Try again to enact true health care reform

USA Today published my commentary on November 10, 2010:

A USA Today editorial ("Don't try to repeal the new health care law--improve it") defends the partisan, massive takeover of U.S. health care by asserting that the "core principle behind health reform" is this: "If you work hard and play by the rules, your life shouldn't be ruined because you happen to get sick" (Our view, Medical reform debate, Monday).

That sounds more like a nursery rhyme than a prescription for sound health policy.

Consider alternatively these core principles for true health reform: providing a safety net for needy patients while staying within our financial means; driving down costs to consumers by increasing competition across state lines and decreasing excessive bureaucracy; and averting the looming crisis of patient access caused by physician and nurse shortages by addressing runaway malpractice litigation and threats to healthcare professionals' conscience rights.

Instead of pursuing these reasonable course corrections in a climate of cooperation, partisans in Congress and the White House ramrodded through an intensely divisive and hugely expensive government takeover of health care during an economic crisis. It may take more than two years to right that sinking ship, but it's worth doing so, to protect patients and our economy.

Vote for the unborn a matter of principle, not party

Pursuing the premise that pro-life groups are somehow determined to rid the Democrat party of pro-life legislators, a Christianity Today article, "The Death of Pro-Life Democrats" glosses over the abortion-funding healthcare bill vote that triggered the alienation of some Democrats from the pro-life movement. The article notes simply that "President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting abortion funding."
Pro-life leaders point to past court decisions that demonstrate how the courts' view of the statutory mandate would override any executive order. The executive order also can be changed tomorrow by this pro-abortion President or any successor with the stroke of a pen. The healthcare bill, meanwhile, becomes permanent law.
Legislators don't vote on executive orders; they vote on bills. The pro-life leaders I work with welcome solidly pro-life legislators regardless of party. We just want dependable pro-life legislators whose vote for the unborn will be a matter of principle, not party.

Capitol Hill Inside Scoop: Pro-Life Election Results Rundown

I attended a private meeting yesterday of U.S. House of Representatives staff and pro-life leaders to discuss the results of the election from a pro-life perspective. Here's a quick summary of what happened on Tuesday:

• 52 Pro-life Improvements in U.S. House of Representatives:
• 38 pro-life Members-elect replacing Members who voted consistently or mostly pro-abortion
• 14 pro-life Members-elect replacing Members with a mixed pro-life voting record
• 32 No Pro-life Change:
• 25 pro-life Members-elect replacing outgoing Members who had a consistent pro-life voting record
• 7 pro-abortion Members-elect replacing pro-abortion Members
• 3 full or partial pro-life losses:
• 1 pro-life Member who will be replaced by a pro-abortion Member-elect
• 2 sometimes pro-life Members replaced by pro-abortion Members-elect

Pro-Life Improvements - Listing
Incoming Member is expected to vote consistently pro-life; predecessor voted consistently or mostly pro-abortion:
1. AR-02 Griffin, Tim (replacing Snyder)
2. AZ-01 Gosar, Paul (replacing Kirkpatrick)
3. AZ-05 Schweikert, Dave (replacing Mitchell)
4. CO-03 Tipton, Scott (replacing Salazar)
5. CO-04 Gardner, Cory (replacing Markey)
6. FL-02 Southerland, Steve (replacing Boyd)
7. FL-08 Webster, Daniel (replacing Grayson)
8. FL-22 West, Allen (replacing Klein)
9. FL-24 Adams, Sandy (replacing Kosmas)
10. ID-01 Labrador, Raul (replacing Minnick)
11. IL-11 Kinzinger, Adam (replacing Halvorson)
12. IL-14 Hultgren, Randy (replacing Foster)
13. IL-17 Schilling, Bob (replacing Hare)
14. KS-03 Yoder, Kevin (replacing Moore)
15. MD-01 Harris, Andy (replacing Kratovil)
16. MI-07 Walberg, Tim (replacing Schauer)
17. NC-02 Ellmers, Renee (replacing Etheridge)
18. ND-AL Berg, Rick (replacing Pomeroy)
19. NH-01 Guinta, Frank (replacing Shea-Porter)
20. NM-02 Pearce, Steve (replacing Teague)
21. NV-03 Heck, Joe (replacing Titus)
22. NY-13 Grimm, Michael (replacing McMahon)
23. NY-29 Reed, Tom (replacing Massa)
24. OH-18 Gibbs, Bob (replacing Space)
25. PA-07 Meehan, Pat (replacing Sestak)
26. PA-08 Fitzpatrick, Mike (replacing Murphy)
27. SC-05 Mulvaney, Mick (replacing Spratt)
28. SD-AL Noem, Kristi (replacing Herseth Sandlin)
29. TN-06 Black, Diane (replacing Gordon)
30. TN-08 Fincher, Stephen (replacing Tanner)
31. TX-17 Flores, Bill (replacing Edwards)
32. TX-23 Canseco, Quico (replacing Rodriguez)
33. VA-02 Rigell, Scott (replacing Nye)
34. VA-05 Hurt, Robert (replacing Perriello)
35. VA-09 Griffith, Morgan (replacing Boucher)
36. WA-03 Herrera, Jaime (replacing Baird)
37. WI-07 Duffy, Sean (replacing Obey)
38. WI-08 Ribble, Reid (replacing Kagen)

Incoming Member is expected to vote consistently pro-life; predecessor had a mixed voting record
1. AR-01 Crawford, Rick (replacing Berry)
2. IN-08 Buchshon, Larry (replacing Ellsworth)
3. IN-09 Young, Todd (replacing Hill)
4. LA-03 Landry, Jeff (replacing Melancon)
5. MI-01 Benishek, Dan (replacing Stupak)
6. MN-08 Cravaack, Chip (replacing Oberstar)
7. MO-04 Hartzler, Vicky (replacing Skelton)
8. OH-01 Chabot, Steve (replacing Driehaus)
9. OH-06 Johnson, Bill (replacing Wilson)
10. OH-16 Renacci, Jim (replacing Boccieri)
11. PA-03 Kelly, Mike (replacing Dahlkemper)
12. PA-10 Marino, Thomas (replacing Carney)
13. PA-11 Barletta, Lou (replacing Kanjorski)
14. WV-01 McKinley, David (replacing Mollohan)

Warping jurisprudence wrongly exorcises our religious values from our government

When a U.S. senate candidate recently challenged her opponent during a debate to clarify whether he meant that the theory of "separation of church and state" was actually in the Constitution, many in the audience at Widener University Law School howled in derision. Why did the legal audience not laugh when the other candidate in response omitted the religious free exercise portion of the First Amendment?

The law faculty and their protégés laughed selectively because they are steeped not so much in the actual text and original intent of the Constitution but in decades of ideological, warping jurisprudence that wrongly exorcises our religious values from our government. Taking Thomas Jefferson's "separation of church and state" phrase from a personal letter out of context has served to thwart not only the persuasions of Jefferson, who attended church services at the Capitol two days after coining the phrase, but also of virtually all of the Constitution's framers and the American citizenry who through their state legislatures ratified the document. Seeking to protect the Church from government dominance and to protect the consciences of individuals from state coercion, Americans at our founding forbade Congress to make any "law respecting an establishment of religion" and enshrined the "free exercise" of religion as a vital force in democracy.
Substituting judicial ideology for the Constitution while omitting the full protections of the First Amendment is a fast track to expunging religious views from the body politic and to a less tolerant, less inclusive and less just society.

The naked public square, religious freedom and conscience rights

While historically insightful, a recent Washington Post op-ed by Michael Gerson misses the mark on the contemporary application of a controversial challenge regarding Thomas Jefferson's non-Constitutional phrase, "separation of church and state".
Although Jefferson put his own phrase in context by attending church services in the House of Representatives, creative courts have manipulated his words to undermine the framers' establishment clause intent. Decades of judicial gerrymandering have increasingly cordoned off religious people and their values to the confines of churches, synagogues and mosques, resulting in what Richard John Neuhaus aptly labeled the "naked public square".

Even Mr. Gerson limits the policy-making influence of "teachings of faith" to "respecting the priority of conscience." Yet conscience is precisely what is not respected in our country today. Healthcare professionals are being fired, intimidated, demoted and blackballed from medicine simply for following their consciences and adhering to life-affirming ethical standards rather than participating in abortion. Now President Obama plans to rescind the only federal regulation protecting conscience in healthcare.
Unlike Jefferson, our government increasingly respects neither conscience nor the Constitution. As a result, our body politic is being robbed of the creative and power-challenging vitality of faith and the redemptive, faith-based morality of a large segment of the citizenry.