During the legislative debate over ObamaCare, observant Catholics were stunned at the spectacle of Sister Carol Keehan, CEO of Catholic Health Association opposing the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the issue. The Catholic bishops accurately predicted that ObamaCare would ultimately require religious organizations to violate their own teachings in order to be in compliance. But nooooooo, said Keehan. The bishops were being irrational and engaging in fearmongering. Then came another “devout” Catholic, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sibelius who ruled that health insurance provided by Catholic organizations had to provide “reproductive health services” and suddenly Keehan found that not only was she wrong, she was clueless . Today, the Obama Administration announced that it was pressing ahead with its plan to require contraceptives, sterilization, and abortifacients to be included in all medical plans by the mechanism of having the insurance carrier provide those services for “free” regardless if the policy held by an employer covered those items. Who was first in line to affix herself to Obama’s fourth point of contact: none other than the egregiously stupid Carol Keehan. Really one shouldn’t be surprised at this. In the interview linked above, Keehan basically endorses abortion: Why did the U.S. bishops and other pro-life leaders oppose the final legislation’s approach to abortion? Many people are uncomfortable with it because it will allow more people to be in plans that cover abortion, even though no federal dollars are used. That is not a happy thought. On the other hand, it is also not a happy thought that women who are at 300 percent of the poverty level and below have abortions at four times the rate of women in any other socioeconomic group. We haven’t found ways to reach out to those women. Lest you think I am unfair to Keehan, you need only to read her objection to HHS allowing minors to buy the abortifacient “Plan B.” Back in December 2010, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix withdrew Catholic standing from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix and formally excommunicated Sister Margaret McBride for conducting at least one abortion at the hospital. Naturally, Keehan weighed in against the Bishop and the opinion of the actual doctor who advised the diocese on the matter. Again and again we are seeing this behavior by a disturbing number of Catholics who really should know better. Their romance with Obama has become their lodestar and if endorsing abortion and inviting someone who declared that killing a child who had survived an abortion was just dandy to give a commencement address at Notre Dame was what it took to get that leg tingling then so be it. These people may not yet be as vile as the kapos who led fellow prisoners to the gas chambers but they are certainly the philosophical fellow travelers of Pierre Laval and Vidkun Quisling.
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Return of the Vichy Catholics
Following on what my colleague Francis Cianfrocca writes below , the Obama Administration’s ballyhooed “compromise” on the extraordinary rule that gives the US Department of Health and Human Services the final say in how religious groups operate is actually a finger in the eye. From the White House statement : Under the new policy announced today, women will have free preventive care that includes contraceptive services no matter where she works. If a woman works for religious employers with objections to providing contraceptive services as part of its health plan, the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge. If we actually believe that in the real world TANSTAAFL is an immutable fact, who, then, is actually paying for the “free of charge” contraception and abortifacient cover. My guess is that the employer whose employees are getting the “free of charge” service is going to see their bill go up. This is not a trivial issue. This is an attack, one of several staged by this Administration , on religious freedom. One hopes that the Catholic Church and other religious groups see through this charade and continue to oppose the supplanting of conscience by federal regulations.
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Obama Administration Doubles Down On Contraception Rule
In two areas the Obama Administration has been proving itself too clever by half. It had hoped to score a double play by subsidizing “green” energy companies and forcing Catholic institutions into a once-size-fits-all contraception policy. Instead, both efforts have produced unwanted results. Almost from Inauguration Day, Obama’s Department of Energy has been giving loans and loan guarantees to solar, wind and car battery companies. Normal due diligence by a private venture capital company would have denied (and probably did) loans to several of these, but this didn’t stop the DoE. It was driven, after all, by the religion of Environmentalism, whose worshipers had given Obama so many votes in 2008 and continued to insist that Americans must be made to use less gasoline and industry must be made to use less energy to produce its goods. Today seven or so of the energy companies that received the taxpayer-funded loans are now in bankruptcy, led by Solyndra, the solar panel manufacturer, which received half-a-billion dollars. The fact that the Bush Administration had decided against a loan to Solyndra was ignored by Energy Secretary Steven Chu. Mr. Chu is a respected physicist, but has no known business experience. What business does the U.S. Government have dabbling in venture capital investments? None. Private providers are very careful in assessing risks before investing in new ventures. Even then, some don’t pan out. Most do and, in either case, it is private money at risk, not yours. Just as ideology drove the unwise energy loans, so it has driven the Department of Health and Human Services edict that Catholic-owned hospitals, schools, colleges and charities must provide free contraception devices and services (including “morning after” pills) in all employees’ health insurance policies. This is in opposition to the Catholic Church’s long-held position on contraception.
Like many leftists, President Obama has deep contempt for Christianity and democracy. This is why his administration has declared war on the Catholic Church and religious liberty. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently went ahead and approved last year’s decision to mandate that many religious organizations provide health …
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KUHNER: Obama threatens religious liberty
Since the passage of the “Affordable Care Act,” it has been some cause for concern — scandal even — that several businesses have been granted waivers that excuse them from participating in the federal program. And now we have a final number of how many businesses are exempt from participation. Roughly 1,200 companies received waivers from part of the healthcare reform law, the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) said Friday. “One for you, and one for you, and one for you… ” “Friday marks the last time HHS will have to update the total number of waivers, putting to rest a recurring political firestorm. The department had been updating its waiver totals every month, prompting monthly attacks from the GOP,” writes Sam Baker of The Hill . Naturally, Republican opposition to the bill seized on the granting of these waivers as an opportunity to further their argument that the healthcare law is “unworkable.” So how does the HHS justify handing the waivers? The department argues that the waivers show the law provides “flexibility.” But who gets to choose when the law is “flexible” is anyone’s guess. “All told, 1,231 companies applied for and received waivers from the law’s restrictions on annual benefit caps,” Baker writes. “The law requires plans to gradually raise their benefit limits, and all annual limits will become illegal in 2014. Companies that received waivers can keep their caps intact until 2014.” When added together, the healthcare waivers excuse about 4 million people, or about 3 percent of the population, from having to participate, HHS said. But what’s even more unsettling is the fact that the majority of the granted waivers were handed out to labor unions. “Documents released in a classic Friday afternoon news dump show that labor unions representing 543,812 workers received waivers from President Barack Obama ‘s signature legislation,” writes Paul Conner of the Daily Caller . “By contrast, private employers with a total of 69,813 employees, many of whom work for small businesses, were granted waivers.” Because of the backlash over the waivers, HHS announced last summer that it would stop accepting applications for one-year waivers and would simply grant or deny waivers all the way through the end of 2013, according to The Hill . The total of 1,231 includes all of the waiver requests HHS granted — companies that only applied for a three-year waiver, companies that got a one-year waiver and an extension, and companies that received a one-year waiver but did not ask for an extension. A total of 96 waiver requests were denied by HHS. Again, why the healthcare law couldn’t be flexible for those 96 requests is anyone’s guess. “The final total is actually lower than the last monthly update. Earlier in the process, HHS had been granting waivers to a type of plan that it later decided should be completely exempt from the restrictions on annual limits,” Baker writes. “HHS had granted waivers to almost 500 of those plans before exempting them altogether.” (h/t Weasel Zippers ) Excerpt from: How Many Businesses Are Exempt? The Final Number of ‘Obamacare’ Waivers Is In…
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How Many Businesses Are Exempt? The Final Number of ‘Obamacare’ Waivers Is In…
