Sen. Joe Manchin, Clergy Discuss Health Insurance Concerns in Wheeling
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WHEELING -- U.S. Sen Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., met Friday with area faith leaders to hear their concerns about health insurance and to urge their support for continued coverage of pre-existing medical conditions.
The senator convened an hour-long session at Wheeling Hospital that was attended by clergy from Wheeling, Moundsville, Weirton, Chester, Newell and Huntington.
The 16 leaders represented Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Baptist, Jewish and nondenominational congregations.
"Hopefully, you can take the politics out of this important issue more than we can in Congress," Manchin said to the faith leaders. "This a life and death issue."
He warned that a pending federal court case, Texas vs. United States, challenges aspects of the Affordable Care Act and could affect coverage for pre-existing conditions. If coverage were to be removed, "you end up putting the most vulnerable people in the greatest risk," he said.
Manchin said a Kaiser Family Foundation study indicated 302,000 West Virginians would not qualify for insurance and another 408,000 state residents would be subject to evaluation by insurance companies and limitation on coverage if the court rules unfavorably in the current case.
Pointing to a list of 60 pre-existing conditions at risk, the Rev. Katrina Lewis, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Chester, said, "Virtually everyone is on this list … It punishes the people most in need."
Lewis said members of her congregation cannot afford their medication.
In one woman's case, the pastor said, "They changed the tiers (of covered drugs) in mid-year and totally took her off that medication."
The Rev. Ralph Dunkin, a retired Lutheran bishop from Wheeling, spoke of a seminary graduate who worked two part-time jobs but could not get insurance coverage for treatment of bipolar disease.
Dunkin serves as a volunteer with Wheeling Health Right's farmacy -- a program providing "prescriptions" for fresh fruit and vegetables -- to people who are on Medicare or have no insurance.
"We're helping with food, but what are their chances?" he asked.
Food insecurity also was mentioned by the Rev. Michael Linger, executive director of the House of the Carpenter in Wheeling. He said people in poverty or with marginal income cannot afford to purchase food for a healthy lifestyle.
Citing another issue, Linger said several people who obtain coverage through the ACA marketplace "are not able to find a primary care physician because they are not accepting patients or taking their type of insurance.
"There are children who are not able to get the maintenance medication they need because they cannot get a physician who can prescribe it," he said.
The Rev. Sherri Schafer, a Wheeling resident who serves a Lutheran congregation in Belmont County, said a 40-year-old friend has metastatic breast cancer and worries about the status of her husband's job and their insurance coverage.
"I'm a walking pre-existing condition," Schafer said the woman told her.
She decried lobbyists' influence on politicians on matters related to health care and pharmaceutics.
"Until we remove this, nothing is going to change," Schafer.
Rabbi Joshua Lief, of Temple Shalom, Wheeling, said in the Jewish tradition, "we do have a collective responsibility to help everyone in society." He said government constitutes the pooling of resources from taxation to help those in need.
"My request would be for my government to recognize the contributions being made out in the community," said Lief.
He lauded the preservation of tax deductions for charitable giving. He said the government should be "lessening the burden as much as possible and protecting those who choose to go above and beyond because they can."