Pres. Obama lied to Card. Dolan. Don’t forget that.
Time and time again the White House makes sounds using words that, to reasonable, rational speakers of the English language mean one thing, but actually mean something else.
Again, I come back to the famous phrase of Mary McCarthy, adapted for the circumstances:
“Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.'”
Look what his Administration is doing now and, for you liberals who read this blog because some part of you is still sane, contemplate the President’s blather about finding common ground.
The President’s stance ought to be familiar to liberals: “You are free… to agree with me!”
From LifeNews.
Obamacare $1 Abortion Payment Surcharge Upsets Pro-Lifers
Leading pro-life organizations are upset by the news that the Obama administration has issued the final rules on abortion funding governing the controversial health care law allowing for a $1 abortion insurance payment surcharge. [Get that?]
As LifeNews initially reported, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued a final rule regarding establishment of the state health care exchanges required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
As a knowledgeable pro-life source on Capitol Hill informed LifeNews, as authorized by Obamacare, “The final rule provides for taxpayer funding of insurance coverage that includes elective abortion” and the change to longstanding law prohibiting virtually all direct taxpayer funding of abortions (the Hyde Amendment) is accomplished through an accounting arrangement described in the Affordable Care Act and reiterated in the final rule issued today. [You, dear reader, will be forced to provide money for abortions.]
“To comply with the accounting requirement, plans will collect a $1 abortion surcharge from each premium payer,” the pro-life source informed LifeNews. “The enrollee will make two payments, $1 per month for abortion and another payment for the rest of the services covered. As described in the rule, the surcharge can only be disclosed to the enrollee at the time of enrollment. [Get that? After that the disclosure disappears from your statement?] Furthermore, insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclosing that enrollees will be charged a $1 per month fee to pay directly subsidize abortions.”
[…]
Read the rest there.
Friends.. and others… I don’t care if for the election in November 2012 you decide to support the corpse of Millard Fillmore, do not give support to Pres. Obama.
How much does it take to wake people up to what is happening?
Loading ...
OVER MY DEAD BODY.
Looks like I’ll be dropping my insurance coverage–wait, Obama made that illegal too. Looks like I’m going to jail.
November won’t change anything. The next administration won’t change anything. The game’s over. Last one off the field, please turn out the lights. Stick a fork in the US…it’s done. As is the rest of the West.
And may God have mercy on us all.
Barack Obama isn’t a tenth the president GW Bush was.
Flambeaux, if you don’t believe November could change anything whatsoever, I suggest you reconsider. The stakes are extraordinarily high, and there’s simply no way these administrative regulations will survive a Republican presidency. Say what you want about the Republicans, but there’s no way anybody who ran in the last Republican primary, or who is running in this one, would have passed a monstrosity like Obamacare and promulgated these sorts of regulations.
The indifference that says the parties are so similar that the elections literally do not matter are giving in to a completely unnecessary, and very harmful, level of despair.
Flambeaux: from the Catechism:
2091 The first commandment is also concerned with sins against hope, namely, despair and presumption:
By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God’s goodness, to his justice – for the Lord is faithful to his promises – and to his mercy.
I do believe that the U.S. is headed for a very dark time. Electing a Romney, or worse, a second term Obama, would increase the depth of the darkness we must reach before things can improve.
The founders never expected our government to last forever. They knew that freedom, whether religious or secular, is washed in blood.
Eeiiuu!
“Furthermore, insurance plans may only advertise the total cost of the premiums without disclos-
ing that enrollees will be charged $1 per month fee to pay directly (sic) subsidize abortions”.
What compelling argument can this administration come up with to justify what seems to me to
be a violation of the freedom of speech of the insurance providers? Providing valid information
about where one’s insurance premiums go is not akin to shouting “fire!” in a crowded theatre.
How can it be legal to legislate that providers be gagged and customers be denied transparency?
Supertradmum: Hard to be sure of the antecedent. ;)
Clinton: I think the compelling argument is that in a few years, it will have been forgotten by many, and can then be publicly denied. As to transparency, really? From this administration? Why change now?
Funny, one of Obamacare’s main objectives is to increase transparancy in health insurance companys, but this goes directly against their beloved transparancy.
They can have their $1 a month when they pry it from my cold dead hands!
Antecedent is pure shock at the audacity of this man……I am sick of this potentate’s grab for power.
I don’t think merely voting Obama out in November will be enough (although a pretty good first step), because even if a republican President rescinds some of the particulars of Obamacare, the next liberal President could simply reinstate them. This is what has happened with the Mexico City Policy. We need to vote a conservative in who will appoint good SCOTUS justices. We also need to overturn Obamacare which means voting out as many democrats as possible in the fall. I will be protesting on March 23rd. I will also be praying for the SCOTUS in the upcoming weeks as they prepare to look at Obamacare. Honestly, I think they are the best hope we have of restoring some sanity to the country unless we can vote out large swaths of Congress in the fall.
Supertradmum: Oh, that. Nothing he has done, nothing he has attempted, is a surprise, if only you listened to his campaign speeches. O wants this to be a People’s Republic (socialist, even communist, dictatorship), not a Republic. The Dems and the MSM have been for many years hammering the notion that we live in a democracy, not a republic. The disciples of Dewey have so deconstructed the public–and even Catholic–schools that we hear complete idiocy from the electorate. Today I heard a caller on a talk show declare that in electing O, the people trumped the Constitution. Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?
O is a tyrant, and is just getting warmed up. If he gets a second term, there will be no limits constraining him–none. Folks who imagine (in an O second term) that there will even be a 2016 election are delusional.
…and just as it is all but impossible to find a bishop to excommunicate an apostate politician, it is equally difficult to find anyone inside the Beltway who will even speak the word treason.
wmeyer, utilitarians do not know the meaning of the word treason…
What’s the big deal? It is only one dollar. Nothing! A mere gesture like offering a teeny pinch of incense to an idol.
Fr you said :How much does it take to wake people up to what is happening?
Divine providence, prayer and fasting, and the blood of martyrs. When was it ever otherwise?
Me, I’m scared stiff of martydom, always have been.
The combox has plenty of “over my dead body”. But it may be slower.
The faithful in England resisted dungeon fire andsword,and died in the tens of thousands, nay hundreds of thousands.Multiply by about a hundred for Modern USA proportions.( I mention not Ireland – the English Catholics had no foreigner to cuss)
But what really did for for most of them in most of England was when it was less dangerous, the 18th cent approx, was the impossibility of being Catholic and middle class, no schooling, no university , no jobs, continuing social opprobium, the near impossibility of opening or running your own small business, dwindling numbers, the loss of people to Canada…… you could be, like Egyptian copts, filthy rich or hand to mouth propertyless poor, nothing inbetween- or farm crap land in the sticks noone wanted- until they happened to want it, or someone noticed.
Origen’s invitation to martyrdom – the daily sort, seeing your children starve.
God bless you cousins! You show signs of showing fighting spirit, not postwarYuropean whinging.
Father, if this goes through, if the Supreme Court upholds this, are we then to drop our insurance? I am not whining- quite the opposite- I just want direction on what we are practically to do. I have emailed, written and educated and will still do so.
We know that per everything else with which the government is involved, this $1 per month fee will escalate. There will be more abortions as direct a result of ObamaCare. Does Bart Stupak feel duped yet? Did those who voted President Obama into office know they were voting for this?
This is so disgusting. It’s insulting, too. “Well they can’t object to $1…can they.” Just WATCH.
I too am really wondering what to do. Health coverage is sort of necessary, but I can’t pay for abortions…really, really, what are we to do?
mike cliffson – you have definitely hit a nerve. Sometimes it seems outright martyrdom is easier than the slow bleed. I have been praying for fortitude, that as a Catholic and a parent, I would do the right thing. Any nightmares I had as a single person pale in comparison to those that I have had as a parent. It would be much easier for me to face jail time or a firing squad than to watch my children suffer. I do think you’re right that the war on people of conscience will attempt to silence people through financial and legal measures rather than anything violent so as to prevent martyr figures for the faithful to take strength from- at least initially. As frightening as the thought of temporal sufferings and persectution for myself or my children is, though, the fear of hell beats all. If I or my children have to suffer for the faith, I pray that God will supply the strength and courage necessary. No one with children wants to go to war, but the administration has stepped over the line past which I cannot go. God give me courage!
I like chantgirl’s “over my dead body” line. Dear God, please don’t let me weasel out when it’s time to say “no”. I pray that every day.
I wondered what Bart Stupak was thinking, Facta Non Verba. And if Susan B. Anthony List is going to go after Steve Dreihaus for its legal fees.
Part of why my brother and I have announced that we will vote for Darth Vader if he is the Republican nominee.
At that time, I fully intend to stop paying anything for insurance coverage, period. Arrest me if you must, but I simply refuse. If enough people also do so (something worth praying for methinks), then maybe the collapsing insurance corporations will get the message.
It is actually possible. Most people who are healthy enough to drop their insurance coverage (including myself) are the ones paying to cover those who cannot. It shouldn’t take too large of a percentage of healthy people leaving the rolls before the insurance companies’ profits drop to some very ugly depths.
Perhaps we can find one particular provider and those who have it can drop them en masse first.
Thousands, perhaps millions of Catholics already contribute to contraception and abortion coverage through their employer-sponsored medical plans at work. I have yet to hear a priest or bishop say anything about that. (If someone knows of one, I’d love to see a link.) Why are the faithful suddenly being asked to take a stand now when this has been going on since the Nixon administration?
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
So much for the Oath of Office.
rodin: This is far from the first time O has violated his oath. I don’t think he had been in place for a day before the first instance.
Chant Girl (2:00 pm) – “vote”” is not enough.” (Yet we must.)
wmeyer (2:02 pm) PP “POTUS does not want a republic, but a socialist government.” (Is it POTUS alone or a group who wants to reduce people, and people to not reproduce? (How do we vote a group out? Other than by prayer for conversions)
supertradmom (2:10 pm) -“utilitarians don’t know the meaning of the word treason…” (Or reason.)
digdigby (2:18) – (Is the $1.00 used to reduce the population (increase of martyrs) a lesser sin than us helping to reduce the population by dying off (increase of martyrs)?)
mikecliffson (2:29) – Martyrdom is scary. (Maybe for the unborns also.)
smmclaug (1:20 pm) – To not pay for insurance means jail. (Or a fine.)
heatherPA(2:33) – “What are we to do?” (Drop Insurance, Drop Dead, Go To Jail, Pay A Fine?)
MaryJane (3:04) – Ditto above – (Sort of.)
May God and the Frs. of the Church help us in our need for direction consistent with the Church and her teaching.
Dave N…Is it because we are finally waking up? Perhaps we can thank Pres. Obama for that! And thank God also.
joan ellen: We vote out a group one at a time. All that is needed is to ensure that our neighbors, our pew-mates, understand that as Catholics, they cannot vote for Obama. We must support our priests and bishops, encouraging them to keep up the pressure, and to speak often.
Providing free nationwide access to items that promote fornication, taxing the price of $1.00 to kill innocent life, but rationing necessary medical treatment. We are in hell.
J Knott- no, not yet , Praise the Lord! Just a bogstandard Vale of Tears! What are present sufferings – which they’re only just starting- compared to the Glory to come?And even in this life,for owt we give up we’ll get back 100 to 0ne – with persecution. And all with God’s love! Who could ask for anything more? The Lord tells us to recken up the cost first, you know the King looking at the invaders acoming – it’s not hidden , take up your cross and follow me , whereas the devil hides his price, the guy’s the original conman, which is not just suffering, but anguished suffering, in this life, and being en route for eternal damnation. You’d prefer a bourgois existence to combat- yeah, so would I ! We aint gonna get our druthers.
If only this were true, you’d have an argument. As it is, you’ve relied on a partisan information source which in turn relied on an anonymous but also partisan information source.
I believe this is a misreading of PPACA, section 1303, which provides the rules under which a private insurer may offer elective coverage for abortion services. These are written into the law precisely to give guidance regarding the requirement under the Hyde Act that no Federal money is spent on elective abortion services. One provision therein is that in determining actuarial cost for the provision of such services, the provider can’t offer it for a sum less than $1 per person per month.
You can read for yourself at http://housedocs.house.gov/energycommerce/ppacacon.pdf, and you’ll find the relevant section on pages 64 et seq.
Ok folks, before you jump to any conclusions about this rule, read it carefully. Post Catholic has helpfully provided a link. These rules will be published in the Federal Register on March 27 as well.
Upon reading this rule I gather the following information:
— It does NOT require ALL qualified health plans or “QHPs” to cover abortion. It simply states how those that do cover abortion are to collect and allocate the premiums paid for that purpose.
— It does state that the abortion surcharge must be not LESS than $1 per person per month — so it could be a lot more than $1.
— It does state that the surcharge only has to be disclosed at the time of initial enrollment and that it does not have to be broken out from the total premium cost. This is, I presume, being done to keep from calling any more attention than necessary to the surcharge and what it is for. The reason probably being that the more people opt out of it, the more the surcharge is going to cost those who opt in.
— Toward the end of the rule text there is language stating that the rule does NOT trump state or federal conscience protection laws and that no one is to be discriminated against or penalized for opting out of abortion coverage. So there IS opt-out language in there — you just have to look carefully for it. A cursory reading of the rules might lead one to believe there is no opt-out provision; and chances are many people who want to opt out will be told they can’t, based on such cursory readings.
I work for an agency that reviews regulations and I can say that if this rule had come to us for review, chances are one of the first questions we would have asked is, is there an opt-out provision for abortion coverage and if there is, could the agency please be a little more clear about how a policyholder can take advantage of it? Otherwise, what’s the point of carefully segregating the funds for abortion coverage from the funds for everything else? Unclear, obfuscatory language such as is contained in this rule is what keeps lawyers busy….
I expect that there will be a bunch of lawsuits filed against these rules and that some or not all of its provisions will be struck down before it ever takes effect.
Actually, Post Catholic’s link is to the PPACA itself (the statute) rather than to the rules. To read the rule text itself, go to the link below and click on the “final rule” hyperlink, which will open a PDF file:
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/obama-health-care-rule-final-1-abortion-surcharge-from-every-premium-payer
Also, Jill Stanek’s blog at Life Site News notes that 13 states have passed laws opting out of providing abortion coverage in any state insurance exchange plan established under Obamacare. The HHS rule states that it does NOT override such laws. 7 more states have bills pending right now to opt out of abortion coverage. The states that have opt-out laws in place already are: Arizona, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia.
wmeyer–My point exactly! Hence the title “The Great Prevaricator.”
rodin: Sadly, most of the things on his agenda were among the truths he told in his campaign. They simply were not heard by those who were drinking the kool-aid.
All right, Post Catholic… I hear you, the gentle voice of reason while all us fools flee in terror from an unreal threat. But what IS this “minimum $1 per person surcharge” intended to fund actual abortions (unless state law says no or something)… what’s the point of putting PRICES for products in a law? Does the PPACA really say “ABORTION services are to be paid for” this way? AND, are you saying Life Site News and Fr. Z (and I and a lot of others) jumped at our shadows when LSN said this was something new, or they were just trying to get everybody worked up? Two questions: What’s the $1 about? and do you think this was a “cry wolf” to get attention?
Hyacinth, I don’t believe anyone is “crying wolf” or merely jumping at shadows. This rule contains new provisions, containing details that PPACA didn’t contain. This rule does contain what I believe is an intentional strategy on HHS’ part of trying to downplay the abortion surcharge and its purpose as much as possible — because the more people notice it, the more will choose to opt out of it.
That said, some people seem to have jumped to the conclusions that 1) all qualified health plans will be required to cover abortion and include a surcharge for it, and 2) that there is no way for an individual to legally opt out of this coverage. As far as I can tell from actually READING the text of the proposed rule, those last two conclusions are false, at least for now.
Bookworm, thank you for your careful reading of the situation. Frankly, though, my health insurance will already be covering abortifacients, so it hardly matters to me what method is employed in the murder of the unborn. Whether it is surgical or chemical killing does not really matter because the end result is the same. I find several things troubling here. First, the Obama administration has declared various women’s health services to be preventive care. Many states had conscience rules in place so that health care plans could opt out of providing coverage for birth control and abortifacients. Now because these things are considered preventive care, the HHS mandate nullifies these state laws (from what the administration has said). What happens if the HHS declares abortion to be preventive care? Second, many of us were enrolled in our current healthcare in years past, and the opt-out period seems to only be available in the first month that someone enrolls. What happens to people who have already enrolled? Third, if employers drop coverage for their emloyees and employees have to turn to these state insurance pools, I am worried that people will have fewer choices to avoid this sort of mandate, especially in states that do not have any opt-out laws on the books. Finally, just call me suspicious but Obama has already lied about many things, and he has also refused to uphold certain laws like the Defense of Marriage Act. What is to prevent him from ignoring the Hyde Amendment altogether, or declaring it unconstitutional? He has run roughshod over the constitution already, and I have my doubts that he will start playing by the rules now. Perhaps I am being paranoid. For now, though, I am going to make a plan B in case he is every bit as devious as he seems to be.
@PostCatholic and Bookworm:
Thank you for your posts; they were helpful and eye-opening.
That having been said, where can I get a “Fillmore 2012” bumper sticker?
I object to my money being spent in this way!… If I were spending this on my own, not mandated by the administration and the HHS Secretary, the excommunicated catholic, Kathleen Sebelius, this would be a grave matter and must be mentioned in confession as a MORTAL SIN! Where does this now leave Catholics in good conscience? I just don’t know… I just don’t know.
My dilemma and the problem all Catholics face is that assisting in the obtaining of an abortion or abortafacients for oneself or anyone else in any way is objectively a mortal sin. Mortal sin separates one from God and in the event of death in a state of mortal sin, not having received absolution from a priest through sacramental confession, and not in a state of grace, yields one consequence only, resulting in eternal life separated from the love of God… Hell. I realize I have little control over this but the question is, how responsible or culpable are Catholics with regard to this being demanded of us in this way?
Pingback: THURSDAY EXTRA: OBAMA & THE CHURCH | ThePulp.it
HyacinthClare, you’ll note I did not make an argument in favor of abortion services being covered through an insurance system. I merely suggested the facts were incorrect, and I’m grateful to bookworm for expanding them. I would hope that, as an honest and scholarly man, that Rev. Zuhlsdorf will now issue a correction.
Only problem with voting for the corpse of Millard Fillmore is that he was an anti-Catholic bigot of the first order! After his spectacularly unsuccessful presidency, he again ran — this time on the “American” (Know-Nothing) party ticket, winning one state! [And yet he would still be better than this guy, wouldn’t he! Don’t forget that he was the last Whig in office, too.]
But I take Father Z’s point! This president has gotta go.
This whole discussion started from a story tht LifeSite attributed to an anonymous source:
“As a knowledgeable pro-life source on Capitol Hill informed LifeNews, ”
Watch out for those anonymous sources!
The bill that Congress passed two years go provided that if a private insurance company chose to offer a policy that covered elective abortion – and the government was subsidizing the premium – the person who bought he policy had to pay separately for the abortion coverage so that no government money would be used for that.
The law goes into detail on how the insurance company is to calculate the premium for the abortion coverage. Whatever it is has to be paid by the person who chooses to buy a policy that includes abortion coverage. It could be more than $1 per month. The $1 is simply a minimum.
You may or may not think that is a good arrangement but it has been in the law for two years.
Looks as if LifeSite took the word of the “knowledgeable pro-life source on Capitol Hill” without researching what the law actually said.
Well…I’m glad that I’ve steered clear of all this insurance malarkey meself… I find the world to be a much simpler place when one doesn’t have to have it.
I am an employer. There are times when I had to go without to make payroll. We provide great benefits including health insurance. I’m sick in my heart to see the timeless American ideal treated as yesterday’s Raison d’etre. Look around….Obama is a product of our contemporary culture.
My conversion is coming up on Easter Vigil. I knew from the beginning that converting to Catholicism would change my life and prayed for the strength to form a good conscience and be worthy to partake of the sacraments. In spite of all of this horror going on, I want to focus on the joy it will bring to my life. I can’t wait for my first Holy Communion and hope I have what it’s going to take to fight for Our Lord during these darker days ahead.
Pingback: Father Higgins: Remember the Ashes and Top Articles of the Week | St. Peter's List