MetroWest Boston congregations weigh in on health care reform

July 16, 2009

PICO affiliate Metropolitan Interfaith Congregations Acting for Hope (MICAH), a Metrowest Boston interfaith organization, together with the MetroWest Free Medical Program, led a community forum on affordable health care for all at Sudbury United Methodist Church on July 15.

The event included testimony from several MICAH leaders and others about the problems they faced getting health care: 

• Marcos Contreras, MICAH co-President, described his problems when he suddenly lost his job and immediately also lost his health care, and the Cobra costs were too high. 
• A Congregation Beth El member from Sudbury described how much time he has spent creating a spreadsheet in his attempt to decipher his health care bills (and, he added, he has a doctorate from MIT!).  
• A woman with a disabled child described how her son's health care provider suddenly became unavailable because the doctor became "out of network."

A frequent theme was that the private health insurers are constantly coming between patients and doctors - forbidding on-going relationship as private insurance companies change the rules and disallow patients to see doctors they have seen for many years.

Marcos Contreras also presented  a beautiful wooden donation box he had built to Kim Prendergast of the Metrowest Free Medical Program, saying that people, like him, who benefit from the Program, want to contribute, not to be treated only as clients or patients who have nothing to offer.  Some of the Jewish members of MICAH noted that in the Torah (what Christians call the "Old Testament" or the "Hebrew Bible'), God commands that "even the widow and orphan" should contribute to the building of the Tabernacle, meaning that all people have something to offer and need to be asked to contribute. 

At the end, participants signed a letter to Senator John Kerry, asking the senator to meet with them and other concerned citizens so Kerry could hear directly from citizens and work to ensure that reform makes health insurance truly affordable to the people who need care. 

For more information about MICAH, visit www.micahma.org