Jeffrey Miller

Support Our Aging Religious will award the 2009 Elizabeth Ann Seton Award to Cokie and Steve Roberts. No surprise, more honoring of pro-abortion advocates. [reference]

My opposition to the health care plan currently under consideration goes way beyond whether it funds abortion or not. Even if it passed with explicit language against funding of abortion I would still oppose it. Simply because it would be modified some point later on to fund it. Though the whole idea is inherently flawed. Jimmy Akin perfectly expresses my thoughts on this:

Any reasoned look at what is being proposed will lead to the conclusion that the long term effects of the program will be to increase costs (something bureaucracy does exceedingly well), increase taxes, lead to greater deficits, lead to health care rationing, drive private insurance out of the market, promote euthanasia, lead to more nanny state interventions in people’s lives, promote greater dependency on government, stifle the development of new medical treatments (just when we’re getting to the point that we might start seriously extending the human life), and basically kill a lot of people, both here in the U.S. and in other countries, which have been relying on American innovation since their own socialized medical systems put the squeeze on domestic innovation.
Why would anyone want that?

Name a big government program where the money spent was the same as what was forecasted? Normally they go three to ten times the fictional cost. But even worse the more the government gets involved in an area, the more they control it.

Manassas, Va. – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has ruled that a small Catholic college must include coverage for artificial contraceptives in its employee health insurance plan, raising new concerns about the need for conscience protections and religious exemptions in America’s health care policies.
The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) today sent a letter to EEOC acting chairman Stuart Ishimaru, noting that “it is ironic that the federal agency responsible for protecting against discrimination has so blatantly engaged in an inexcusable violation of religious liberty in its Belmont Abbey ruling.”
CNS also is sending a letter to all Catholic bishops in the United States, informing them of the EEOC action against Belmont Abbey College and highlighting the dangerous precedent this ruling sets to force Catholic employers to included contraceptive coverage in employee health plans.
“No Catholic college or other institution should be required by government to violate the Catholic Church’s clear moral teachings,” said Patrick J. Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “The apparently increasing insensitivity to religious beliefs should frighten all employers and employees. We urge religious leaders to stand in defense of Belmont Abbey College.”

This is the common practice of the government. They make up phony rights and force everyone to go along with them. Catholic Charities in California was forced to do the same thing in a case that went up to their Supreme Court. States again and again have trampled on the right of conscience for medical workers and pharmacists. The same knife that they have used to force contraception coverage is the same one they will use for abortion coverage. They will call it equality while denying the equality of the human person in the womb.

I find it so naive of the Catholic groups that support nationalized medicine. Can they really think that a President who supported infanticide and makes Special Olympics jokes along with a House containing politicians who deny the humanity of the unborn child are going to provide legislation that will be morally grounded. That these same Culture of Death supporters will ensure that boards dealing with the end of life are going to make moral decisions? This is either ignorance or a cooperation with the evils that will occur on some level. There is also a question of some of these Catholic advocates and the tie to federal money they will receive. On a coming “The World Over Live” Raymond Arroyo will be interviewing Catholic Health Association President Sister Carol. This trade organization has been very supportive of Obamacare and this should supply an interesting discussion considering come of Raymond’s criticisms recently.

This isn’t a Democrat/Republican divide. I totally oppose nationalized healthcare by any party. Romneycare in Massachusetts is just as much of a disaster as Obamacare. The only real difference between the two is that a national program harms the whole country. The problem is inherent in the idea, not the good will of the people who propose it. The road to deadly health care is paved with good intentions.

The Good Samaritan helped to provide medical care directly. He did not run back and tell the government there was a man on the road needing care. As Catholics we need to be personally involved in being a part of society in helping to provide health care instead of outsourcing our responsibility to the government.

What would you rather be seen as? As someone made in the image and likeness of God or as a line item in a spreadsheet on medical costs.

But opponents say the legislation introduced in Oregon – the first state in America to allow doctor-assisted suicide – simply does not work. And it’s not just the experience of lumberjack Mr Prueitt that supports their argument.
They point to the fact that although the rules require those handed the lethal prescriptions to have a life expectancy of only six months, some who subsequently decide not to kill themselves have gone on to survive for a year-and-a-half more. Or even longer.
Critics warn that because many doctors refuse to participate, patients end up shopping around for the handful of physicians willing to prescribe.
It makes it all the more likely the person who is writing the prescription will neither know the patient nor provide an impartial assessment of them.
It is also said that those suffering from depression, a condition that can impair decision-making, are rarely excluded from the process as they should be.
Baroness Finlay has raised concerns about a system such as that in Oregon
But perhaps most worrying of all, say critics, is the trend for other treatment to be denied to those who are terminally ill. Instead of being given the medicines that might prolong their lives, they are being offered £30 to cover the cost of drugs that will end their days in a matter of hours.

The one thing the government is actually efficient at is increasing the number of people to kill. Can’t wait till nationalized medicine so we can really crank up the number of people to kill.

Too bad as Wesley J. Smith notes it takes a foreign newspaper to do a long article on the problems with the Oregon plan.