As President Obama presses for Congressional action on a sweeping health-care proposal that would include funding for abortion, the president of Catholic Charities USA has written to legislators urging them to “make comprehensive health care reform a top priority,” without mentioning the heated debate over abortion coverage.
In his July 22 letter, Father Larry Snyder does not specifically mention the Obama health-care proposal. And he does remind lawmakers that a Catholic approach to health care would “address health needs at all stages of life, from conception to natural death.” But the thrust of his letter is clearly favorable to the Obama proposal. And a time when pro-life organizations are working diligently to strip abortion funding from the initiative, Father Snyder does not address that concern.
“Catholic social teaching affirms that health care is a fundamental issue of human life and dignity,” writes the head of Catholic Charities USA. He urges Congress to implement legislation that will “expand and strengthen Medicaid…cap out of pocket costs… address health disparities.” Father Synder emphasizes the need for reform that will offer protection to those who are most vulnerable, provide help for populations currently underserved by health-care agencies, ensure coverage for racial minorities, extend protection to all legal immigrants, and emphasize prevention.[reference]
Catholic Charities and the USCCB need to go to Damascus to do something about their blindness to what Obamacare portends. At least the USCCB has finally objected to the funding of abortion in the current bill, but still they see the whole project as a positive goal.
Father Snyders’ mention of Catholic teaching of course does not address that it does not teach that it must be at the national level. I see nothing but danger along this path. The government has already forced multiple mandates such as contraceptive coverage with no conscience clause allowed for groups such as Catholic Charities. The Culture of Death will continue to use government force to force medical institutions along the path of their “enlightened” mind under the we are a secular society excuse.
To look at nationalized healthcare in general we can see that it tends towards allowing funding for abortion. Malta is an exemption to this rule, but a small country actually causes subsidiarity to some extent. Bureaucratic health care such as so-called Obamacare moves life and death decision to a committee. Now committees have been known to bore people to death, so I guess they want to expand this. Though of course this whole debate is of a prudential nature, but I think subsidiarity is an important principle in Catholic thought and I don’t see how moving this to the Federal level follows this.
The bill itself for those who actually read it only leads to concern. As Karen Hall points out – The Devil is in the details
People constantly complain about customer service at some big cooperation. Yet think that socialized (bureaucratic medicine) is the answer to the problem. They complain about the cost of medical insurance, yet ignore that it was the government through its insurance mandates that helped to raise the price of the policy in the first place.
This whole bill should be called stealth care since it is to get the nose of the camel under the tent in the first place. Once that happens we will see just how long private insurance and being able to pick your own care will remain. Just how long will Catholic health care be able to advertise their “Gospel Values” on their web site and have it mean anything?
I also don’t understand the whole thing of why Federalizing something makes it better. It never makes anything more efficiently and always does it most costly. People are like Bullwinkle thinking that eventually something right will come out of the Federal hat. While in the military I once found that we were paying $500 dollars for a single externally relieved screw we used to secure the top of an avionics black box. After filing a fraud, waste, and abuse claim it came down to something like just over a buck for a hundred of them. But we will get federal health care right – right?
