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    Advocacy Agenda 2011–2012
    (112th Congress)

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    The Catholic health ministry is committed to improving the health status of communities and creating quality, compassionate health care that works for everyone.

    Who We Are
    The Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA) is the national leadership organization of the Catholic health ministry, representing the largest not-for-profit provider of health care services in the nation.

    • 1 in 6 patients in the United States is cared for in a Catholic hospital each year.
    • All 50 states and the District of Columbia are served by Catholic health care organizations providing acute care, skilled nursing and other services including hospice, home health, assisted living and senior housing.
    • Catholic hospitals employ 532,011 full-time employees and 237,657 part-time workers.

    What We Believe
    Our advocacy is grounded in the values that drive each of our organizations. Our ethical standards in health care flow from the Catholic Church's teachings on the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. We are committed to ensuring that our advocacy efforts help to maintain our Catholic identity and to further the mission of the Catholic health ministry.

    • We believe that health care is a basic right. The Catholic health ministry advocates public policies with the goal of providing affordable and accessible health care for everyone.
    • We maintain a steadfast commitment to issues with compelling moral implications, such as preservation of conscience clause protections, ethical issues surrounding genetics advancements, care of persons at the end of life and elimination of health disparities.
    • We affirm the Catholic health ministry's commitment to quality, patient safety, environmental responsibility, the dignity of workers and community benefit as matters of social justice.

    Our Priorities for the 112th Congress:

    Accessible and Affordable Health Care for All
    The Catholic Health Ministry advocates a health care system that serves everyone. While the enactment of the Affordable Care Act takes a significant step in expanding access to health insurance coverage, this longstanding priority of the ministry will remain at the forefront of all our advocacy efforts. During the 112th Congress, we will work to:

    • Ensure that health care coverage and access remain a priority by advocating measures to further reduce the number of uninsured persons and ensure access for vulnerable populations such as low-income individuals, children and immigrants
    • Ensure adequate funding for implementation of the health care reform law

    Strong Safety Net
    As a vital component of the nation's health care system and safety net, the Catholic health ministry advocates policies to:

    • Protect and strengthen the Medicare and Medicaid programs
    • Strengthen other safety net programs ensuring funding for programs that serve low-income individuals and marginalized communities
    • Remove the Medicaid and SCHIP five-year eligibility waiting period for low-income legal immigrants
    • Strengthen the health care workforce to ensure the availability of primary care services
    • Provide adequate and sustainable financing to ensure the ability of hospitals and long-term care facilities and services to provide quality and compassionate care

    Innovative and Compassionate Continuum of Care
    The Catholic health ministry will support policies to improve the delivery of health care. CHA strongly supports efforts to coordinate and integrate person-centered health care services all along the continuum of care, to ensure the best outcome for every patient. We will support:

    • Measures to improve the current delivery system in order to promote effective, equitable, quality care and patient safety. These include policies to promote health information technology, the coordination of care for those with chronic or serious illness and those that focus on prevention and wellness
    • Policies to provide the elderly and persons with disabilities options in long-term care
    • Improvements in palliative care for those with progressive chronic illness and those at the end of life

    Ethical Integrity and Social Justice
    The values guiding our advocacy flow from the church's teachings about the dignity of the human person and the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. We support measures that maintain our Catholic identity, protect and defend human life and promote social justice, including:

    • Provider conscience protections and other measures to allow the ministry to provide services consistent with our faith values
    • Elimination of disparities in the provision of health care services
    • Other measures in which the Catholic health ministry can be a partner in advocating social justice such as comprehensive immigration reform, encouragement of environmental responsibility and promotion of affordable housing

    Strengthening Not-for-Profit Health Care
    Catholic providers meet the needs of America's communities by offering services to improve health in communities, increase access to health care, encourage health education and address the root causes of health problems such as poverty. We will continue this tradition by:

    • Encouraging accurate and consistent reporting of community benefit and greater transparency of financial assistance policies
    • Supporting hospital compliance with tax-exemption requirements in the Affordable Care Act
    • Supporting federal programs that improve community health