Posted on 06/28/2012 10:25:47 PM PDT by RitaOK
Bishops Renew Plea To Congress And Administration To Repair Affordable Care Act
June 28, 2012
Supreme Court decision does not address fundamental flaws in the law Legislation still needed to fix conscience, abortion funding, immigration problems
WASHINGTON—Today the United States Supreme Court issued a decision upholding as a tax the provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that requires individuals to purchase a health plan—the so-called "individual mandate."
For nearly a century, the Catholic bishops of the United States have been and continue to be consistent advocates for comprehensive health care reform to ensure access to life-affirming health care for all, especially the poorest and the most vulnerable.Although the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) did not participate in these cases and took no position on the specific questions presented to the Court, USCCB's position on health care reform generally and on ACA particularly is a matter of public record.The bishops ultimately opposed final passage of ACA for several reasons.
First, ACA allows use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions and for plans that cover such abortions, contradicting longstanding federal policy.The risk we identified in this area has already materialized, particularly in the initial approval by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) of "high risk" insurance pools that would have covered abortion.
Second, the Act fails to include necessary language to provide essential conscience protection, both within and beyond the abortion context.We have provided extensive analyses of ACA's defects with respect to both abortion and conscience.The lack of statutory conscience protections applicable to ACA's new mandates has been illustrated in dramatic fashion by HHS's "preventive services" mandate, which forces religious and other employers to cover sterilization and contraception, including abortifacient drugs.
Third, ACA fails to treat immigrant workers and their families fairly.ACA leaves them worse off by not allowing them to purchase health coverage in the new exchanges created under the law, even if they use their own money.This undermines the Act's stated goal of promoting access to basic life-affirming health care for everyone, especially for those most in need.
Following enactment of ACA, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has not joined in efforts to repeal the law in its entirety, and we do not do so today.The decision of the Supreme Court neither diminishes the moral imperative to ensure decent health care for all, nor eliminates the need to correct the fundamental flaws described above.We therefore continue to urge Congress to pass, and the Administration to sign, legislation to fix those flaws.
---
Keywords: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Affordable Care Act, ACA, bishops, Supreme Court, conscience
# # # # #
MEDIA CONTACT ONLY: Sr. Mary Ann Walsh O: 202-541-3200 M: 301-325-7935
Well you wanted collectivist medicine and you got it. BTW, don’t expect relieve from the courts.
relief
They got what they wanted now they whine ..tough it was one of yours that pushed it through
The Catholic Bishops were only too happy to stick it to us, now we’ll just return the favor.
The Catholic Bishops can just serve the big government master that they freely chose.
The bishops will eventually figure out that, along with socialized medicine, come regulations. Eventually the power to regulate will be abused. It happened to the Catholics pretty early in the cycle of Obamacare regulation. So some of them are mad. But even if the bishops reverse the particular offensive regulations for now, they will eventually come back because Obamacare cements the power of the religion-hating, secular humanists pretty much in perpetuity.
By not supporting the repeal of Obamacare, the bishops will thus become just another corrupt “stakeholder” in our neo-fascist empire.
The Catholic Bishops were only too happy to stick it to us, now we’ll just return the favor.
The Catholic Bishops can just serve the big government master that they freely chose.
Yep. They were all to happy to make a deal with Satan and now they cry because he stabbed them in the back.
One of my responses to the upholding of ObamaRobertsCare will be to stop giving at my parish. I would always give the kids a few bucks each for the collection, so they’d feel some responsibility towards the operation of it. I won’t do that again, and I’ll tell them the Church is funded by part of the taxes withheld from my paycheck.
I should have stopped giving when the Church in NJ thought it was more important to give selective vouchers in minority areas rather than opposing the racial discrimination of affirmative action.
No hope for change there.
Jesus did not bid us to bow to the government and let bureaucrats care for our brother. He did not ask us to give to that cause at the point of a gun.
“In November Catholics will vote 54% Dem to 46% Rep and blacks will vote 90% + Dem.
No hope for change there.”
The last Pew survey BEFORE this ruling found White Catholics (2/3) support What’s His Name 57/37 over Obama and a PPP survey in North Carolina found 20% of Blacks voting for What’s His name over Obama. These FACTS don’t square with your statements.
Ditto all the sentiments and I am regular mass attending Catholic. The Bishops have been making pacts with the Devil and now they whine when the bill comes due.
The talking heads must have recieved the tweet to now refer to ObamaCare as the Affordable Care Act. This way if things go wrong, it’s not associated with Obama and “affordable care” has such a nice warm fuzzy feeling.
The Catholic church has long had and unholy alliance with liberalism. But they fool themselves if they think liberals respect their values. The bishops and pope are making deals with the enemy tryong to steal the souls of believers.
Catholics (and others) need to wake up.
I am a Roman Catholic Christian, and I couldn’t be more frustrated with the American version of the Catholic Church leadership, who seem to enable socialism here, which the Church has vehemently oppossed forever.
I get the fact that even capitalism can be abused, even abusive, but come on. Playing footsie with government powers and supporting redistribution of wealth in a once free society in the name of the poor lacks foresight, and belies consequences to a free people.
TYVets is using the voting numbers that swept Obama into the White House, your polling numbers are meaningless, they sure aren’t “facts”, they are merely polling of no real significance at this early date.
That link doesn’t work.
My personal predictions as to the catholic and black vote in November 2012 elections are just predictions.
They are not based on any "polls" and/or "facts".
To find out how accurate my predictions are we will have to wait until after all the votes are in and counted AFTER the November elections.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.