You do realize that any money that the bishops have come from us, through our contributions.
Yes, I do. That’s why I am voicing my opinion about how they spend those dollars and what they seem to be demanding we spend our tax dollars on.
Were are you getting that money is being given to pro-abortion causes, the letter was against the bill because it allowed federal funding for abortion.
In the last couple years, the monies collected from the annual drive for the UCCB charities has been examined by watchdog agencies. Two years ago, they pointed out that certain groups who received funding also funded things such as abortion and political efforts to enhance a pro-choice position. Some of these groups fund both sides of the abortion issue, so you could argue that all Catholic dollars went to pro-life efforts while some other dollars funded abortion, but the point was the Church shouldn’t be funding those associations at all since we have no true accounting from them and we cannot be sure our money went where it was supposed to go.
After this exposure, the UCCB looked into it, declared there was some oversight in the process and assured us it was fixed. It was NOT fixed, as the following year (last year) the same thing happened. Now we have another assurance it’s all fixed, yet no one in the management of those efforts was rebuked or replaced. Adding to this doubt is the fact that each and every one of the key players the UCCB has managing these fund allocations has direct links to ACORN and other organizations of left-leaning politics that have no compunction to support any pro-life views at all. The UCCB has not given any real information to go on to assure anyone the problem has really been addressed. The first time we heard it was “fixed” it was not… so it’s not unreasonable to have some doubts about this.
It is our call and command from Christ to take care of those in need including health.
True, and it’s also our call to feed the hungry, but that doesn’t mean ANY means of doing so is justified. Forcing food down their throats, for example, would not meet this goal in my view, yet it can be argued that IS feeding the hungry.
Likewise with this health care bill. Making a bill that provides distributed (not universal) health care that is so expensive it causes massive unemployment and a huge monetary burden on people is not good sense and not smart Catholicism
in my opinion because it has the potential to do more harm in another area the Church sees as a basic right, that is, the right of people to earn a living and support their families. You can’t do that unemployed.
Right now our nation has, at largest estimate, some 39 million uninsured. That out of about 300 million. So one in ten, roughly, do not have health insurance of some form. The estimated cost for the government to just simply BUY all those people an insurance policy is about 370 billion dollars. So… please explain why it’s a good idea to spend 1.6 trillion (and that’s just for the first 10 years), totally revamp the entire health care industry making it all but impossible to make a profit, causing massive business restructuring (layoffs, downsizing) if not putting them out of business altogether.
Why not just spend the same amount we would allocate for one year’s operations in Afghanistan and simply buy all the uninsured insurance? Then we meet the Church’s ideal of health care for all, as we all would have insurance and it only costs us the same as one year of war, without any of the unemployment fallout.
This bill is not about just giving health care to all, its about imposing a socialistic ideal on people who don’t want a socialistic form of government. It’s about stripping profit from companies and doctors and anyone else who makes a good living out of some Lenninistic notion that those who work hard and take risks should benefit no more from their efforts than the fellow who sits on his duff demanding he be given a slice of pie.
There is a reason people with the wealth to do so come to the US for their medical care. You don’t see Saudi Princes running to Canada and England for their bypass surgeries, do you? Why do you suppose that is? It’s because the quality of the care flourishes in an environment where people can invent a new widget or procedure, investing lots of their cash and time to perfect it, then make a profit. You remove that incentive and there is no reason for anyone to take that kind of risk. If the government mandated that Apple sell the I-Phone for no more than $50, they would never have made one, and the same will be true of medical innovations if we turn our system into a bloated, inefficient, uncompassionate, rationed, bureaucracy.
Perhaps if Catholics properly gave of their treasure…
Our local Catholic hospital, who is constantly claiming there are no funds available to provide indigent care, has just purchased millions of dollars of real estate and is building two new multi-hundreds-of-millions hospitals (sections of the same main hospital). They also build an enormous medical office facility for doctor’s offices and such. Sorry, but I find it very hard to believe they can’t stitch up a few cuts and provide some xrays and medications, inoculations and such without charities handing them money. I know some of the people who run this place and I know the kind of bonuses they get paid to keep cost low, and some are 4 or 5 times what I make in a year.
Where is the UCCB calling for fairness in that kind of operation from a place that has “Catholic” carved in the sign outside? The silence seems deafening when it comes to something that close to home, home being those who authorize that word Catholic being on the sign.