’“Timed to coincide with the beginning of the enrollment for Obamacare, my interview with this AP reporter covered many perspectives on healthcare reform, perspectives I classified as ‘the good, the bad and the ugly.’ My limited comments about Christian doctors were almost an afterthought. But only those comments made the news.
“Among the many perspectives I cited, one ‘good’ aspect of reform is that some of our neighbors who previously couldn't obtain health insurance coverage would now have some basic level of protection. A ‘bad’ aspect is that now healthy individuals and families who did not have coverage and had little healthcare costs will now have to pay either a penalty for failure to participate or pay premiums. Even with subsidies, one estimate placed the average family premium at more than $5,000. That will be a substantial burden to most family budgets.
“One of the ‘ugly’ aspects of the current reform bill is the permission assumed by the Administration to usurp individual rights and undermine the First Amendment. Already we have seen HHS interpret and implement legislation in a way that attempts to force employers to provide coverage that includes provisions they find morally objectionable. And under the guise of providing required services, we will be required to fund abortions. Only with the use of smoke and mirrors do they attempt to claim otherwise.
“Will reporters continue to filter the news to suit their agendas? Of course. But we will continue to speak the truth in love. Will Obamacare survive? I don’t know. But we will continue to contest provisions that are morally unacceptable and dangerous to our foundation of freedom."
Resources
Voice of Christian Doctors Media Training
From My Viewpoint: Healthcare Reform by David Stevens, MD, MA (Ethics)
Nationalized Healthcare – Prescription or Problem?
In these trying times, let us keep our priorities straight by looking straight to Jesus. David Stevens, former CMDA CEO, helps us do that with his excellent book, JESUS, MD: A DOCTOR EXAMINES THE GREAT PHYSICIAN. He suggests investing a few weeks every year in a mission hospital or clinic, say in Kenya where he worked as a medical missionary (or a day a week a a charity clinic), for eternal rewards and perspective on the problems of us wealthy US physicians.
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