During the 2009-2010 debates over Obamacare, the old-time Religious Left was an enthusiastic cheerleader, preferring the public option, but settling for the final outcome. Like many Obamacare supporters, the mostly Mainline Protestant elites of the old Religious Left hope Obamacare incrementally will lead to a government controlled single-payer system. British style health care has been a cherished aspiration for liberal church elites for much of the last century.
Then Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on the evening of Obamacare's passage, specifically thanked the United Methodist Church for its support. It's unlikely that denomination's Capitol Hill based lobby office actually generated mass support. But Mainline church elites, though seldom speaking for most church members, can still offer a façade of religious respectability for liberal policy initiatives. More revealing during the 2009-2010 Obamacare debates was the new Evangelical Left's support for Obamacare, while carefully pivoting around abortion funding. Evangelical Left elites share the old Religious Left's statism, but must appeal for support from still socially conservative evangelicals.
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