Health Insurance
UUA Resolution of Immediate Witness
June 1998
WHEREAS millions of Americans are presently denied medical insurance
and, in effect, denied the right to basic health care because the United States
government, employers, and the insurance industry have been unable to implement
a national health insurance program; and
WHEREAS this has been brought home to our Association by the June 1998
action of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, which has notified the
Unitarian Universalist Association that its group medical plans will not be
renewed on September 1, 1998, so that our Association, along with several other
religious groups in the United States, is being forced to discontinue medical
insurance for its clergy and staff because of costs; and over 70 clergy, their
families and/or partners, are in danger of not being able to obtain replacement
health insurance with affordable premiums, if at all;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the 1998 General Assembly of the Unitarian
Universalist Association:
- decries a system where the values of the medical and insurance marketplace
and the pursuit of profits in the guise of managed care conspire to deprive
United States citizens of basic health care;
- urges individual Unitarian Universalists and member societies to study the
inequities of the present health insurance situation in the United States
and take assertive public positions to seek remedies at the state and federal
level;
- calls on Unitarian Universalist congregations and individual Unitarian Universalists
in the United States to urge members of Congress and the Administration to
proceed toward the creation of a comprehensive health care system which will
guarantee affordable medical, hospital, and mental health care (both inpatient
and outpatient) to all persons regardless of age, place of employment, or
personal financial circumstances; and
- urges the staff and volunteer leadership of the Unitarian Universalist Association
to assist all persons in the Unitarian Universalist Association Group Insurance
Plan who may lose coverage to find replacement health insurance with premiums
which can be afforded by their employer-congregations.
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