Arguing with a friend about Obamacare

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Son_of_Jonah

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I was trying to explain how the law was unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision today regarding the Affordable Care Act, and he raised the objection that people have been paying for things since the beginning of United States History that are morally objectionable, and as examples he raised capital punishment, war, and the draft as examples. He says that Catholics will simply have to deal with the Law of the Land as those who object with other aspects of ethics have had to do in the past.

How can I answer these objections in a way consistent with Catholic teaching? I know that there is a fundamental difference, but I’m having difficulty explaining what it is, exactly. Any help would be much appreciated!

God Bless
 
Son_of_Jonah said:
I was trying to explain how the law was unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision today regarding the Affordable Care Act, and he raised the objection that people have been paying for things since the beginning of United States History that are morally objectionable, and as examples he raised capital punishment, war, and the draft as examples. He says that Catholics will simply have to deal with the Law of the Land as those who object with other aspects of ethics have had to do in the past.

How can I answer these objections in a way consistent with Catholic teaching? I know that there is a fundamental difference, but I’m having difficulty explaining what it is, exactly. Any help would be much appreciated!

God Bless
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Just a thought (coming from a former politico-geek who loved to turn everything under the sun into a Right WIng/Left Wing wrestling match), but a better gift to give your friend might be to share your knowledge of the Gospel message, and leave constitutional law to the courts, talk show pundits, and politicians.

If we have learned anything in the last 40-50 years about American politics, its that the likelihood of any degree of agreement is remote. That’s why the government has been so deficient in accomplishing anything for anyone!

Peace
 
Son_of_Jonah said:
I was trying to explain how the law was unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision today regarding the Affordable Care Act, and he raised the objection that people have been paying for things since the beginning of United States History that are morally objectionable, and as examples he raised capital punishment, war, and the draft as examples. He says that Catholics will simply have to deal with the Law of the Land as those who object with other aspects of ethics have had to do in the past.

How can I answer these objections in a way consistent with Catholic teaching? I know that there is a fundamental difference, but I’m having difficulty explaining what it is, exactly. Any help would be much appreciated!

God Bless
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Politics… :whacky:
 
I’m British and don’t understand the big argument about healthcare in the US.

From what I read 50 million Americans have no healthcare insurance. Is that correct?
If so, what happens, for example, if one of them has a serious car accident or gets cancer? Do they not get treatment?
 
thistle said:
I’m British and don’t understand the big argument about healthcare in the US.
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I’m American and don’t understand the big argument about health care in the US. But I’m so glad you posted because I’ve been wanting to ask:

Is the Catholic Church in Britain required to provide health insurance coverage of abortion, abortion inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization?
 
mark_a said:
I’m American and don’t understand the big argument about health care in the US. But I’m so glad you posted because I’ve been wanting to ask:

Is the Catholic Church in Britain required to provide health insurance coverage of abortion, abortion inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization?
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This may be off on a tangent to what you’re asking, but some may be useful. In the UK, our National Health Service is paid out of our taxes. Most “normal” employees - like me - have our taxes paid for us by our employer under a scheme called PAYE (Pay As You Earn). That means what what gets paid into my bank by my employer is my nett pay - my pay minus my taxes and my National Insurance (NI). My employer takes my taxes and NI out of my salary before my salary is paid into my bank. Some employers do provide extra healthcare in addition to the NHS provision, this is done as a “private” health care scheme and this can often be tailored to the company’s requirements. But it is not necessary for an employer to provide this as UK citizens will get NHS provision anyway.

So the answer to your question can be seen as both “Yes” and “No”. “No” in the sense that there is no requirement for any organisation to provide healthcare as our taxes already pay for the NHS. So the Catholic Church isn’t required to buy contraceptive and abortion services in that respect. But all taxpayers contribute to the running of the NHS which does provide contraceptive and abortion services to those people wanting them.

The situation of Catholics working for the NHS with respect to having to provide contraception and abortion - I’m not qualified to answer that!
 
thistle said:
I’m British and don’t understand the big argument about healthcare in the US.

From what I read 50 million Americans have no healthcare insurance. Is that correct?
If so, what happens, for example, if one of them has a serious car accident or gets cancer? Do they not get treatment?
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Thistle, my husband lost his job 6 months ago and we’ve been without health insurance. I have migraines and so for 6 months, I’ve just been suffering. When we had health insurance, my meds were $50 for 12 pills. Imagine the price with NO insurance!!
 
mark_a said:
I’m American and don’t understand the big argument about health care in the US. But I’m so glad you posted because I’ve been wanting to ask:

Is the Catholic Church in Britain required to provide health insurance coverage of abortion, abortion inducing drugs, contraception, and sterilization?
Click to expand...
No.

Anyone in the UK who needs medical treatment gets it whether they have private insurance or not and that includes heart transplants and cancer treatment.
 
Son_of_Jonah said:
I was trying to explain how the law was unconstitutional in light of the Supreme Court’s decision today regarding the Affordable Care Act…
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Although you may not agree that the Affordable Care Act (popularly known as Obamacare) is desirable or a good thing for our nation, trying to explain that it is unconstitutional must be kind of hard…seeing as how the Supreme Court has ruled that it is, in fact, constitutional.
 
thistle said:
I’m British and don’t understand the big argument about healthcare in the US.

From what I read 50 million Americans have no healthcare insurance. Is that correct?
If so, what happens, for example, if one of them has a serious car accident or gets cancer? Do they not get treatment?
Click to expand...
As difficult as it as it may seem for some people to understand, health insurance is a luxury; it is not a need or a right. The only necessities in life are food, shelter and clothing. Everything else is optional.

If you can’t afford a new car, you don’t buy it. If you can’t afford a Big-Screen television, don’t buy it. And as harsh as this may sound, if you can’t afford health care, you should simply do without it.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
As difficult as it as it may seem for some people to understand, health insurance is a luxury; it is not a need or a right. The only necessities in life are food, shelter and clothing. Everything else is optional.

If you can’t afford a new car, you don’t buy it. If you can’t afford a Big-Screen television, don’t buy it. And as harsh as this may sound, if you can’t afford health care, you should simply do without it.
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You are really equating bodily health with a big screen TV or a new car??

That shows an stunning lack of concern for your neighbor, thankfully the Church does not agree with you.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
As difficult as it as it may seem for some people to understand, health insurance is a luxury; it is not a need or a right. The only necessities in life are food, shelter and clothing. Everything else is optional.

If you can’t afford a new car, you don’t buy it. If you can’t afford a Big-Screen television, don’t buy it. And as harsh as this may sound, if you can’t afford health care, you should simply do without it.
Click to expand...
Ask yourself who can’t afford the “luxury” of health insurance. What you’re saying is that the poor don’t deserve to have adequate health care and to me that tells me that you don’t believe that the poor should have the same quality and length of life as those who are more well off. Should people who can’t afford insurance just crawl off and die like an animal when they get seriously ill? Should a poor person confronted with mental illness just kill themselves or accept homelessness as their lot in life?
 
J_Peterson said:
Ask yourself who can’t afford the “luxury” of health insurance. What you’re saying is that the poor don’t deserve to have adequate health care and to me that tells me that you don’t believe that the poor should have the same quality and length of life as those who are more well off. Should people who can’t afford insurance just crawl off and die like an animal when they get seriously ill? Should a poor person confronted with mental illness just kill themselves or accept homelessness as their lot in life?
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I’m not saying any such thing. People need to understand the difference between Health Care and Health Care Insurance. While everybody may have a right to take care of their health, nowhere is it written (at least until yesterday) that other people must be mandated to pay for it. That’s what charities are for.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
I’m not saying any such thing. People need to understand the difference between Health Care and Health Care Insurance. While everybody may have a right to take care of their health, nowhere is it written (at least until yesterday) that other people must be mandated to pay for it. That’s what charities are for.
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Health Care and Health Insurance are inextricably bound together. Costs can go so high that virtually no one can afford serious health care without health insurance, so I would not try to make too much of the difference between the two. As for relying on charities, they are woefully unprepared to handle all those in need. Most of those in need would simply go without.

I like your expression: “everybody may have a right to take care of their health”. I have images of people sharpening their kitchen knives and trying to perform kidney transplants on their kitchen table. Or imagine Terri Shiavo with a garden hose down her throat getting oatmeal through a funnel. Let’s get real. The only way anyone can take care of their health by today’s standards is to either be Bill Gates, or to have health insurance.
 
thistle said:
I’m British and don’t understand the big argument about healthcare in the US.

From what I read 50 million Americans have no healthcare insurance. Is that correct?
If so, what happens, for example, if one of them has a serious car accident or gets cancer? Do they not get treatment?
Click to expand...
It’s actually 12 million.

The argument is that 47 million Americans have no health insurance

Of the so-called 47 million Americans who are uninsured:
Code: 
5.2 million (or 11%) are illegal aliens
5 million (or 11%) are legal immigrants
So that’s, over 10 million or 22% who are not Americans. So the figure is not 47 million Americans uninsured, but 37 million. Now let’s break it down further.
  • 9 million are individuals earning more than $75,000/year who can afford a policy, but choose not to.
  • 10 million are persons eligible for programs, but for reasons of their own knowing, choose not to participate.
  • 6 million are persons eligible for employer-sponsored insurance, but remain with their temporary health insurance in which they are intermittently without for a short period of months. The figure does not count them for having health insurance because there may be gaps of 4 months out of several years where they will have none.
So now we have 35 million (or 25 million discounting non-Americans) of the uninsured 47/37 million.

So really it’s 25-32% or 12 million of the so-called uninsured who truly are uninsured and have no programs to help them. Still as a whole it only constitutes as <4% of the total American population.
 
Lost_Sheep said:
As difficult as it as it may seem for some people to understand, health insurance is a luxury; it is not a need or a right. The only necessities in life are food, shelter and clothing. Everything else is optional.

If you can’t afford a new car, you don’t buy it. If you can’t afford a Big-Screen television, don’t buy it. And as harsh as this may sound, if you can’t afford health care, you should simply do without it.
Click to expand...
So your argument is that if a person who does not have health insurance has a serious accident, or needs a heart transplant or gets cancer its just too bad but they should keep quiet and just die.
 
Who even cares about health insurance? I NEVER use it, doctors are useless. Have they actually CURED you of anything? of course they haven’t. They just give you pills (ie. chemicals) that they got via kickbacks from pretty pharmaceutical reps. I suppose for emergency treatment a hospital is important, but if you actually have any kind of on-going health problem what good are they? However, now the government has taken it upon itself to allocate a portion of my salary to private health insurance whether I want it or not, and whether I would rather use the money for something else based on my personal priorities.
 
Mark1970 said:
This may be off on a tangent to what you’re asking, but some may be useful. In the UK, our National Health Service is paid out of our taxes. Most “normal” employees - like me - have our taxes paid for us by our employer under a scheme called PAYE (Pay As You Earn). That means what what gets paid into my bank by my employer is my nett pay - my pay minus my taxes and my National Insurance (NI). My employer takes my taxes and NI out of my salary before my salary is paid into my bank. Some employers do provide extra healthcare in addition to the NHS provision, this is done as a “private” health care scheme and this can often be tailored to the company’s requirements. But it is not necessary for an employer to provide this as UK citizens will get NHS provision anyway.

So the answer to your question can be seen as both “Yes” and “No”. “No” in the sense that there is no requirement for any organisation to provide healthcare as our taxes already pay for the NHS. So the Catholic Church isn’t required to buy contraceptive and abortion services in that respect. But all taxpayers contribute to the running of the NHS which does provide contraceptive and abortion services to those people wanting them.

The situation of Catholics working for the NHS with respect to having to provide contraception and abortion - I’m not qualified to answer that!
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Thank you so much for the thoughtful reply!
 
thistle said:
No.

Anyone in the UK who needs medical treatment gets it whether they have private insurance or not and that includes heart transplants and cancer treatment.
Click to expand...
Right. but does the Church pay into that system, or are churches tax exempt like they are in the US?
 
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