Does Current Healthcare Reform Legislation Violate the Doctor-Patient Covenant?
By Robert Acuff|Published Date: December 31, 2009
Join us at 8pm Eastern for The Wilberforce Forum.
Dr. David Stevens is the Chief Executive Officer of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, the nation’s largest faith-based organization of doctors. Dr. Stevens, as spokesman for more than 17,000 doctors, recently (December 14, 2009) sent a letter cancelling his membership in the American Medical Association (AMA) and is encouraging other faith-based physicians to consider taking the same action. In his communication to the AMA, Dr. Stevens states that the AMA has “violated the doctor-patient covenant and sells out our professional heritage”. He further states that the organization representing approximately 17 percent of US physicians, has vigorously lobbied to overturn the right of conscious rule implemented during the previous administration to protect healthcare providers from performing procedures or dispensing drugs that they believe harm rather than preserve the sanctity of life.
As the Wilberforce Forum begins a new broadcast year, we will welcome Dr. Stevens as our guest to discuss not only his reason and action to cancel his AMA membership, but to discuss the current healthcare legislation that will be reconciled between the two houses of Congress in 2010. We will confer with Dr. Stevens regarding the potential impact of the legislation on physicians and other healthcare providers, but also the ramifications for patients. Following the interview, we will be joined by a panel of guests to discuss the role of the church in healthcare reform and the responsibility if any, to provide healthcare to its members and others as a part of the mission for the church. Our panel will include T.M. Moore, Principal of the Fellowship of Ailbe and Dean of the BreakPoint Centurions Program,as well as other noted pastors from around the country.
If you are questioning what may be coming from Washington in the form of so-called healthcare reform and the responsibility of the church in the process, you will want to listen in to the discussion on the Forum this Monday, January 4 beginning at 8 p.m. eastern time. The Wilberforce Forum can be accessed on line at the Church Colson Center for Christian Worldview (www.colsoncenter.org) and is a production of the Center and broadcast over the Worldview Network.
