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iloveangels
Guest
I’m not so sure about that.
Time's Up in the U.S.: Catholic Business Owners Weigh Moral Options in HHS Mandate
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MichaelTDoyle
Guest
Then what are the limits of regulatory power then? Where are the checks and balances? ACA references the Secretary’s power over these issues including setting up rationing, I believe. Where is the realpolitik check?
There is none, since repeal is out the door.
Welcome to your new world.
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JimG
Guest
The way it works now is, Congress passes laws, but pretty much lets the bureaucracy re-write them as it pleases or state what they mean. Nearly all legislation gives to a particular federal agency the power to enforce the law by issuing appropriate regulations. The agency publishes a proposed regulation in the Federal Register, with a comment period. Ten thousand comments may be received objecting to the proposed regulation. (This is pretty much what happened with the HHS mandate.) At the end of the comment period the agency essentially dismisses all the comments and makes the regulation final. It then has the force of law.
People think that Dodd-Frank regulated the banks. It didn’t. It gave Federal agencies new powers to regulate banks at will.
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iloveangels
Guest
Let me be more specific about what I said, then. I meant that I doubt that “if she did, even her liberal Catholic allies would abandon her.” I don’t think they would abandon her.
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ProVobis
Guest
SIngle-payer or public option would have avoided this. The long-running Hyde Amendment prohibits GOVERNMENT funding of abortions.
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iloveangels
Guest
More politics. This has been decided. It’s law. What do you think, ProVobis, that private business owners have to do, as a result? How much risk is here for them? Etc Etc.
Suudy
Active member
How? You mean mandating religious organizations directly funding objectionable coverage?
Only insofar as that funding is done through the omnibus spending bill. Note that the PPACA is not funded via any omnibus spending bill, and has appropriated its own funds. And these funds are not prohibited by any language to fund abortions (see the funding for the CHC’s).
The Hyde amendment has no affect on the PPACA.
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JimG
Guest
That’s why the Stupak Amendment was proposed. But Stupak caved.
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iloveangels
Guest
Stupak was naive, and Stupak got used. A classic case of someone being in over their head.
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ProVobis
Guest
It was either the Senate healthcare bill (without the Stupak Amendment) or nothing. Obama wouldn’t take nothing.
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JimG
Guest
Right. And he promised Cardinal Dolan that Catholic institutions would get an exemption, then reneged.
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iloveangels
Guest
Why would he take nothing? This is a rhetorical question because I don’t want to talk politics in this thread. It’s over and it’s done.
So he promised what he couldn’t deliver and Cdl Dolan believed him. They were both in over their heads, I’m telling you.
Going forward, I hope this serves as a lesson for the USCCB. They have their business to attend to which is the Catholic religion. The sooner they attend to it and get out of politics, the better off everyone will be.
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JimG
Guest
No doubt the government would like Catholics out of politics as well. That’s why HHS wants Catholics to pay a penalty tax if they wish to keep following their religion.
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iloveangels
Guest
NEWS FLASH: Catholics aren’t a driving force in politics in the first place. As you could see during the last election, all the talk from the USCCB had absolutely NO EFFECT on the outcome. There hasn’t been a Catholic vote in 50 years. Our stats are indistinguishable from the general population and have been since the election of JFK. The last time we voted as a bloc was 1960.
Moreover, most of the big institutions we run are nearly identical to public institutions in every way that really counts to politics.
We do make a pretty good scapegoat for the Democrat party though, which was our REAL function this time around. If we don’t learn anything before the next 4 years, we’ll make an even better scapegoat the next time around.
NO. We need to get out of politics, and get into cleaning up our own messes, of which we have plenty. The time for that is past due. It’d be very good if the next election was about someone else rather than us.
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JimG
Guest
Sounds like a recipe for the anti-Catholic Nativism of the 19th and early 20th century. Catholics out of the Public Square! You don’t belong here!NEWS FLASH: Catholics aren’t a driving force in politics in the first place. As you could see during the last election, all the talk from the USCCB had absolutely NO EFFECT on the outcome. There hasn’t been a Catholic vote in 50 years. Our stats are indistinguishable from the general population and have been since the election of JFK. The last time we voted as a bloc was 1960.
Moreover, most of the big institutions we run are nearly identical to public institutions in every way that really counts to politics.
We do make a pretty good scapegoat for the Democrat party though, which was our REAL function this time around. If we don’t learn anything before the next 4 years, we’ll make an even better scapegoat the next time around.
NO. We need to get out of politics, and get into cleaning up our own messes, of which we have plenty. The time for that is past due. It’d be very good if the next election was about someone else rather than us.
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iloveangels
Guest
Catholics do have a part to play in the national conversation, but it’s not the part they’re aspiring to, the way they’re doing it. That’s the problem. Catholics want a big part, but they’re not prepared to do the work it takes to have a big part. That’s the problem.
Example: You can’t have a “Catholic University” parading itself about as a Catholic University with the permission of the religious authorities, if virtually everything about it is post-Catholic, and even the general population can see that and point it out to you in living color.
Another example: You can’t proudly proclaim Catholic values if you can’t even genuinely articulate what they are, and in fact, spend most of the time arguing about what they are.
If you want a genuine large part to play in national affairs, then it’s going to be necessary to be authentically what you claim that you are. That means that Catholic institutions have to behave like Catholic institutions. Catholic values have to be Christian AND Catholic, which means religious and not merely involved with social services. Any organization can do social services, and they don’t even have to be religious. They know this out in the general population. They’re not stupid.
Catholics act like the 6 year old kid who walks in the room talking in a loud voice and expects everyone to stop what they’re doing and pay perfect attention. It doesn’t work that way. You have to grow up and earn that kind of attention.
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RobbyS
Guest
It would be a matter of timing. If the announcement came at the wrong time, while they are struggling to get Obamacare started up and it would detract, then liberal Catholics would back away out of fear of public opinion. I think many of these people do not believe in the human soul in the way that Catholicism teaches it. It boils down to a “Utopianism” that replaced religion with politics.
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iloveangels
Guest
Well stated, RobbyS.
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Windmill
Guest
As a Catholic businessman, I’ve been in personal contact with the NCBC regarding this situation. Up until this became a national issue, I didn’t stop to think about my health plan for my employees covering objectionable procedures or drugs. Now that I know what is at stake, I am planning to drop coverage once the exchanges open. My employees understand and are making arrangements so this doesn’t upset their family lives or treatments they are currently receiving.
The big question will be: What do loyal Catholics do without health insurance? It is a huge financial risk these days to not have that type of coverage, and things like Solidarity HealthShare are okay, but they are not governed by contractual obligations where you know you are going to get coverage. There are stories about people in similar organizations where they were left high and dry when they faced a medical crisis.
I’d feel better if I knew where my family was being led, but I guess the Lord will provide. There’s just not much out there in the way of options. But, as long as it’s not you being affected, it’s easy to just let your fellow brother suffer alone. I am thankful for the internet and the support I’ve found here. It’d be hard to make my choices otherwise.
The big question will be: What do loyal Catholics do without health insurance? It is a huge financial risk these days to not have that type of coverage, and things like Solidarity HealthShare are okay, but they are not governed by contractual obligations where you know you are going to get coverage. There are stories about people in similar organizations where they were left high and dry when they faced a medical crisis.
I’d feel better if I knew where my family was being led, but I guess the Lord will provide. There’s just not much out there in the way of options. But, as long as it’s not you being affected, it’s easy to just let your fellow brother suffer alone. I am thankful for the internet and the support I’ve found here. It’d be hard to make my choices otherwise.
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RobbyS
Guest
Obamacare depends on the fact that many people are hemmed in, almost unable to do anything but accept. Modern liberals rely heavily on compulsion to force their own value system on others. “Choice” was brilliant rhetorical term, “Fairness,”another. But the activists among them only want to reduce all choices to one, and to define “fairness “ as an elimination of all opposition to them.
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