Besides “do not kill,” what should Catholics involved in the health-care debate be emphasizing? Some helpful guidance from the the president of the Catholic Medical Association:

“Experience indicates,” Dr. Breschi continues, “that medical decisions are best made within the personal context of the individual patient-physician relationship rather than within some remote, impersonal, and bureaucratic agency, whether governmental or corporate. We are convinced that if this important principle of Catholic social teaching is not correctly upheld, then short-term measures to defend the right to life and respect for conscience will ultimately fail and the patient-physician relationship will be irreparably compromised.”
He advised patience and real study to make sure that all such reforms are actually changes for the better. “We must ensure that well-intentioned efforts to bring about ‘change’ are not exploited to create a federally controlled system that promises health care for all, but creates an oppressive bureaucracy hostile to human life and to the integrity of the patient-physician relationship. It would be better to forgo long-needed changes in health-care financing and delivery in the short-term if these would lead to a long-term, systemic policy regime that is inimical to respect for life, religious freedom, and the goods served by the principle of subsidiarity. Rather than accept such an outcome, we should take the time required to implement reform measures that are sound in both principled and practical terms.”

More here.