We Are All Catholics
After the 9-11 terrorist attacks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu famously said:
I am certain that I speak on behalf of my entire nation when I say: September 11th we are all Americans – in grief, as in defiance.
The Administration recently announced an ObamaCare commandment that every health plan, paid for by every employer, must provide sterilizations and contraception, including abortifacients, or drugs that induce abortion, without any co-payment, or as the naive media put it “free” to the insured employee. 
America’s Catholic Bishops are defiant, insisting that the regulation violates Church doctrine and they will not accept this application of brute, government force. They publicly refused to pay for these drugs and procedures through health plans provided to employees of Catholic hospitals, charities, schools, etc.
As Netanyahu and his people stood in defiance with Americans after 9-11, all Americans should stand in defiance with the Catholic Church against this government dictum, even if we are not Catholic or don’t agree with their positions on these drugs and procedures.
Progressives like Barack Obama are scornful of individual liberty. They believe laws and regulations that enforce the opinions of “experts” can make us all better than we can be on our own. The Constitution used to protect Americans from arbitrary and excessive application of force by an imperious President. But after a century of adverse precedent, approved by corrupt Supreme Court Justices, modern Presidents and Congresses largely ignore the Constitution’s limits on their power.
The gradual degradation of the Constitution has culminated in ObamaCare which requires all employers to provide health plans or pay a fine, and requires all health plans to conform to the terms dictated by the government. Employees exchange their labor for wages and benefits and thus pay for health insurance. No matter who you are, regardless of your gender or religious beliefs, or lack of beliefs there will be something in that mandatory, government health plan you don’t need or don’t want and would not voluntarily pay for. But, like the Catholics, you will be required to pay for it anyway.
Inevitably, there will be more requirements imposed by government because “experts” will determine them neecessary to “save health care dollars by keeping us healthier.” There will be bans or restrictions on certain foods, perhaps even recreational activities, or high school sports where there is a risk of injury.
By protesting the Unconstitutional mandates in ObamaCare the Bishops serve the cause of liberty for all of us. We will all benefit from their courageous defiance of authoritarian government mandates, implemented by using force against the people.
Today, the President showed some defiance of his own. Accompanied by HHS Secretary and de facto ObamaCare Czar Kathleen Sebelius he stepped to the cameras to announce what White House officials had told reporters would be a “compromise” between the goal of the regulation and Catholic doctrines.
In his statement Obama displayed his contempt for the intelligence of all Americans. He said that all women would still be guaranteed “free” contraceptives, but if a woman worked for a Catholic hospital, school or charity…
…the insurance company, not the hospital, not the charity will be required to reach out and offer the woman contraceptive care free of charge.
Obviously an insurance company can not provide anything “free of charge.” The company pays for everything it provides out of premiums it collects from employers. So this is just bunkum. It’s political double-speak, or as a church spokesman called it, an accounting gimmick.
If Obama can be believed and the insurance company will indeed “reach out” it means that the only women in America who will be offered these drugs and procedures without formally requesting them, the only women who will instead be contacted by the company, will be those who work for the Catholics!
UPDATE
On Friday afternoon The US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a written statement in response to President Obama’s announcement. The key word is “unacceptable.” You can read the full statement here. Here’s an excerpt:
…we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected.
And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage offered by the objecting employer. This, too, raises serious moral concerns.
We just received information about this proposal for the first time this morning; we were not consulted in advance. Some information we have is in writing and some is oral. We will, of course, continue to press for the greatest conscience protection we can secure from the Executive Branch. But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters.
The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.
Do a bunch of old men have the right to deny basic, vital health care to thousands of young women based on old superstitions? That’s what this is about.
This isn’t about the Constitution that allows the President to do whatever is necessary to promote the general welfare. Keeping women in healthy is promoting the general welfare. Case closed.
Providing reasonable health care to women doesn’t stop those old men from practicing their religion. Give me a break!
Oh Mandy177 –
You must be a college student, immersed in your professors’ Marxist BS. You have no idea what the Constitution allows or doesn’t allow.
Insurance is – or should be – to cover unusual, unexpected, high cost events.
Birth control pills are cheap. Nobody can deny them to any woman who wants them.
If you think this is about “womens health” and not about Obama’s plan of government control over everyone’s personal life you aren’t thinking.
[…] We Are All Catholics […]
The overwhelming majority of the American people are in favor of all the specific provisions of the Affordable Care Act. This tempest in a teapot is designed to influence public opinion against ACA. It won’t work.
Bravo, Ralphy.
But we do have the young and the Bozos here. Please be back.
AzTex –
Can’t tell if you’re crazy or delusional. Obamacare or as you on the left call it “affordable care act” is not popular. Here’s a poll you should look at: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/health_care_law
you’ll see likely voters favor outright repeal of the whole horrible law 54% to 41%. That’s terrible after Obama did almost nothing byt campaign for it for a year and the media all love it.
It isn’t affordable. It will be much more expensive than the status quo, which was way more expensive than necessary.
Drew –
I will come back. Some of these people need to be set straight!
It is so breathtakingly arrogant of Obama to try 1: to force every health insurance policy in the whole country to give free (not really) abortion drugs. And even more arrogant of him to think the Catholic bishops are so stupid they will be tricked by his accounting gimmick!