Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Did Catholic Bishops REALLY Support Obamacare?

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on remarks recently made by columnist George Will and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney:
On Sunday, George Will said the following: “The Catholic bishops, it serves them right. They’re the ones who were really hot for Obamacare, with few exceptions. But they were all in favor of this.”
Yesterday, Jay Carney said: “And I would simply note with regard to the bishops that they never supported healthcare reform to begin with.”
Both men are factually wrong.
Jay Carney needs a history lesson. No institution in American society has supported universal healthcare longer than the Catholic Church; they’ve been pushing for healthcare reform since Carney was riding a tricycle. The first Catholic hospitals in the United States were founded by the Ursuline Sisters in the early eighteenth century—long before the American Revolution—and they served everyone, regardless of their ability to pay. Indeed, the first Catholic hospitals in history were founded in the fourth century, and from the very beginning they served non-Catholics, such as pagans.
George Will cannot name a single bishop—not one—who backed Obamacare. On February 27, 2009, just a month after he was inaugurated, President Obama undid a Bush administration rule granting conscience rights to healthcare employees who refuse to take part in abortions. It was that kind of decision that eventually led the bishops to oppose Obamacare.
The bishops have long championed universal healthcare as an American right. It’s just that their idea of caring for people doesn’t include killing some of them.

3 comments:

steve klein said...

I remember discussing this at length with my Catholic neighbor back in 2009 - 2010. I pleaded with her, "Why are the bishops working with the Democrats toward the successful implementation of Obamacare?" Like you, she said the church supports universal healthcare. They believe in helping the poor, etc.

How can you now say they did not support it. They did support it only with an exemption on abortion which as it turns out was meaningless. This is the bitter fruit of bedding evil and that is what these bishops did.

Why does this church have a history of doing business with totalitarians like Obama and the Democrats? You say, "No institution in American society has supported universal healthcare longer than the Catholic Church..." How does the Catholic Church reconcile their support for this bad policy based on the teachings in the Bible? Were Moses and Jesus Marxists? Did they teach the confiscation and redistribution of wealth and property by the government? How did we come to this wickedness in supporting totalitarians and tyrants by church leaders?

Why don't you learn the bitter lessons of history?

Joe said...

Catholic Bishops were naïve to support Obamacare in the first place. The abortion / contraception mandate should not have taken them by surprise. Did they really think that they would be exempt? Did they really think that they could make a deal with the devil? Their liberalism - aka trying to be compassionate with other peoples money (taxpayer)- bit them in the back side. Maybe they will wake up before November. Amazingly, they still want Obamacare – they just want to be exempt from providing abortion and contraception. In other words, they want to be “just a little bit pregnant”. Sorry. It does not work that way.

Some say Catholic charities and hospitals will go out of business before they will pay to have a child murdered. I suspect that many will – which is exactly what Obama wants - to make everyone dependent on the government. Statists despise private charity. The Catholics played right into his hands. Statists and Muslims always lie to get their way. Obama is both. If Catholic Bishops cannot recognize evil when it stares them in the face – maybe they are in the wrong business.

Anonymous said...

Sorry Dan...

To the consternation of many Catholics, George Will is correct.

http://old.usccb.org/healthcare/HC-Letter-to-Congress-012610.pdf