Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Pages 50-51

Muslim-American Activism

Interfaith Health Care Hearing on Capitol Hill

As promised in September, the American Muslim Taskforce on Civil Rights and Elections (AMT) launched an interfaith initiative on genuine health care reform at an Oct. 14 Capitol Hill briefing. After the Muslim Health Care Professionals’ hearing the previous month (see November 2009 Washington Report p. 44), the coalition of major Islamic national organizations resolved to broaden their efforts to support health care reform and bring in panelists from the Christian, Jewish, and Buddhist faiths. Muslim American Society (MAS) executive director Imam Mahdi Bray chaired the hearing and set the stage, saying, “As people of faith we must continue to fight for a health care bill that contains a public option; without it Americans will continue to fall prey to the tyranny of insurance companies.”

Co-chairpersons at the hearing included Interfaith Worker Justice executive director Kim Bobo; Dr. Jamal Barzinji, vice president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT); Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR); Naim Baig, secretary-general of the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA); and the Hon. Rev. Walter Fauntroy, former member of Congress and former pastor of New Bethel Baptist Church.

Among the panelists offering their testimonies were the Rev. Louisa Davis, coordinator of the Greater Washington Allies in Reconciliation and Rev. Kaz Nakata of the Ekoji Buddhist Temple, who were joined by MAS Freedom Civil and Human Rights director Ibrahim Abdil-Mu’id Ramey. Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP Washington Bureau; Takoma Park pediatrician Lavanya Sithanandam, board member of South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT); and Asma Hanif, chairperson of CCMO, Coordinating Council Muslim Organizations and director of the Muslimat Al-Nisaa Health and Shelter Organization, presented united testimony in support of lobbying Congress and helping grassroots organizations push for a public insurance option.

Dr. Sithanandam, who immigrated to this country from India at the age of 4, described treating children of the working poor in Montgomery County who are, thankfully, covered by the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. Too many times, the physician said, she has discovered that their parents also are ill, but do not have health insurance. When a parent falls seriously ill the entire family is affected, Dr. Sithanandam noted.

Congressional Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) added their spirited opinions.

Kucinich emphasized the need to organize a serious political movement to hold government accountable for living up to its constitutional responsibility to “promote the general welfare” for all people in society. “Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity,” he stated.

As a co-author of H.R. 676, a bill calling for a national single payer health insurance system, Kucinich reiterated that the road to universal health coverage in America will be a long one, and people must be prepared to stay the course, adding, “All of our faith traditions are based on some variation of the golden rule to love our neighbors as ourselves.”

According to Ellison, “This is not the time for cynicism, this is the time for us to run the risk of hope.”

Organizers of the Oct. 14 event plan to follow up by preparing and delivering a letter signed by interfaith leaders to congressional members to encourage them to pass health care legislation that contains a public option.

—Aishah Schwartz