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The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Jackson is glued to the legislative debate over Medicaid expansion.
The leader of more than 50,000 Catholics in 65 Mississippi counties, Bishop Joseph Kopacz has good reason to tune in. Priests in his diocese serve poverty-gripped Mississippi communities where so many people cannot afford basic health care. Church leaders regularly visit the state’s hospitals and see firsthand how dire the financial crisis has become for hospitals struggling to cover the costs of serving uninsured patients. Kopacz himself has served on the board of St. Dominic Hospital in Jackson, which has been forced to eliminate numerous services in recent years as its leaders struggle to balance its budget.
As lawmakers for the first time seriously consider Medicaid expansion, which experts say would provide health insurance to hundreds of thousands of Mississippians and save the state’s hospitals millions each year, Kopacz is one of many faith leaders watching closely.
“This opportunity is golden,” Kopacz told me in an interview on Holy Thursday. “All the factors are in place to bring this about for the common good and the real care for the people of our state. It’s too important to ignore when we know the need is there, and we know there’s a real financial capacity to implement this in our state.”
I wanted to hear Kopacz’s thoughts about Medicaid expansion for a few reasons. First, he and others at the diocese have been front-and-center as a coalition of faith leaders work to get expansion — long believed to be a pipe dream in conservative Mississippi — across the finish line this session. Continuing a long and impactful legacy of social activism in Mississippi, Catholic, Protestant and Jewish clergy have led calls this session for lawmakers to expand Medicaid.
Second, we’ve heard a cascade of cries lately from opponents of expansion — some self-proclaimed conservatives — about the dangers of using Christian faith principles to advocate for such a policy change. “Jesus is not a political weapon to be turned on our political enemies and Scripture does not exist to be twisted to fit our political agenda,” one commentator wrote recently. I thought calling in an actual biblical expert might be helpful to us all.
Third, two of the most important Republican leaders at the table for this debate — Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann and Sen. Kevin Blackwell — are devout Catholics. Hosemann and Blackwell have led the Senate’s development of an expansion plan, which experts say isn’t considered expansion at all. Their plan, if implemented, would insure far fewer Mississippians than traditional expansion, would leave hundreds of millions of federal dollars at the table, and would likely never go into effect at all because of a strict work requirement that the federal government will not approve. And in passing their plan, the two Senate leaders tossed aside an earlier House proposal that would have actually gone into effect, insured hundreds of thousands more Mississippians, and drawn down the full $1 billion-plus of annual federal funds available.
READ MORE: Senate passes pared-down Medicaid expansion plan with veto-proof majority
Kopacz, ever humble and mild-mannered, declined to speak directly about Hosemann and Blackwell during our interview. But he did speak very specifically about aspects of the two Senate leaders’ plan.
“The work requirement (under the Senate plan) could make this unnecessarily insurmountable,” Kopacz said. “It would be really unfair and unjust not to be able to move this plan forward because of too rigid of an approach to work. And look, I certainly embrace work. Part of our Catholic social teaching demands that of us. Work is a big part of being a productive citizen. But so many people cannot work at all for various reasons. I understand it’s important to many lawmakers, but the work requirement cannot be absolute. It could just completely derail the whole effort.”
Several times in our interview, Kopacz referenced Catholic social teaching. Being a Presbyterian preacher’s kid with a strong tendency to go down theological rabbit holes, I wanted to know more about that and did some reading. What I found was an extraordinary distillation of the Christian argument for expansion — and a clear set of principles for why Kopacz is so strongly advocating for it in this moment.
There are seven themes of Catholic social teaching, and all but one of them have direct bearing on Mississippi’s current debate about Medicaid expansion. This literature is not biblical scripture, of course, but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops base their writing directly and clearly in biblical passages.
Italicized text is pulled directly from the bishops’ text, followed by quotes from Kopacz that add further context.
Life and dignity of the human person. The Catholic Church proclaims that human life is sacred and that the dignity of the human person is the foundation of a moral vision for society.
“Another way of appreciating that is a real integral pro-life vision for our communities and our state would be all that helps life to flourish. Health care is a very important part of this,” Kopacz said.
Option for the poor and vulnerable. A basic moral test is how our most vulnerable members are faring. In a society marred by deepening divisions between rich and poor, our tradition recalls the story of the Last Judgment and instructs us to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first.
“There’s economic opportunity in this state, but often where it falls short is when people haven’t had necessarily the best conditions educationally or certainly with health care,” Kopacz said. “Poverty can really hurt a person’s well-being, and that’s why something like Medicaid expansion is so important. So many people in this state are hurting. Medicaid expansion can help.”
Rights and responsibilities. The Catholic tradition teaches that human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met.
“Health care is a right, and it should not be denied when it can be provided,” Kopacz said, echoing decades of Catholic leadership writings on the matter. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a right.”
The dignity of work and the rights of workers. The economy must serve people, not the other way around. Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected – the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.
“Work is a big part of being a productive citizen. I’m all for it,” Kopacz said. “However, there are just too many pieces to life in terms of health. Situations of loss in people’s lives, whatever could happen that knocks people on their heels for a long time. There are just too many complex areas of life that cannot be overlooked right now. I believe a vast majority of people are working and will work. But not everyone can.”
Perhaps non-Catholic lawmakers and readers of this column aren’t moved by the bishop’s words and some papal and conciliar documents. For those folks, here are just a handful of biblical scriptures cited by Christian leaders advocating for Medicaid expansion at the Capitol this session: Matthew 25:40; Luke 10:35; Proverbs 11:25; Romans 13:10; John 13:34-35; and Luke 6:20.
Meanwhile, Kopacz and other clergy are planning at least one more Capitol rally as Senate and House leaders begin trying to hammer out an expansion plan in the conference committee process.
The way these leaders see it, they aren’t twisting scripture for political purposes. They’re letting it guide their advocacy for a transformative policy that would save lives and help so many Mississippians in need.
“There seems to be a groundswell of desire that there be a more just reality in our state for people in need of health care,” Kopacz said. “I do think in a way there’s no turning back here. To wait another year is really just — people are in need now. The people of Mississippi, in the last several years, have indicated they support it. I’m just hoping the lawmakers can make this a reality.”
PODCAST: Inside faith leaders’ push to expand Medicaid in Mississippi