Catholics VS Health Care in America: Morally Embarrassing

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Just a thought,

Today I heard some people talking about how the government wants to regulate how large our sodas can be.

You know the government has gone to far when…
“…the government”? So you are, or the people you heard gossiping are, distributing the contemplated action of one mayor to include the entire entity of, presumably, our, government in all its levels and forms? What do you think about making such broad strokes? What is your intent in doing that?
 
Basically, there seem to be two general approaches to providing health care.

Under one, it is the government who makes the decisions (about price, coverage, etc).

Under the other, it is the individual consumer.

All of the discussion revolves around these two “nodes” (like an ellipse with its two foci).

Someone might say that, in a democracy, the people are the government. So maybe we are dealing here with a distinction without a difference.

But Americans, for a whole host of reasons, no longer trust their “democratic” government. That’s why there’s a push for limited government and small businesses.

There is a philosophical issue at work here. Is a strong centralized government, with dictatorial powers, in league with a few mega cronies, not only possible but perhaps inevitable in a “democracy”?

Will the mass of people be reduced to a herd subject to animal husbandry?

Will human agency disappear (at least for most of us)?

P.S. Gaber, I too am not fond of monopolistic health insurance conglomerates and monopolistic health care corporations. I think that the anarchists, up to a certain point, are right - BIG is BAD.
 
“…the government”? So you are, or the people you heard gossiping are, distributing the contemplated action of one mayor to include the entire entity of, presumably, our, government in all its levels and forms? What do you think about making such broad strokes? What is your intent in doing that?
It is a good example of how democrats married to their party have helped to accept abortion. Chipping away a little at a time.
 
It is a good example of how democrats married to their party have helped to accept abortion. Chipping away a little at a time.
I’m afraid frog boiling is a technique employed by both Democlicans and Republicrats, is it not? And why would someone abandon all the planks of their party because it included one that was based on civil law’s needs as distinct from religious convictions? The entire “right to life” issue is based on a dualistic concept of life and origin of soul, anyway, or atl the very least an incomplete one. So regarding abortion, how do you know that what you think about it is all inclusive, accurate, and true? Are you, or can you be absolutely sure that what you think is so as a whole and in all its particulars? How do you behave when you think that way? Who would you be without that story? And who would you be if you had the opposite opinion to yours now?

For sure it can be an admirable thing to have a faith, So many do. And so many claim, with “Proof” that theirs is the one and only. But how do you justify distributing a faith, yours or anyone’s, over a secular society meant to be free of a single religious affiliation, and so many each clamoring for their holy oil to be the State approved one? Does your particular stance give you the right to dictate, even over life or death? Or is that the job of the Almighty, however wonderful you deem your intentions to be?

If you don’t like that plank, work on it. But how useful is it to distribute that one part as being the entirety of a party, or even its primary concern? The other party supports ideologies that end in the deaths, instant or long and lingering, and perhaps more, of adults. I don’t see much agitation from religious groups about that. Do you? Or are we just being selective here about the kind of murder we don’t like, or the means that are particularly unattractive to us personally?
 
You ask why a Catholic would be against free health care , and I reply that we recall the Seventh Commandment says, Thou shalt not steal. Are doctors slaves who work for free? Did they get free medical schooling? Adequate diet is health care. Should we get free food? I think the reason medical care has become so expensive is the inordinate involvement of politics and government, and abuses of civil litigation. Furthermore, Obamacare has driven this retiree’s health insurance cost up about $2,000 per annum. I think the so-called "Affordable Care Act’ is a euphemism used to disguise the effective overthrow of our constitutional government in favor of a socialist dictatorship.
 
I’m afraid frog boiling is a technique employed by both Democlicans and Republicrats, is it not? And why would someone abandon all the planks of their party because it included one that was based on civil law’s needs as distinct from religious convictions? The entire “right to life” issue is based on a dualistic concept of life and origin of soul, anyway, or atl the very least an incomplete one. So regarding abortion, how do you know that what you think about it is all inclusive, accurate, and true? Are you, or can you be absolutely sure that what you think is so as a whole and in all its particulars? How do you behave when you think that way? Who would you be without that story? And who would you be if you had the opposite opinion to yours now?
Isn’t it odd that a country will allow abortion and not call it murder but if a pregnant mom is killed there are 2 charges of murder? Kind of throws out your definition of the entire “right to life” issue.
For sure it can be an admirable thing to have a faith, So many do. And so many claim, with “Proof” that theirs is the one and only. But how do you justify distributing a faith, yours or anyone’s, over a secular society meant to be free of a single religious affiliation, and so many each clamoring for their holy oil to be the State approved one? Does your particular stance give you the right to dictate, even over life or death? Or is that the job of the Almighty, however wonderful you deem your intentions to be?
Our faith teaches us that abortion is killing a human being. Wouldn’t you object to killing a healthy 5 year old human being? “Frog boiling” is exactly what has brought us to this point in accepting abortion. Especially for those Catholics married to their party. The number of human beings that have lost their life (over 55 million so far) is staggering.
You claim that wanting to save lives is “holy oil” or a “wonderful intent”. Reverse “frog boiling”?
If you don’t like that plank, work on it. But how useful is it to distribute that one part as being the entirety of a party, or even its primary concern? The other party supports ideologies that end in the deaths, instant or long and lingering, and perhaps more, of adults. I don’t see much agitation from religious groups about that. Do you? Or are we just being selective here about the kind of murder we don’t like, or the means that are particularly unattractive to us personally?
I would love to be proved wrong that Catholic democrats do nothing to change their party on this mass killing. I know there are a few, but that is the problem, most do nothing but leave the work to others, the reason it does not change.
 
Isn’t it odd that a country will allow abortion and not call it murder but if a pregnant mom is killed there are 2 charges of murder? Kind of throws out your definition of the entire “right to life” issue.
What is my definition? I didn’t state one. I said that as it stands it is not an a correct or useful footing.
Our faith teaches us that abortion is killing a human being. Wouldn’t you object to killing a healthy 5 year old human being? “Frog boiling” is exactly what has brought us to this point in accepting abortion. Especially for those Catholics married to their party. The number of human beings that have lost their life (over 55 million so far) is staggering.
You claim that wanting to save lives is “holy oil” or a “wonderful intent”. Reverse “frog boiling”?
I didn’t even say I was for abortion. I am not. I am concerned that in one Reality there are competing descriptive paradigms, none fully accurate, that need to be accounted for in the civil venue. And I was actually saying that we distinguish between different kinds and methods of murder as religious issues, allowing for some in many cases, but have not gone, as a society, to the root of the problem. So there is conflict. In conflicts, lives are lost. Switching party allegiance won’t change that, only addressing the issue itself outside of party lines. Since when is your God affiliated with a political party as such?
I would love to be proved wrong that Catholic democrats do nothing to change their party on this mass killing. I know there are a few, but that is the problem, most do nothing but leave the work to others, the reason it does not change.
And what are you doing as a Republican (I assume,) to change your party’s policies that lead to other kinds of killings? Abortion or other murders being militated against may not be the heart of the issue. And if you are fighting abortion as a part of a political venue, perhaps your efforts might be better, and more usefully to your desired end, employed elsewhere?
 
I Am Pro life And Pro choice.

I believe that abortion is morally wrong: However, the reason that it is wrong cannot be understood pragmatically. You have to have a particular philosophical and conceptual understanding about the nature of life that simply cannot be defined or understood in legal terms without the state becoming fundamentally christian in its conception of law and life, which cannot truly happen in a secular democracy. Thus while I am pro-life I also believe that the legal system has no choice but to be pro-choice. The law is not manifest according to religious or philosophical conceptions of life, accept for those religious or philosophical ideas that can be understood as pragmatically beneficial to the pluralistic society we find ourselves comprising.

Religions would be better of fighting sin by challenging peoples beliefs as opposed to dictating them through some legal process.

I have always felt that it goes against Christian values when Christians try to use the legal system as a basis to dictate Christian moral values. This action is actually an attempt to replace active evangelism with legal processes which not only do I think completely misses the point concerning the evangelisation of the world, but also it gives the impression that most Christians in America including people in law, don’t seem to realise that the state is not a Christian state, nor do they understand the rational implications of that fact concerning the development of law in terms of what is an acceptable law.

This to me does not seem to be real Christianity. In fact it is hurting Christianity when people confuse morality with the idea of legal rights. It seems to me that the state by its very nature is invisibly ignorant of Christian moral truth, and that it actually reflects christian morality on occasion is purely a coincidence.
 
Why would any Catholic be Against Free Health Care?

Am i the only Catholic that finds this idea Morally Embarrassing?
I assume that you mean universal healthcare. It is the norm in modern countries in which the role of government is either philosophically or constitutionally to care for its citizens.

The perversion of the US system to be profit centric has corrupted the vision of general welfare of the population. Universal healthcare systems currently provide care for entire populations, at a high standard of care (Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and so on…), at a much lower cost per person and as a percentage of GDP. it just makes sense fiscally and morally.

However, insurance companies are cut out of the healthcare industry where they make obscene amounts of money. Even if high quality universal care were as expensive as our system, it would still be a better deal, as everyone would have care.

It is insanity that a person who can no longer work due to illness may not have healthcare coverage because they are ill, and therefore can’t work. Pure insanity. Happens daily.
 
In 2008, the top seven health insurance executives averaged more than $14 million each in compensation. These are the same individuals who decide whether to lobby the Congress to act in their interests, using the purse of the insurance companies. Seven people totaling $100 million in compensation. Chew on that. What could possibly make an individual’s management work, which any one of thousands of other people could perform, worth that much? In the US, it is illegal for the owners of a publicly traded corporation (the stockholders) to determine the compensation of the directors. Makes sense.
 
I Am Pro life And Pro choice.

I believe that abortion is morally wrong: However, the reason that it is wrong cannot be understood pragmatically. You have to have a particular philosophical and conceptual understanding about the nature of life that simply cannot be defined or understood in legal terms without the state becoming fundamentally christian in its conception of law and life, which cannot truly happen in a secular democracy. Thus while I am pro-life I also believe that the legal system has no choice but to be pro-choice. The law is not manifest according to religious or philosophical conceptions of life, accept for those religious or philosophical ideas that can be understood as pragmatically beneficial to the pluralistic society we find ourselves comprising.

Religions would be better of fighting sin by challenging peoples beliefs as opposed to dictating them through some legal process.

I have always felt that it goes against Christian values when Christians try to use the legal system as a basis to dictate Christian moral values. This action is actually an attempt to replace active evangelism with legal processes which not only do I think completely misses the point concerning the evangelisation of the world, but also it gives the impression that most Christians in America including people in law, don’t seem to realise that the state is not a Christian state, nor do they understand the rational implications of that fact concerning the development of law in terms of what is an acceptable law.

This to me does not seem to be real Christianity. In fact it is hurting Christianity when people confuse morality with the idea of legal rights. It seems to me that the state by its very nature is invisibly ignorant of Christian moral truth, and that it actually reflects christian morality on occasion is purely a coincidence.
The problem with what you say is that Christians believe that abortion is killing a human being. I would bet you knew that though. We are trying to save the lives of human beings.

Very nice try to twist what it really is.
 
The profit margin of the health insurance industry is actually quite modest compared with many other sectors of the economy.

The copays are there to prevent unnecessary utilization. This is a much better approach than top-down rationing arbitrarily enforced by unaccountable and anonymous bureaucrats.

With competition and health savings accounts, coupled with flexibility in coverage among plans, people will be able to exercise more choice and save money.

Comparing health statistics (e.g., infant mortality) is a tricky business. It’s often apples and oranges. Demographics, quality and comparability of data reported, etc vary considerably.

The vast majority of people in the US are happy with their health care. Especially when they find out about the wait times (for surgeries, diagnostics like MRI scans, etc) and lacunae in coverage for necessary services (e.g., dialysis, expensive drugs, etc) in other health care systems.

We do not need an all-powerful Leviathan imposing its will on us.

As I mentioned in a previous posting, we need to decentralize. The Fordist model of modernism is no longer working. The empire of the **Same **has become shaky. Difference is coming up over the horizon. Postmodernity is here; and its name is the Tea Party.

My apologies for waxing philosophical but this is a philosophy subforum.

P.S. I forgot to mention that we are already spending at least half a trillion dollars on health care for the poor not covered by Medicare. Adding in Medicare provides an additional safety net of hundreds of billions of dollars for the disabled and elderly.
Respectfully, I think you have bought into the insurance industry self preserving propaganda.

It is public knowledge that the life expectancy in the US is 50th. Every health care figure that you can find shows that our healthcare system does not work are well as public systems. There is no evidence to the contrary for any modern wealthy nation. In addition to this fact, it is just cheaper to go public. The numbers confirm this as a percentage of GDP, and not just a little bit cheaper, it is a lot cheaper. Higher quality by objective standards, and lower cost by objective measure.

The ONLY reason to keep a private healthcare system intact is to keep on giving profits to insurance companies and other fat cats in our healthcare system.
 
The problem with what you say is that Christians believe that abortion is killing a human being. I would bet you knew that though. We are trying to save the lives of human beings.
You have completely ignored what has been written. It is irrelevant whether or not you believe that you are trying to save the lives of human beings. That is your “belief”. The question is whether or not an embryo can be defined as a living person in a purely legal context rather than according to peoples religious or philosophical beliefs. It would be a circular argument to claim that Christianity is the basis upon which we should define what a person is, and that therefore abortion should be illegal . A secular state is invincibly ignorant of Christian moral truth, in so far as evidence of its objectivity is concerned. Therefore it can only reflect the ignorance of Christians when they try to enforce their religious definitions of life on society through a “legal process”. The Christian conception of life is not the intrinsic basis of secular law making; and I see no pragmatic basis upon which one can argue that an embryo is a person, at least not one that overrides a women’s right to choose whether or not she should take a pregnancy to full term. Legality is not the same thing as objective moral law.
Very nice try to twist what it really is.
What part of my post is twisting what it really is?
 
You have completely ignored what has been written. It is irrelevant whether or not you believe that you are trying to save the lives of human beings. That is your “belief”. The question is whether or not an embryo can be defined as a living person in a purely legal context. It would be a circular argument to claim that Christianity is the basis upon which we should define life and that therefore abortion should be illegal. A secular state is invincibly ignorant of Christian moral truth, in so far as evidence of its objectivity is concerned. Therefore it can only reflect the ignorance of Christians when they try to enforce their religious definitions of life on society through a legal process.The Christian conception of life is not the intrinsic basis of secular law making; and I see no pragmatic basis upon which one can argue that an embryo is a person, at least not one that overrides a women’s right to choose whether or not she should take a pregnancy to full term. Legality is not the same thing as objective moral law.

What part of my post is twisting what it really is?
The twist is to say that an embryo is something other than a human being.
Purely from a lawful point of view, how is it that the murderer of pregnant mother who is charged with 2 counts of murder?
 
The twist is to say that an embryo is something other than a human being.
Purely from a lawful point of view, how is it that the murderer of pregnant mother who is charged with 2 counts of murder?
Because the mother intends to bring the pregnancy to full term. The state therefore judges the issue pragmatically insofar as the mother intentions were concerned. The mother is assumed to have intended to give birth to a person. Therefore it is treated as two counts. It has nothing to do with whether or not an embryo can be legally understood to be a person in and of itself. The fact that the mother wishes to give birth to a human being is what elevates the status of an embryo. But its elevated status is purely relative to the context and desire of the mother, and is not based upon knowledge of its objective value or nature.
 
Because the mother intends to bring the pregnancy to full term. The state therefore judges the issue pragmatically insofar as the mother intentions were concerned. The mother is assumed to have intended to give birth to a person. Therefore it is treated as two counts. It has nothing to do with whether or not an embryo can be legally understood to be a person in and of itself. The fact that the mother wishes to give birth to a human being is what elevates the status of an embryo. But its elevated status is purely relative to the context and desire of the mother, and is not based upon knowledge of its objective value or nature.
You are saying that a mothers wish makes an embryo a human being? So if at the murder trial there was a document that the mother was going to get an abortion the next day that one murder count would be dropped?

According to your reasoning, the embryo could be a human being 1 minute, the next minute not a human being and the next minute a human being again, depending on the wish of the mother.

Abortion is killing a human being, it is what it is.
 
=MindOverMatter2;8838316]Why would any Catholic be Against Free Health Care?
Am i the only Catholic that finds this idea Morally Embarrassing?
***Assuming that your NOT kidding:shrug:

NOTHING is FREE!

The cost to this is TRILLIONS of DOLLARS of ADDITIOANL NATIONAL DEBT

And that is the CHEAP PART*

The TOTAL PRICE includes [at no extra charge no less]😦

COMPLETE LOSS OF our current “FREEDOM OF [NOT FROM] RELIGION” as guarenteed in the US Constotutions FIRST ADMENDMENT!:eek:

Are you my friend aware what is in it and what it mandates?

OUR Catholic Church and every church. every faith will HAVE TO [NO OPTIONS HERE}

FUND:

Abortions
Birth control
Our Hospitols will HAVE TO perform them

These ALL SUPPORT MURDER! KILLING Inncocnet and your :for it" and imbarrasses that the CC is not:shrug: MAY God Help you!
JUDGE KITHIL IS THE 2ND OFFICIAL WHO HAS OUTLINED THESE PARTS OF THE CARE BILL.
Judge Kithil of Marble Falls, TX - highlighted the most egregiouspages of HB3200
JUDGE KITHIL wrote:
** Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non-U.S. Residents, even if they are here illegally.
** Page 58 and 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual’s bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts.
** Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations (such as theAssociation of Community Organizations for Reform Now - ACORN).
** Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this section will not be treated as a tax. (How could anybody in their right mind come up with that?)
** Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same regardless of specialty, and the government will set all doctors’ fees.
** Page 272. Section 1145: Cancer hospital will ration care according to the patient’s age.
FYI: I have personally read the Bill and verified the above are FACT!

pat /PJM**
 
You are saying that a mothers wish makes an embryo a human being?
A mothers will and desire to take an embryo to full term is what elevates the value of an embryo. The value is pragmatic, not intrinsic.
So if at the murder trial there was a document that the mother was going to get an abortion the next day that one murder count would be dropped?
Its irrelevant what the legal system would actually do. That’s a contingency. What is relevant is what the legal system should do if it intends to stay true to the secular nature of the State.
According to your reasoning, the embryo could be a human being 1 minute, the next minute not a human being and the next minute a human being again, depending on the wish of the mother.
According to the nature of secular legality, this is correct.
Abortion is killing a human being, it is what it is.
Morally speaking you are correct. Legally speaking you are incorrect, and you always will be incorrect in a secular democracy.
 
A mothers will and desire to take an embryo to full term is what elevates the value of an embryo. The value is pragmatic, not intrinsic.

Its irrelevant what the legal system would actually do. That’s a contingency. What is relevant is what the legal system should do if it intends to stay true to the secular nature of the State.

According to the nature of secular legality, this is correct.

Morally speaking you are correct. Legally speaking you are incorrect, and you always will be incorrect in a secular democracy.
Always incorrect? Is it murder if a person forces a mother to abort her child against her wish?

In your world it seems like the rules will evolve so this killing of a human being can always be justified.
 
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