Fresh Updates from RAC

As you may remember from my last post on the subject, the expansion of Medicaid is the provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that will do the most to provide health coverage to low-income people.

Originally, the expansion of coverage was mandatory for all states to implement in order to receive federal matching funds for their respective Medicaid programs. However, In June of last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the threat presented by the ACA of eliminating all Medicaid funding constituted “a gun to the head” of states and was therefore unconstitutional. As a matter of practicality, the expansion has now been rendered optional.

States are now debating whether to implement this expansion, a debate we as Jews have a vested interest in. We learn from ancient Jewish scholars and texts that providing health care is not just an obligation for the patient and the doctor, but for the society as well. It is for this reason that Maimonides lists health care among the ten most important communal services that had to be offered by a city to its residents. (Mishneh Torah, SeferHamadda IV:23). During the long history of the self-governing Jewish community, almost all communities set up societies to ensure that all members had access to health care. Doctors were required to reduce their rates for poor patients and, when that was not sufficient, communal subsidies were established (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 249:16; Responsa Ramat Rahel of Rabbi Eliezer Waldernberg 24-25).

Therefore, the RAC has created a new webpage dedicated to Medicaid and Medicaid expansion; it serves as a terrific complement to our other resources on healthcare. From these pages you can find basic information about the Medicaid program and where it stands with regard to expansion in the various states. In addition, we have created an action page where you can send letters and emails to your legislators and governor urging them to expand Medicaid in your state. If you live in a state that has already committed to expanding Medicaid, you can also thank your elected officials for doing so.

Don’t delay – take action now!

Image Courtesy of Doctors for America. 

When the ink on the constitution dried, the ratifications of the states were complete and the structure of our country was finally taking shape, the privilege of voting was conferred upon a narrow class of citizens, wealthy land-owning white men. As time went on, voting rights expanded to larger casts of the electorate. Representative democracy became the crown jewel of our country. Voting gave citizens the power to change and control the government, making it responsive to the will of citizens and not the other way around. Martin Luther King, Jr. once declared, “Voting is the foundation stone for political action. The basic elements so vital to Negro advancement can only be achieved by seeking redress from government at local, state and Federal levels. To do this the vote is essential.” Indeed the right to vote is the single greatest right granted every American regardless of socioeconomic circumstance, familiar origins or racial identity. Though, the latter came about only very recently.

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Last week, my fellow LA Benny wrote a blog that included an interpretation of our cornerstone text “justice, justice, you shall pursue.” When thinking about the repetition of the word tzedek (justice), he suggested that perhaps it meant that we must pursue multiple “justices,” or multiple issues, at once. I want to suggest another interpretation: that the repetition of the word “justice” is there to help us understand that in order to truly “pursue” this worthy goal, we will often have to repeat ourselves. We will often have to work on the same thing multiple times in multiple venues until our voice is finally heard and change is achieved.

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They call them the “December dilemmas:” that time of year when religious expression appears most visually in the forefront, when kids ask difficult questions, when patience is tested by an ill-placed “Merry Christmas.” Nativity scenes appear in public spaces and schoolchildren sing Christmas carols at assemblies. This is when the public eye is drawn to the tension between religion and government.

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America is in a state of emergency. This time, I’m not talking about Hurricane Sandy, or the fiscal cliff or domestic violence. I’m talking about the state of judicial emergencies that exists in 33 places across our country and that compromises our democratic system.

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Very little in the Old Testament is coincidental. The reappearance of words, the choice of names, the span of time – everything can be linked to a greater or deeper theological meaning. This is especially true with numbers. Whole fields of study and schools of thought have arisen around the idea that numbers in the Torah are symbolic and meaningful. This claim is hard to deny when we think about the number seven. There are countless examples of the appearance of the number seven, many of which are in some way connected to the idea of wholeness or completion (seven days in a week, for example!).

It’s therefore probably not that surprising that the Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Tanakh (the Old Testament). The judges described in this book were more than legal advisors – they were the leaders of the community. They emerged when the Israelites had become so corrupted that they needed to be rescued, and were selected by God for just this task.

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The Reform Movement has long supported religious liberty at all levels of American life, from the Supreme Court to the basketball court, and we are pleased to now be joined in this commitment by the Texas Assocation of Private and Parochial Schools.

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This afternoon the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit handed down its decision in Windsor vs. The United States, thereby striking down the “Defense of Marriage Act” (DOMA) as unconstitutional. DOMA denies federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples and, in doing so, relegates these couples to a different, lesser status under the law.

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