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The Nation's Pulse
Religiously Celebrating Obamacare Ruling
Thursday’s ruling was step one. The real goal remains single-payer social justice.
The Religious Left already had their celebratory news releases primed and ready for the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on Obamacare.
“We as churches follow the bold example of Jesus, who healed the sick, sometimes breaking the religious law that governed society,” the National Council of Churches (NCC) somewhat boastfully explained. “Our members have always believed that health care is not simply another worthy cause to which we lend our name.”
The NCC claims to speak for 40 million U.S. church members in 37 denominations, although few church goers likely are aware of their purported spokesman. As the NCC further outlined:
“Christians believe that human beings — all of them — are infinitely-valued children of God, created in God’s image. Adequate health care, therefore, is a matter of preserving what our gracious God has made. That is why churches (and other religious communities) have established so many hospitals and other places of healing. And why we are convinced that health care is not a privilege, reserved for those who can afford it, but a right that should be available, at high quality, to all.”
The recollection of church founded hospitals is ironic, because as usual the NCC interprets a social good to mean primarily government controlled and/or provided. The United Methodist Board of Church and Society on Capitol Hill also chimed in that Obamacare is a “huge step in the right direction and we celebrate provisions in that law that continue to fill the gaps and expand existing health care, particularly to low-income Americans.”
Notice the Methodist lobbyist said Obamacare is only a “step” towards what is the denomination’s official position, which is single payer health care. The Methodist lobbyist noted their church’s position is “informed by biblical and theological witness.”
The Presbyterian Church (USA) Stated Clerk also joined the celebration: “We rejoice today as the Supreme Court rules to uphold constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.” The Presbyterian rooted their pro-Obamacare stance in being “Reformed Christians,” as though socialized medicine were intrinsically Calvinist. And he made clear his church’s support for “single payer” as the “best vehicle for providing such health care resources.”
The most left-leaning Mainline denomination is the United Church of Christ, whose president rhapsodized about the Obamacare court ruling: “The Supreme Court decision today is a clear signal that we as a country are moving toward the realm of God on earth — the realm of this merciful, compassionate God, full of love for all.”
So Obamacare is ushering in God’s Kingdom. There is the old Social Gospel confidence, still expressed by dying denominations captive to it, that equates Big Government with divine rule. An interfaith statement organized by the by the Washington Interreligious Health Care Working Group and Faithful Reform, both of which are pro-Obamacare lobby groups, expressed hope that with “legal challenges behind us,” the nation will embrace Obamacare . More so, they hope Congress will take the next logical “next step toward health care justice, by adopting a single-payer health system for the good of all.” And, “We pray that our elected leaders will accept the decision of the Supreme Court and will diligently facilitate the full implementation of this vital, life-giving law.”
In stark contrast, a leading spokesman for the 16 million member Southern Baptist Convention failed to discern Obamacare’s “life-giving” nature. “It is astonishing that the majority of the justices did not see the bill for what it really is: a blatant violation of the personal freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution and perhaps a mortal blow to the concept of federalism,” thundered Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. “When a government begins forcing citizens to purchase what it thinks is important or necessary, that government takes a dangerous step away from the freedom-embracing, democratic model,” Land said.
Land also warned: “Greater government involvement in medical care also means that the sick, elderly and terminally ill will suffer.” And ultimately, Obamacare “will destroy much of what Americans hold dear.” Land cited the infamous contraceptive/abortifacient mandate on religious groups still facing litigation. The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops reiterated their opposition to Obamacare, after the court ruling, based on the mandate and Obamacare’s facilitation of abortion funding.
Major Evangelical Left voices are so far mostly quiet, maybe calculating how carefully to navigate their hope for government controlled health care while retaining credibility with pro-life and mostly instinctively conservative evangelicals. Overall, the Religious Left embraces Obamacare because it locates transcendent authority in centralized Big Government without really caring about the cost to civil society and liberty. In contrast, traditional faith is more realistic about the moral and practical limits of a huge and coercive regulatory welfare state that aspires to solve every human need.
The debate over Obamacare showcases competing religious visions of America. One has faith in centralized state power as the primary guarantor of justice. The other less bureaucratically believes health care and other human goods are better achieved through the efficiency, accountability, and greater compassion of civil society. One vision implies religion is ultimately subordinate to the state, while the other retains faith that religion transcendently includes much more than the temporal delivery of material goods and services.
About the Author
Mark Tooley is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, D.C. and author of Methodism and Politics in the Twentieth Century. You can follow him on Twitter @markdtooley.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (75) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 6.29.12 @ 6:48AM
Here on Ontario we have recently had a case where a little boy (aged 3) is losing his eyesight due to a rare eye disease. OHIP (our single-payer government health care) is steadfastly refusing to send him to the US to get the operation that the doctors of Canada admit they cannot provide him. The parents are adamantly refusing private donations; they are intent on forcing OHIP to "fund" their son's surgery -- while millions of "refugees" eagerly wait offshore for OHIP to cave and provide free health care anywhere in the world.
But wait! There's More!
Put in Obamacare in the USA and little Liam will be unable to get his surgery ANYWHERE.
The only thing that makes Canadian socialist medicine viable at all is the knowledge that people can go to the USA for what OHIP refuses to cover or doctors cannot provide here. The SCOTUS has sawed off the branch on which the Canadians were sitting too. Wait til that gets out. Check and see how many high risk babies are transported from Canada to the USA to be born (thus attaining instant citizenship) because there is no neonatal ICU bed ANYWHERE IN CANADA for them. The old Liberal Scream will be coming true now: babies WILL die. American and Canadian babies will die so Barak Ozymandias Obama can build a monument to himself in a wasteland.
TLP| 6.29.12 @ 7:15AM
So, who ya gonna Vote for?
You've made such a Forceful Argument concerning the Evils of the All Encompassing/One Size Fits All/Soviet Style "Health Care" System put forth by Lord Vader and The Dark Side. Even going so far as to invoke "The Children".
There are two men Running, this year.
Not THREE. Not FIVE. Not the guy who puts air in your car tires at the Gas Station, with the nice Smile.
Not the guy at the Deli who's always complimenting you on your hair, and saying: "If only I was 40 Years younger, Drunk of my ass, really Stoned, and just coming off of a bad breakup, I would be all over you."
Two.
So, who ya gonna Vote for?
And, even more important, how is it that you get to vote HERE, when you live up THERE?
Who do you think you are?
Dick Lugar?
Doctor Right| 6.29.12 @ 7:54AM
He's Canadian, genius...
FYI, that's a whole different country.
In other words, he can't vote in US elections. (If he were Mexican, it'd be a whole different story).
You're as tedious as they come...
TLP| 6.29.12 @ 8:12AM
He's a SHE, Dumbass.
But then, why would you get this one right?
SHE is the one who says that SHE votes in our Elections, and that SHE wants to write in some Dumbfcks name, instead of Romney.
That's what SHE says SHE's planning on doing.
Here, MS. Appleby. Let me help you out, in your search for a dumb@ss to write in on your Ballot.
D-O-C.
Screw it.
It's right there above this.
He'a total F-ing Moron, and a Genius, as well.
Just ask him.
Doctor Right| 6.29.12 @ 9:37AM
Checkmate!
C. Vernon Crisler | 6.29.12 @ 3:35PM
TLP: We encourage readers to share and discuss their thoughtful and relevant comments about this Spectator article. Comments are routinely monitored and will be deleted if profane, bigoted, or grossly impolite. Please be respectful. (And don't feed the trolls!) Thank you.
TLP| 6.29.12 @ 5:53PM
SCREW YOU.
C. Vernon Crisler | 6.29.12 @ 9:55PM
TLP: We encourage readers to share and discuss their thoughtful and relevant comments about this Spectator article. Comments are routinely monitored and will be deleted if profane, bigoted, or grossly impolite. Please be respectful. (And don't feed the trolls!) Thank you.
TLP| 6.30.12 @ 7:48AM
GFYourself.
C. Vernon Crisler | 6.30.12 @ 3:02PM
TLP: We encourage readers to share and discuss their thoughtful and relevant comments about this Spectator article. Comments are routinely monitored and will be deleted if profane, bigoted, or grossly impolite. Please be respectful. (And don't feed the trolls!) Thank you.
TLP| 7.1.12 @ 9:30PM
Suck it!
Von Mises Jr| 6.29.12 @ 9:44AM
Ms. Appleby, I visited all of the Eastern Provinces of Canada and when I was in Saguenay-Saint Laurent a few summers ago, they were re-introducing free market pricing back into the health care market. The wait to see a real doctor was about 6 months, unless you were willing to pay $130 to see him in six weeks.
But the problem was much worse than that. For care, one would need to go to the Emergency Clinic. But people avoided this at all costs since it was an 8-16 hour wait. You see, the lazy Quebecers would go to the Clinic and wait there one day to complain of a sick stomach or other problem to get the week off work. That is how socialism ultimately works, or doesn't.
Same as the Plymouth Settlement. Eventually they were given a plot to bury their family members as they starved, but they realized that they could keep the fruits of their labor and it became most prosperous.
Appleby| 6.29.12 @ 11:42AM
Yep, that's about the size of it. But the real point of socialist medicine is to PUNISH THE RICH. That is, the true socialist doesn't mind if his child dies on a waiting list, so long as a rich man's child dies five minutes sooner. Except that the rich man takes his child to a non-socialist country and gets treatment for her...if there IS a non-socialist country...or if he's one of the Apparatchiks or the Nomenklatura, of course. (Or in Canada, if he's a hockey player. During the last big fake scare about the Swine Flu, when vaccines were allegedly restricted for pregnant women and small children due to severe underproduction, the Calgary Flames Hockey Club got personal speedy delivery of vaccines to their premises for them and their families, right at the head of the line. And probably not the only ones.)
CJW| 6.29.12 @ 12:47PM
Von
I have personal knowledge of two "Canadian" cases. One, an 84 year old woman was denied a cataract surgery in Toronto because of her age. My mother had that surgery at age 80 in the good old USA at age 80 with no problems. From the doctor's exam to surgery was two weeks, and the surgery took 20 seconds.
Second, neurosurgeons started brain surgery on a 20 year old, also in Toronto, and then decided they could not finish it. So his father personally paid to have his son transported to the USA, had the surgery,and is now fine.
This is the future of government rationed health care.
W.
Purp| 6.29.12 @ 12:17PM
And, yet several border states have been implementing Canadian-like health programs - Why?
JD| 6.29.12 @ 12:27PM
Examples?
Von Mises Jr| 6.29.12 @ 3:04PM
He usually goes away if you ask for concrete examples or literary references.
Unless one can substantiate a claim, the argument is not valid. Spot on, JD.
Purp| 6.29.12 @ 4:23PM
And, you VM, can shove it up yours, since you don't know anything but your little theory based bs.
First, the Canadian system you stupidly trash: http://theincidentaleconomist......of-canada/
Second, the reality of States considering single payer Canadian Style system: http://findarticles.com/p/arti.....101568762/
CJW| 6.29.12 @ 4:48PM
Obamaboy
You cited a 2003 article. Did you ever read it?
Von Mises Jr| 6.29.12 @ 5:07PM
Amature. It was on his teleprompter from MoveOn/SEIU/.........
Purp| 6.30.12 @ 8:52PM
VM - and what do you quote? - some old, dusty has- been Hayek or Von M that never implemented a single economic plan in his life.
2003 is positively immediate in your world of Ivory.
Go look for more than 10 seconds and I'm sure you can find a 2012 analysis as well. Don't be so lazy.
Purp| 6.30.12 @ 8:50PM
Your point is?
Purp| 6.30.12 @ 8:53PM
CJ - did you? You can find updated versions by googling for, oh, i dunno, 13 seconds.
Purp| 6.29.12 @ 4:23PM
First, the Canadian system you stupidly trash: http://theincidentaleconomist......of-canada/
Second, the reality of States considering single payer Canadian Style system: http://findarticles.com/p/arti.....101568762/
Von Mises Jr| 7.1.12 @ 7:15AM
Only ten (10) of sixty-six comments by the lonely troll on this article. That's a measly 15%. Soros is not going to be happy!
Come on Jefferson, Four in a row is admirable, but you will never get your own column with only 15% participation and all ignorant diatribes.
Beppo| 7.1.12 @ 1:02PM
Appleby.....are you seriously suggesting Canadians would vote to dump their universal healthcare system in favor of the US one?
Ken (Old Texican)| 6.29.12 @ 7:29AM
Go to your local drugstores and stock up...on everything.
That way, (God forbid), if Obama and crew sneak a victory in November, you will at least have an adequate supply of hemoroid medicine.
Folks,
November is our last hope before we "go to the mattresses".
RCV| 6.29.12 @ 10:52AM
Same old song ....
Purp| 6.29.12 @ 12:17PM
Be afraid, be very afraid... isn't that getting a bit old, stale and lame?
Bob Grant| 6.29.12 @ 10:33PM
And like a good hemoroid flareup, Perp chimes in.
TLP| 6.29.12 @ 8:03AM
The Religious Left.
Is that like The Religion of Peace? A White Hispanic? Or is it more like The Christian Boy in the White House who spends most of his time with Akmed's snake in his mouth?
They love to throw JESUS' name around, when they think it helps them. I also know that they have been siding with Marxist and Communist Rebels, for decades in Central and South America. They think Castro's Cuba is where it's at. Che Guevara is a Saint. And, given the choice CHRIST would choose the Godless Countries with the Camps and the Gulags, the Bullet in the back of the Head, and the Killing Fields, because they have Free Health Care, over the Evil Capitalist Systems that allow Men to be Free, and pursue their God given talents.
You see, JESUS was all about the Poor. HE believed that a Big Centralized All Encompassing, All Powerful State was the way to go. Even though, when asked about the Poor, CHRIST said: "The poor will always be among us." The Religious Left will say that "Jesus was always talking about stuff. (ask Gary B) That's what he did.
"If you remember when he was knocking over the Tables at the Temple, then you can see how Christian, the whole Occupy Movement is and why Nancy Pelosi said: "God Bless them" as they were Sh*tting on Police Cars."
"And, did you know that he was Gay? Oh, yeah. Totally Gay. Just like all of our Priests and Nuns here at the Religious Left."
"Now, if you'll excuse me? I have to get an Abortion, with my Partner."
The Religious Left.
Doctor Right| 6.29.12 @ 9:37AM
BOR-ing....
waapiti307| 6.29.12 @ 8:40PM
Church and State! Church and State! Religion has no right to inject itself into State policy! Atheists and believers in the Flying Spaghetti Monster unite! Tear down the crosses! Pester military families at funerals for their loved ones! Keep the 10 Commandments out of all government buildings and institutions! We need to stop right-wing zealots from dictating policy in the U.S.! Hold on a sec, these are right-wingers spouting on and on about "ObamaCare", correct? I thought religious zealotry and Bible thumping was exclusive to right-wing, whacked-out nut jobs. Interesting.
TLP| 6.30.12 @ 7:54AM
Thank you waapiti, for that wonderful example of Liberal Logic, and its Methodology in formulating an Argument.
Like we needed one more example.
Nobody knows what you said.
They just know it's a LIE.
waapiti307| 6.30.12 @ 10:08PM
I'm glad I could provide another example of how it's okay when one side interjects their religious beliefs into a political argument and it's perfectly okay. The other side does the same thing and it's regarded as religious zealotry.
waapiti307| 6.30.12 @ 10:11PM
By the way TLP, I was poking fun at the left. They are the ones who always cry foul when those on the right express their beliefs in the same manner.
TLP| 7.1.12 @ 9:32PM
Then, I guess, I owe you an apology?
Sorry, buddy.
Ryan| 6.29.12 @ 8:16AM
What's continually amusing is that the HARD left considers Obamacare a sellout to insurance companies. Anything short of single-payer to them is anathema.
Ryan| 6.29.12 @ 8:16AM
What's continually amusing is that the HARD left considers Obamacare a sellout to insurance companies. Anything short of single-payer to them is anathema.
Nancy in NC| 6.29.12 @ 8:58AM
Well, they probably won't have long to wait. Does anyone doubt that's in the wings?
Purp| 6.29.12 @ 12:18PM
I hope so ... Medicare for all!
TLP| 6.30.12 @ 8:00AM
Yes.
"Medicare (which is TRILLION$ in debt) for all."
You can't make this shit up.
Is that it? Is that all you want? What about More Taxes? More Illegal Drilling Moratoriums? More Regulations on Businesses, and All Illegals on Social Security?
All of these, also, on in the Liberal Playbook.
Von Mises Jr| 6.29.12 @ 9:47AM
If Obama is re-elected, I am confident that the Catholic Hospitals will be shut down. Then you shall find out what it is like to visit a City Hospital. I sold to the Medical field for about a decade. Now others are about to get an education.
TLP| 6.30.12 @ 8:03AM
Good. Shut them down.
Shut Down the Catholic Hospices.
Shut Down the Catholic Schools.
Shut Down the Catholic Food Banks and Kitchens.
SHUT IT ALL DOWN!
Only then, will the people fight back.
Von Mises Jr| 6.30.12 @ 9:37AM
I think we need the Catholic Schools and the charity should continue. But I am all for shutting down the Catholic Hospitals October 31.
Give people warning and do not accept patients after October 15th.
Catholic Hospitals have been a big money loser for decades. One of the largest Catholic Hospitals in the state was forced to offload the cost of indigent care to paying customers for decades. This hospital had to charge something like three to four times the private hospital in the ritsy-titsy area to cover all the people who got free care. My friend and customer warned me to never go to his hospital for a test. Twenty-five years ago a test that cost $500 in one of the wealthiest areas of the state would cost $1,500 to $2,000 in this very good but overpriced hospital in the ghetto.
I can tell you as a Catholic; this ruling will not go over well. I hope they do shut down right before the election and let Moochelle explain how expensive free really is.
TLP| 6.30.12 @ 3:01PM
Negatory.
Shut them all down.
Cloward and Piven style.
It's time to start taking shit out of their own Playbook.
Bill84728| 6.29.12 @ 10:40AM
Well, if we didn't know it before, we know now that there are certain Protestant sects including the PCUSA that judge a "right" to health care provided to all at public expense to be superior to individual liberty.
There is a Slate article that opines that people who opt not to have health insurance are relying on receiving health care at public expense, and go on to claim that it is somehow not right for that to be the case; however, I find that state of affairs to be indistinguishable from the Obamacare state of affairs, except that individuals opting not to buy health insurance, then receiving it through public avenues are going to be less expensive than establishing a national institution of publicly-financed governmental health care involvement.
But it's clear that certain Prostestants have decided that publicly-financed health care trumps personal liberty.
Appleby| 6.29.12 @ 11:43AM
You cannot have a "right" to something that someone else provides, unless that someone else is a slave.
Bill84728| 6.29.12 @ 11:51AM
One can only wish that the government saw itself as a slave to the governed. I think they see themselves as some sort of almagation of king and kindly mentor.
Bill84728| 6.29.12 @ 11:52AM
Amalgamation.
Purp| 6.29.12 @ 12:20PM
How does that "right to bear arms" thingy work again?
Self-made arms only, is that it? Kinda puts the NRA out of existence, along with gun shows and gun stores, doesn't it?
JD| 6.29.12 @ 12:26PM
I don't think you're actually stupid enough to think you made a salient point, there. As with all things, the right to something is not the right to have someone else provide it for you, but rather the right to not have it taken away from you when you provide it for yourself.
Buying things is providing for yourself.
Purp| 6.29.12 @ 4:26PM
Can you read? "You cannot have a "right" to something that someone else provides, unless that someone else is a slave." - that was the point I was debunking.
And, that dear conservadumb is the point. What part of that don't you get?
Warrior| 6.29.12 @ 5:06PM
Then why do you claim people have a right to health care?
JD| 6.29.12 @ 6:56PM
Can YOU read?
You considered it "someone else providing" if the gun I buy is produced by someone else, but as I explained, that's not true if I pay for the gun. It's only true if he has to give me the gun for free.
We do have the right (or we would, if not for your party) to buy whatever we want with our money, including both guns and health care. We do NOT have the right to force people to produce guns and health care and give them to us for free.
That anyone would not see the huge difference there indicates, yet again, that a lot of people don't understand basic economics, or even what money is.
waapiti307| 6.29.12 @ 10:43PM
That's actually in the Constitution. I don't see "right to (free) health care" there. Nor do I see "right to an education" or "right to own a house". There is a reason those things are not in there and that's because the Founding Fathers did not believe its was the federal government's responsibility to oversee such things. They left it up to the States to do that. For the record, "arms" does not refer to firearms only.
Terrible Ted| 6.30.12 @ 6:31AM
Free guns for everyone.
TLP| 6.30.12 @ 8:05AM
No.
When Romney gets in, MANDATE Gun Ownership.
And, if they don't buy one?
TAX THEM.
Tom Kyba| 6.29.12 @ 12:13PM
Few things in life are more pathetic and nauseating than hippie Christians.
TLP| 6.30.12 @ 8:06AM
What about the Gay Hippie Christians?
JD| 6.29.12 @ 12:24PM
Health care is a "right", they say. Let's think about this.
Did people who died of diseases before we invented the cures for them have their rights violated? Or did the right to a cure only materialize the moment the cure was invented? Does this mean that if a new million-dollar cure for cancer is invented, that our society instantaneously incurs an obligation to provide tens of trillions of dollars worth of it?
But what about cure research? Undoubtedly if we doubled the funding for research towards some cure, the cure might arrive faster. And that timing could be the difference between life and death for some people! So in order to ensure that no one dies from anything preventable, we need to authorize infinite funding for all forms of cure research conceivable. Immediately!
But why is "health care" special? Is dying from cancer worse than dying in an accident? What about the impacts of diet, lifestyle, environment, and psychological factors on lifespan? In how many other ways are people dying sooner than they could have?
We must authorize unlimited everything for everyone (with government regulators to make sure we use it all in ways that extend our lives as much as possible)!
I mean, what kind of barbaric society lets people DIE just to save some money?
Seek| 6.29.12 @ 12:30PM
"Single payer" is a euphemism for selling British-style health care coverage to the American public without having to use the word "socialist." The term means, for all practical purposes, "single owner." Inevitably, the government is the owner.
soljerblue| 6.29.12 @ 3:33PM
The bigger government grows, the more it crowds God out of human existence and demands fealty to Him be replaced with subjugation to the state. That's totally contradictory to God's plan for human kind, and therefore un-Christian -- regardless of what one professes to otherwise believe.
ChrisChris| 6.29.12 @ 4:57PM
You don't need to go to Canada to see the horrors of single-payer healthcare. That's right, right here in our own country we have this demonic socialist leftist system called Medicare, where the government pays to keep our grandparents alive, even the really lazy mean ones.
But seriously, the ACA is way to the right of medicare, medicaid and social security. All the ACA does is legitimize private insurance by making it a bit more ethical. If you guys were actually concerned about wannabe-socialism, stop wasting your time on the conservative ACA (thanks for the idea, Mitt) and bring down medicare and social security. That would help you realize how far out of touch your ideology is with mainstream Americans (or out of touch with yourselves, for that matter. I bet 1/3 of you already collect SS and medicare).
Did you know that the life expectancy in the US is lower than in Bosnia and Jordan? And get this: our infant mortality rate is worse that Slovinia and Cuba. (Source: The CIA Factbook.) And we spend far more on healthcare than any other nation in the world. In sum, our healthcare is way behind where it should be, and you guys are trying you hardest to make it even shoddier.
Citizen Jerry| 6.29.12 @ 10:05PM
The leftist goal has always been single-payer -- with the single payer being the government. And when they control your healthcare, they control YOU.
On Nov. 6, we begin the process to burn the rot from the barrel.
Von Mises Jr| 6.30.12 @ 6:48AM
Recommendation to the Republican Governors Association.
Every Republican Governor should put a ballot Initiative on the November 6 Ballot. It should ask homeowners and renters to vote for a major property tax increase to pay for ObamaCare.
In New Jersey, $10B of our $33B budget is now consumed by Medicaid. ObamaCare Medicaid costs will skyrocket 50% with the new mandates. That means all other things equal, that our budget will increase from $33B to $38B. That $5B increase represents a 15% increase in the budget.
So to comply with the mandate, all property taxes and therefore rents will need to be increase by 15% across the board. If your property taxes are $8K per year, they will be $9,200 January 1, 2013. If your rent is $1,300, it will be $1,495.
It should be authorized as a rental surcharge. So if you want to vote for Obama and keep ObamaCare, then you should pay for it and know exactly what it will cost. If the Initiative is voted down, then the people that are entitled to Medicaid under the new law are SOL. And if they lose their insurance, and that will sure to be the case, then they can pay for their own insurance or pay the fine.
Obama and ObamaCare are now a package deal, and we should make it clear to everyone what they will pay for free rubbers and birth control pills, even if Moochelle tells you they are free.
mcsandberg| 6.30.12 @ 8:27AM
I'm quite surprised that the article didn't mention Mr. Rahe's take on this, where he points out that the church forgot the apocryphal saying of George Washington - "Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." I would add its not benevolent either.
"In the process the leaders of the American Catholic Church fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In its place, they helped establish the Machiavellian principle that underpins modern liberalism – the notion that it is our Christian duty to confiscate other people’s money and redistribute it." ( http://ricochet.com/main-feed/.....-the-Devil )
This giant mistake is one reason for my sig:
Atlas Shrugged was supposed to be a warning, NOT a newspaper!
BackToBasics| 6.30.12 @ 1:04PM
The way troubles are increasing in this country, in the not too distant future, even this ruling will seem like small fry comapred to what awaits us. It may be almost forgotten about except as perhaps a cornerstone to the tyranny the left is slowly imposing.
The Christian church in America generally is weak, but Mr. Tooley correctly points out the utter failure of liberal churches in that they are encouraging big goverment control and eventually tyranny rather than being a check to it's increasing power.
Equally bad is to hear Obam speak of his Muslim, er I mean Christian faith at the same time he is attempting to destroy what remains of the Christian church's moral compass and as a last major obstacle to federal government control.
The way things are going, Christianity will come under direct assault even on an individual level. The tough times that are coming in the not too distant future will weed out the pretenders to the faith. What remains will be a smaller but stronger church. Yet, what remains of America at that point will not look even remotley like the America we have known.
darcy| 6.30.12 @ 7:51PM
The problem with the liberal church is that it is not Christian. It has jettisoned sin, death, hell, repentance, forgiveness, redemption, and heaven in favor of works-righteousness and bringing heaven to earth, just like all the other utopians. Voegelin calls it the immantization of the eschaton. Since they eschew the inerrancy of the Bible, and since they still have within them the natural knowledge of God, and since they can't bring themselves to really believe that God loves them and has forgiven them in Christ, they must find both a means of assuaging their guilty consciences while trying to convince themselves that all these myriad "good" causes they pursue will win them points in a court of heaven they don't even really believe in.
If the church -- the mainline denominations and ALL those associated with the National Council of Churches and its affiliate the WCC -- had not rejected Christ and worshipped instead a god of their own design -- then more people in our country would have heard the gospel, believed it, and not have become the useful idiots for leftist utopians that they've become. And being useful idiots for statists is minor compared to what's in store for them for rejecting Christ and using His name to pursue their self-interested goals. See Matthew 7:22, 23.
Beppo| 7.1.12 @ 1:00PM
Actually this ruling makes gravitation to a classic single payer less likely and an incremental shift to a more Swiss, German or French model where insurers remain big players. And there are going to be more shifts. Ultimately it's untenable for around 50 million to be without insurance just as it's unsustainable for us to be paying twice as much for our healthcare as anyone else. Long term this inevitably means greater govt control of the process but the insurers will still be around. These are economic imperatives that ultimately are going to overwhelm political ideologies.
ken| 7.1.12 @ 10:41PM
SERIOUSLY!! I agree there is a certain brotherly love and compassion in wanting to have health care for every one. However, to put high quality and either Obamacare or single payer care in the same sentence is an oxymoron. It will be less care and higher cost, period, irrefutably.
For anyone to say single payer health care is biblical and theologically supported; well let’s just say, show me your proof. It must be some new bible version I haven’t read yet; but then again, mans dogma has trumped the teachings of Jesus for seventeen centuries.
Finally, it’s sad when somebody who should have erudition and wisdom based on their position, like the President of the UCC, doesn’t understand the spiritual meaning behind Thy Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven. Most religions are good at understanding the material if not the spiritual; but this person doesn’t even understand the implications and deleterious health effects of the law. In other words, his statement showed ignorance of both the spiritual and material world. To even suggest that any government is like God, or doing the will of God, should be construed as heresy or an abomination to the Lord.
With the kind of church leadership portrayed in your article, the demise of organized religion seems inevitable.
Mick Lee| 7.2.12 @ 8:37AM
Charity by the sword stinks in the nostrils of God.
PaVa| 7.3.12 @ 2:02PM
"The debate over Obamacare showcases competing religious visions of America. One has faith in centralized state power as the primary guarantor of justice. The other less bureaucratically believes health care and other human goods are better achieved through the efficiency, accountability, and greater compassion of civil society. "
OK, so why do most industrialized countries have universal health care for their citizens?? And, their life expectancy and overall quality of care is better than in the US - AND they do it for much less money . . . . .