In 1999, then-State Senator Barack Obama invoked the late radical Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, who passed away in 1996, to promote a universal health care law he co-sponsored and which Illinois voters had overwhelmingly rejected. The bill incorporated language directly from the late cardinal’s 1995 pastoral letter, “A Sign of Hope,” which argued for a “fundamental right” to healthcare, reading, in part: “Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity, and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize that right.” Supporters of single payer health care, like Dr. Quentin Young...
