A few days ago Sr. Mary Ann Walsh at the USCCB Blog posted this:
Friday, March 9, 2012
Amish, Ok. Catholics, No.The Amish are exempt from the entire health care reform law. So are members of Medi-Share, a program of Christian Care Ministry. Yet, when the Catholic Church asks for a religious exemption from just one regulation issued under the law – the mandate that all employers, including religious institutions, must pay for sterilization and contraceptives, including abortion-inducing drugs – the Administration balks.
[…]
Why?
The President sees the Catholic Church as a threat. The Catholic Church is an obstacle to his money-saving-through-baby-reducing agenda. Doubt that? It is an obstacle to his plan for the state to grab control of vast swatches of the economy and social institutions which help people.
The President is part of a political party which has entirely embraced the culture of death. When you have given yourself to that agenda, you know that you must stop the Catholic Church. You must undermine, hurt it, hamstring it, extirpate it, drive it root and branch from the public square. You must attack the Church and her faithful members even while courting her quislings. You must obfuscate and fog and distort and lie and divide.
We must not now let up. We have to keep the pressure on the Administration while sticking with the bishops in defense of not just the teachings of the Church and the dictates of reason even without the aid of revelation, but the fundamental rights of Americans under the 1st Amendment. We have to make it clear to as many people as possible that if the President won’t uphold the Constitution, we who are both faithful Catholics and also good American citizens will defend it.
Pres. Obama is just the beginning.
Don’t let up and don’t get comfortable.
Loading ...
I think we should continue to make this about freedom and the first ammendment, not about the Amish. Their exemption isn’t that notable when you consider they never buy insurance, never sue anyone in court, never file for social services or Medicaid. They live entirely on the sustanence of God and their own hands. I think it would be good for us all to do likewise. End all government social service programs. Then you can compare yourselves to the Amish.
There are at least two real possibilities of ending this assault on religious freedom. The first possibility will occur later this month when SCOTUS hears arguments on the constitutionality of the mandate under ObamaCare. On that one, I am concerned that it is likley the Court will find the ObamaCare mandate to buy in satisfies the commerce clause under its previous jurisprudence. The second possibility occurs in November, when voters will have a chance to vote in a new president who can un-do the HHS mandate and dismantle much of ObamaCare through executive orders. There is a third possibility, just now bubbling up in the system, via the lawsuits of various institutions challenging the constitutionality of the HHS mandate.
How many Amish are there in the United States compared with Catholics? How many Amish hospitals are there? How many Amish colleges and universities are there? The Catholic Church is indeed a threat to POTUS and his crew. And, the threat is gathering some momentum. Plus, the Amish are by faith pacifists. We are the Church Militant.
Why? I think because the Amish and Medishare are relatively small groups compared to the Catholic Church. Giving the Catholic Church an exception might open the crack too much and then the whole Obamacare scheme would come tumbling down. Giving a few small groups an exception is a PR move designed to give the illusion of being reasonable.
Ann Asher: “They (the Amish) live entirely on the sustenance of God and their own hands. I think it would be good for us all to do likewise”
And run a brutal Amish puppy mill? These nightmarish facilities (over 260 licensed and who knows how many unlicensed in Lancaster Co. alone) are a great source of Amish ‘sustenance’. The hypocritical use of their ‘image’ to sell everything and anything to tourists and over the internet, hiring drivers to chauffeur them around, getting the county to put pay phones along country roads etc. etc. The followers of the heretic Menno are sinking into corruption, much of it inherent in their doctrinal flaws.
From various online sources, each from its own sect:
Christian Scientists: <100,000
Amish: about 165,000 in 2000
But I agree that this is not about the size of various sects, whether they are included or excluded. This is entirely about constitutional rights. The Constitution does not confer rights on citizens; it confers limited rights on government. The Constitution is very clear in the 10th amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Nowhere in the delegated powers is it possible to find a right of the government to force citizens to purchase anything. The 1st amendment objection is fine, as well, but we should be hammering our elected representatives on both fronts. Often.
Just as Saul Alinsky knew that organizing communities through Catholic parishes would advance his goal of political power through “social justice”, the machine behind the election of Obama knew that emphasizing “the needs of the poor” over the evil of abortion would garner Catholic votes in 2008. With all the so-called catholic administration members and “nuns-gone-wild” Obamacare passed with the blessing of American bishops under the USCCB because of concern for the poor and “immigrants”. So now we see that the Catholic Church is only one among many sacrificed for the greater good–total control of America through nullification of Congress and destruction of the Constitution. Time for us to defend the True Faith and encourage our bishops to demand repeal of the ENTIRE Obamacare law. No compromises.
Let us not forget the role of the bishops’ in all this. Beginning in the 1970’s they allowed “catholic” politicians to ignore Catholic teaching without penalty.
Why then should non-Catholic politicians care about Catholic social teaching – particularly when the “Catholic vote” has essentially evaporated.
I don’t blame politicians for being politicians. I blame bishops for not being shepherds.
So far no bishop has displayed particularly heroic behavior in this matter. We’ll see how much God requires of them – and how much faith and courage they actually have.
Charles
As the late Msgr. William Smith of the Archdiocese of New York and Saint Joseph’s seminary in Yonkers (Dunwoodie) used to say, “all social engineering is preceded by verbal engineering.” This usually goes on for a very long time until everyone believes the lie. And that is exactly what Obama and his cohorts are superb at doing. Word-smithing their agenda of killing babies to make it sound sooooooooo innocuous. Makes me want to puke!
Obama refuses to compromise or hold meaningful discussions (what ever these might be) with Timothy Cardinal Dolan. I believe we should be done with this the man and his agenda. Obamacare is now estimated to cost almost twice as mush over 10 years than originally “promised” How many seniors, sick infants and the handicapped will 0bama kill to keep the cost from becoming $$ 3.52 tillion over 10 years?
Father Z – “The President sees the as a threat. The Catholic Church is an obstacle to his money-saving-through-baby-reducing agenda.”
With all due respect, Father, I don’t agree with your conclusions. President Obama suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder and consolidating his power. I believe that he is much more interested in energizing his base before the elections than he is concerned about the Catholic Church. Very few things excite/energize the base of the Left than conflicts with the Catholic Church (just look at the comments on the YouTube video – I Have a Say: Father John Hollowell). The base can now be excited about their “crusade” against the evil religious men telling women what to do with their bodies. This is much more likely to raise money & get out the vote, especially if the base only had the state of our economy to only defend (quite dispiriting).
Again, with all due respect, I don’t believe the President or any member of his administration, with the possible exception of Joe Biden, view the Catholic Church as a threat. [You can be a narcissist and also see the Church as a threat at the same time.]
POTUS being a liberal Black theology follower [Let us never forget that.] and a socialist, if not a Marxist, hates the Church, period. As the great Solzhenitsyn said when he visited America:”I would like to call upon America to be more careful with its trust and prevent those wise persons who are attempting to establish even finer degrees of justice and even finer legal shades of equality – some because of their distorted outlook, others because of short-sightedness and still others out of self-interest – from falsely using the struggle for peace and for social justice to lead you down a false road. Because they are trying to weaken you; they are trying to disarm your strong and magnificent country in the face of this fearful threat – one which has never been seen before in the history of the world.”
The Alinskyites have won the day and Texana above noted this as well. I shall talk about communism and Obama until people really see what is going on..the complete dismantling of the Constitution, starting with the Church.
This is a war the left has been waging against religion since the left was born in the French Revolution. It was Diderot who “proposed to his fellow revolutionaries that they strangle the last priest with the “guts of the last king.”‘ The left’s goal, to drive religion from the public square, has been one of the easiest to document of all historical facts down through the present day. They are on the cusp of a major advancement of their goals in the U.S. They have already largely succeeded in Europe.
I agree with Father Z – this is a line in the sand moment for the faithful in America. It is a line in the sand both as to religion and the 1st Amendment.
It’s not just about life issues. It’s economic power.
The Church runs social charities, schools, universities and hospitals. The government (collectively, governments) runs social service agencies, schools, universities, and hospitals.
The Catholic Church is in direct and substantial competition with the government. What do you think Pepsi would do if it had the power to write laws to make Coke illegal? How do you think Toyota is feeling now that GM can write import legislation?
The president does view the Catholic Church as a threat. As is clear, his administration, Hillary and much of the left are globalists and more interested in the concerns of the future of One World Governance than they are about America. They need to limit the population not just in America, but worldwide, which is why they’re using American financial aid to bribe poorer countries to adopt immorality and murder. The One world government demands there be less people around the world to manage, more resources for the privileged, the survival of only the most healthy and fit to contribute to the economy and be worth the cost of keeping alive; and the other goal, the establishment of the One World Anti-Christ religion to end all religions and therefore they think all conflict. They will eliminate all opposition for the sake of their utopia.
The largest opposition and the one that stands against all of their ideological goals is the Catholic Church which has been singled out. Obama is not just some narcissist. He’s following the globalist communist agenda to a ‘T.’ The American government has been hijacked and is now following the whim of a global elite. This is why the Obama administration puts the concerns of the UN about going to war above that of the decisions of the US Congress and despite what the US wants, which is treason and grounds for impeachment. But he and others won’t suffer this for the same reason many Catholic bishops do not excommunicate or discipline heretics and apostates. Because no one wants to rock that boat even when there’s someone on board intending on sinking it. As goes the Church, so goes the world. When the Church is corrupt, the world is corrupt. When the Church is weak, the world is weak. When the Church deemphasizes its own teachings, the world deemphasizes Christ and morality. When the Church returns to the glory it once was, strong and uncompromising and evangelistic, the world too will fall in line.
wmeyer,
I think it’s quite possible that this whole move was designed to change the issue from “the federal government has no right whatsoever to force a citizen to make a purchase as a condition of existing” to “Catholics judge you for using birth control, you need to hate them and we’ll help you do that.”
In my circles, that’s not working. That first issue is too much before peoples’ eyes. But my circles are small, outlying ones. . .
Pingback: Stones Cry Out - If they keep silent… » Things Heard: e212v3
Obama thought he had the bishops “in his pocket” and past history beared that out.
Fr Z linked to Paul A. Rahe’s article a while back. One paragraph says it all.
http://ricochet.com/main-feed/American-Catholicism-s-Pact-With-the-Devil
… At every turn in American politics since that time, you will find the hierarchy assisting the Democratic Party and promoting the growth of the administrative entitlements state. At no point have its members evidenced any concern for sustaining limited government and protecting the rights of individuals. It did not cross the minds of these prelates that the liberty of conscience which they had grown to cherish is part of a larger package – that the paternalistic state, which recognizes no legitimate limits on its power and scope, that they had embraced would someday turn on the Church and seek to dictate whom it chose to teach its doctrines and how, more generally, it would conduct its affairs. …
So, who all is planning to go out to one of the nationwide protests at noon on March 23rd? I will be at the San Fran location, with a few of my kids, and hopefully a carpool of homeschoolers.
Side note: I wrote a thank you note (actual, hand-written note on stationery, can’t remember the last time I did that!) to my bishop a few weeks ago for his statement on the HHS Mandate, and was pleasantly surprised to get a note back from him in return yesterday. I didn’t necessarily get the impression he had received a flood of positive, supportive mail from his flock…
@15yankees,
You write
I would humbly and respectfully disagree with your assessment. Archbishop Broglio (Archdiocese for the Military Services) took immediate action to ensure the reading from the pulpit of a letter opposing the contraceptive mandate, and did so in the face of an unconstitutional directive from the U.S. Army Chief of Chaplains prohibiting its reading. You can read about it in a variety of online news articles, including in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Pax et bonum,
Keith Töpfer
0bama has upped the ante….Rush reports that an abortion mandate was issued yesterday by HHS. a separate $1.oo premium will be charged and collected from everyone. http://www.lifenews.com/2012/03/12/obama-admin-finalizes-rules-1-abortions-in-obamacare/ I will NEVER pay this mandate.
It comes down to money. Catholic institutions accept Federal money. Amish don’t. It doesn’t matter that the Amish don’t have the institutions; it’s the fact that we take Federal money.
No Catholic institution at any level of education or health care should accept federal or state or even city money. This is why we need perfectly independent schools, for example, such as those on the NAPCIS website.
The HHS mandate represents an overstep on the Obama administration’s part, whether or not the Catholic Church or any other religious body has ever participated in federal programs to provide covered health services, or has acted as a state or federal contractor to provide housing, job training, adoption, foster care, or other services to those in need.
If I as a Catholic bought a dry-cleaning or a dog-grooming chain , I as a Catholic would be forced by the present mandate to pay for or to provide abortifacient drugs to my employees.
And there is no realistic option to refuse. If I refused, I would be fined until I went bankrupt and out of business. My business would be ruined, and financially my life would be finished.
Dry cleaning. Dog grooming. Cutting hair. Cutting lawns. All Catholic-owned businesses without federal funding.
That’s what the mandate means.
If, in order to stay out of bankruptcy court and still put food on my family’s table and a roof over my head, under duress, I caved in to the requirments of that Tyrant in the White House, you had better believe that I would hold a mandatory weekly meeting for all employees at which I would present and discuss all the health risks associated with abortion and oral contraception which the mainstream media won’t talk about, and would also inform all my employees, male and female, that Catholics who commit contraception and abortion risk going to hell.
If what kellyb reports above (and what it says on Lifesite news) is true, and I don’t doubt it, we’re paying not only for contraception and abortifacient drugs, we… the Catholic taxpayer… are going to pay for our employees’ “elective abortions” now too. $1 per person, nobody gets an exemption. Talk about rubbing our noses in it! I wouldn’t believe that man in the White House if he said it was Wednesday.
As to Catholic institutions receiving Federal money, consider that if Catholic hospitals elect not to receive Federal funds, it means no MedicAid, MediCare, nor any other federal “insurance” program. How then, are these hospitals to care for the elderly and indigent? Charity is a fine thing, but if the hospitals decline to accept Federal funds, I put it to you that the scope of services offered must be adjusted. The alternative is for Catholic citizens, being deprived of their treasure to pay for Federal programs–including MediCare and MedicAid–must also shoulder the burden of keeping Catholic hospitals open.
How then, are these hospitals to care for the elderly and indigent?
Exactly. The pro-abortion Left has been gunning for Catholic hospitals for years. Because they won’t perform abortions. The pro-abortion Left operates like a gang; everyone has to be in up to their neck; everyone’s hands must be dirty. They won’t tolerate a segment of health care operations that don’t target the innocent, as they wish to; they turn their eyes of destruction now upon that very segment – Catholic hospitals.
It may well be that the best we Catholics will be able to come up with will be rouge, underground, back-alley free clinics staffed by volunteer physicians and nurses and others to assist the poor and indigent as best we can without any kind of financial backing except charitable contributions! Back alley health care is coming, thanks to Obama.
wmeyer, I agree with you one-hundred percent. In ancient days, the Catholics supported these institutions without government money and people on the whole were poorer but more generous. All the money given to the old orders which ran the hospitals was private money, at least in the beginnings of such.
Some Catholic orders refused to keep their hospitals open, especially those with ObGyn services, when Roe v. Wade started to be enforced by some hospital boards. I know at least two hospitals in the Midwest which closed the baby departments rather than compromise on abortion and contraception. In some states, this has not yet happened, but now, there will be no choice.
Whether Obama sees the Church as a threat is perhaps a matter of parsing words. What is completely certain is that Obama and his followers see the Church as an obstacle to be overcome. It remains to be seen whether they have underestimated the strength and determination of American Catholics. In my parish, I fear they have not.
To fail to see that Obama and the Church are enemies, with no common ground, is a failure of reason, and a catastrophic one. Delusion is a huge danger in the coming election, whether it comes from within, or from the influence of the Evil One.
I will repeat to my dying breath: In any compromise between good and evil, evil wins.
Father Z, can I add this horrible example of narcissistic egotism and possible Mao-envy here? Add this to your excellent collection above. We are in trouble….http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/vets-angry-over-american-flag-featuring-obama/nLR5Q/#comments
Question to any lawyer: Does the granting of an exemption to any law have any influence on the court’s decision to decide the Constitutionality of that law?
I think Marion’s point is a very important one, and can be expanded. What if I’m not Catholic, but don’t want my small business’s money going to pay for a service I find wrong? I wonder what would happen if a population-fearing atheist owned a dry cleaner and wanted to buy insurance for his employees that excluded prenatal, maternity, or birth. Are there any laws that preclude that?
As for accepting federal funds, it would take revolutionary thought to dump it, but it could be done. Some Catholic clinics have tried to move back to a “pay as you go” system for routine and small medical care, we have a local after-hours clinic that, if you are uninsured, will charge a flat $150 for all services at that visit. It pays off, because they don’t have to mess with insurance. Medicare really makes out of the box thinking hard on this one, but I think if the Church took a chance it could be done. Fifty years ago, no one thought the poor and elderly would go without care if the government didn’t pay, this new way of thinking is by no means the only possibility.
Digby understood in the mid-19th century:
” What is it which renders the institutions of Catholicism, as they existed in the Age of Faith, so odious to the moderns, that the whole bent of their mind is now to sweep them from the earth? It is their own want of a fixed and decided will. This want alone renders hateful to them the monastic rule, the discipline of holy orders and the inviolable character of the marriage state. Reeds shaken by every wind, they fear the immutability which belong essentially to whatever is Catholic.”
– Kenelm Digby MORES CATHOLICI
Catholics needs to be ever reminded that funds the Federal government distributes are not earned by the government. They were earned by citizens, nearly 25% Catholic, and confiscated by the government. Catholic groups and organization are due (morally if not legally) some share in the funds confiscated from them.
We acquiesced in the past on the K-12 education of our children. We pay maybe 25% of the cost of K-12 education but receive practically nothing. Our bishops seem unconcerned about the gross unfairness of that situation. They consistently promote the growth of the administrative entitlements state with little regard for “the rank and file.”
LisaP: An interesting measure of the cost/benefit of insurance is seen in my chiropractor’s approach. He will provide treatment to an uninsured patient for $30; as an insured patient, my co-pay is $40. Now granted, my co-pay is based on my choice to purchase insurance which is really insurance (great coverage for major medical, very little for other things), but even so…. Also, I know that under my previous policy, the treatment he would have charged me $30 for as an uninsured patient, he billed to my carrier at $130. Nothing unethical in that; as an uninsured patient, I gave either cash or a credit card. Either way, no delay in his receiving payment, and no extraordinary paperwork. Having been a developer on a small practice medical insurance software tool, I can tell you that the paperwork for the carrier is insane. And the cost of a software package to print or transmit the necessary forms is high.
Absolutely.
Medical billing is entirely irrational. If you are uninsured, you will be billed twice the “negotiated rate” the insurance company is billed for insured patients. Because that cost is insane, no one is expected to pay it. So (particularly if you let it sit) you can negotiate it down. I know someone who took I believe over $10,000 in bills and negotiated it down under $500 on the premise that you can’t get blood from a turnip. The waste and incompetency is incredible if you actually see the bills and do the math, I catch error on at least 30% of our bills (we’re also on a “real” insurance plan so I see everything), and I’m a math idiot. I recognize it would be an incredible risk, but if the Catholic hospitals (and schools) threw that monkey off their backs they might find themselves in a much better financial situation, in the long run.
Robtbrown asks: “Does the granting of an exemption to any law have any influence on the court’s decision to decide the Constitutionality of that law?”
My answer, with a caution that my specialty is not Constitutional law: It depends on the issue being decided, and I’m sure in some circumstances (an equal protection challenge under the 14th amendment, for example) it would have an influence. In the case of ObamaCare, I don’t think the hundreds of exemptions that the administration has handed out will matter to the issues before the court. The ObamaCare arguments before the Supreme Court will focus on 3 issues: (i) a jurisdictional issue; (ii) the constitutionality of the individual mandate; and (iii) the expansion of Medicaid. I don’t see how the exemptions granted would affect these issues, but I would be happy learn that I am wrong about this.
I think Marion’s point . . .can be expanded. What if I’m not Catholic, but don’t want my small business’s money going to pay for a service I find wrong? I wonder what would happen if a population-fearing atheist owned a dry cleaner and wanted to buy insurance for his employees that excluded prenatal, maternity, or birth. Are there any laws that preclude that?
If not, there should be.
Lisa, most medical insurance plans are set up currently to provide coverage for services and treatment that are deemed medically necessary to manage, prevent, treat, or cure a diagnosable illness, injury, or a disorder from which the patient suffers or has suffered and may foreseeably suffer again as a result.
Although pregnancy is not a disease, it is a recognized medical condition; most medical professionals would agree that to maximize the likelihood of positive and healthy outcomes for the majority of mothers and babies, at least minimal standard health care managment during pregnancy is essential to prevent and manager high blood pressure, diabetes, and other problems for the mother. And the medical community recognizes that labor and childbirth, of course, require assistance by trained professionals to reduce the likelihood of illness, disease, or death to mother and baby.
Fertility, which is treated in some women with hormonal contraceptives, is neither an injury, disorder, or disease, and the suppression of it is almost never medically necessary.
Although some elsewhere have argued that becoming pregnant and giving birth can lead to medical complications in some women’s cases, and the use of hormonal contraceptives thus spares these women these complications, most insurance programs will require a concerned patient to pay for a “might happen” scenario out of their own pocket. For example, many women have a family history of breast cancer and decide that they want their breasts removed so that they won’t have to go through what their mothers, aunts, sisters, and grandmothers went through. But without a diagnosis of at least one possibly cancerous cell, the insurance companies won’t pay for this. The prescrption or procedure has to be treating an already diagnosable condition.
Nobody says women who wish to purchase hormonal contraceptives are not free to do so. They are free to do so. Also, many people use inexpensive, over-the-counter products, as well, which don’t require a prescription. If medical insurance is going to pay for a product or a service, on hold.
Insurance plans should limit themselves to, but provide coverage for all services and treatments medically necessary to manage, prevent, treat, or cure a diagnosable illness, injury, or a disorder from which the patient suffers or has suffered and may foreseeably suffer as a result.
Hormonal contraceptives simply do not fit into this category. And Catholics have moral objections to them.
Marion, I’m sorry, I was unclear.
My analogy was not meant to make childbirth and contraception equally medical — trust me, I’m awfully sorry it came across that way. My point was that I don’t believe there are LAWS saying birth must be covered by insurance policies. Or diabetes. Or cancer. Or facelifts. I do think there are state laws that regulate, for example, that if an insurance plan is sold it must pay in full for a yearly checkup for kids, or that if an insurance plan covers maternity it must cover a certain number of days in hospital, or if it covers breast cancer it must cover reconstructive surgery, that sort of thing (to prevent exploitation on the part of the insurance companies). But I don’t think there’s any federal law saying an insurance company selling a policy must cover broken legs or measles or any specific condition. It seems to me unprecedented that federal law will require insurance policies to cover contraception.
It also seems to me that any person, no matter his or her religious convictions or lack thereof, should be free to express a moral objection to any insurance provision whatsoever if he or she is paying the premiums on the policy. I.e. in a free market economy my boss should be able to buy an insurance policy for me that excludes chiropractors if he thinks they are fraudulent. Or that excludes in vitro if he has a problem with that. Or that excludes chemotherapy, for that matter, if he believes it is somehow wrong. And then I’m free to leave his employ or buy my own insurance if I disagree. I was expanding upon your point only because I heartily agreed with it.
That’s all I meant. Sorry I wasn’t clear, I certainly agree pregnancy and birth are situations that often need medical assistance and contraception is not a medical need (in fact I believe it is medically toxic).
You’d all do well to read what the language of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act actually says. Snopes has a factual discussion:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/medical/exemptions.asp
I looked at the Snopes article. My takeaway is that the Amish “deserve” an exemption because they have historically chosen to take advantage of Social Security and other insurance programs.
This has nothing to do with why Catholics are seeking an exemption. Catholics believe that health insurance is fine; it is contraception and abortion that are objectionable. And they have nothing to do with “health”.
You do have a point, though, PostCatholic, it has begun to dawn on me that members of the Catholic Church need to ask themselves whether, had the Obama administration mandated that non-voluntary experiments on prisoners including vivisection be included in our brave new health care coverage, would the bishops be attempting to reason with the Obama administration over that? Probably not: they would be so horrified and outraged that they would realize that anyone who would mandate such crimes against humanity is beyond reasoning with.
So, it is, too, with abortion and abortifacient drugs.
There’s no reasoning and no talking to this individual. He’s Caligula. Only better-looking and alive today and in the White House.
I am sick at heart to think that some of our poor, misguided bishops and members of their staffs actually voted for this creature. God help us.
Pingback: THURSDAY EXTRA: OBAMA & THE CATHOLIC CHURCH | ThePulp.it
iI understand that there is also a provision that exempts Muslims. Big surprise, no?
You misunderstand, Cantate. Such would indeed be a big surprise.
“an abortion mandate was issued yesterday by HHS. a separate $1.oo premium will be charged and collected from everyone.”
No, no, no!! Read the actual rule carefully. The rule as currently worded does NOT require all health plans to cover abortion — it outlines HOW those that do are to charge and collect the premiums.
The rule says the charge must be “not less than” $1 per month so it could be considerably more expensive than that.
I have posted on this extensively on another thread. I am not trying to minimize the evilness of what HHS is doing but simply reminding everyone to be absolutely sure they have their facts straight before taking action.
AT THIS TIME I can find no federal rules specifically requiring ALL qualified health plans under Obamacare to cover abortion. That could always change, of course, so we do need to remain vigilant.
Pingback: “President” Cyrus; No Leader In the World is Powerful Enough to Thwart God’s Purposes or Bishop Morlino: Difficult Week? Rejoice! - Syte Reitz