Hastings Center bioethicist and philosopher Daniel Callahan says the common good as a moral value should be the foundation for American health care reform, but it has been largely absent from the current public debate.

Senate Democrats invited religion reporters to the Capitol to talk about "the moral imperatives of health care and climate change" and to ask faith communities to "speak out against obstructions."

"Abortion is a health service, " says Rev. Debra Haffner, director of the Religious Institute. "Abortion is a morally objectionable activity," says Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life.

"I want to just go peacefully. The only medications I want are going to be the ones that are going to comfort me. That’s all I want," says Jill Steuer, a nurse with advanced-stage breast cancer who has decided to stop any kind of treatment and receive hospice care.

Religious progressives are having an impact on the Obama White House, says religion and politics expert John Green, " but there's no lack of activity among religious conservatives."

"We need health care reform and we need it today," says Rev. Jennifer Thomas of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Kansas City.

"More is not better," says South Florida health care system CEO Brian Keeley. "We know that more health care services can result in lower levels of care." Health care costs are double the national average in Miami, where Keeley says specialists use more medical resources and technology.

"It’s a moral outrage that we have almost 50 million people without coverage, without access to a doctor, and we have even hundreds of thousands more that can’t even use the coverage that they have," says Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of NETWORK, a national Catholic social justice lobby.