www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Endless Health Care Problems in the United Kingdom

LOL!!!!

John, I have many times watched them on the same day. I have seen extensive "Teaparty" coverage. On Fox...It's a whole weekend event, on the other news networks it's given the same coverage as they would and do, cover other marches in Washington D.C. There was recently a rally in Washington DC, I believe it was for gay rights, but I could be wrong. CNN and the other news networks covered it just like the "teapartys". It was larger than the Teaparty in Washington DC but I believe the total coverage time (for the whole day) on Fox was 93 seconds. Oh, and let's not forget, several times in the past few weeks Fox news has been called out for utilizing pictures from completely different rallys on different days (different times of the year) to "prop up" the protests on the right.

Consistency is not one of the American Conservatives greatest assets. You need to be gentle with them. Remember, they had all this anger last time a Democrat was in the White House. When they controlled the White House and Congress. They ground this county into the ground. Correcting the mistakes they have made is going to be a long painful process. I'm surprised it took so long for it to be said that Democrats wanted Old people to die. I'm surprised there still hasn't been discussion of the "death panels" the Democrats were creating.

First, thanks for the reminder you don't live here in America.

Yes, the hermeneutic of David Frum is not necessarily synonymous with that of the Gospel. But then neither is socialized health care synonymous with the Gospel. It is rather odd that those who are most supportive of socialized health care (I don't know about you) have no problems with rationing, waste, fraud, and government bureaucracies (rather than doctors) making decisions on who gets what health care (I've already mentioned the problem with the government of Oregon denying cancer treatment to one lady but offering her a suicide pill). And we know of the problems in some European countries where euthanasia is fairly common for older people in nursing homes.

I already mentioned that Phil Lawler over at CatholicCulure.org has given the beginnings of a good discussion of "The Catholic Case Against Health Care Reform" [catholicculture.org]. He rightly mentions the moral issues of not being able to stop the government from mandating funding for abortion and other evil things (and we know that no matter what passes some judge is going to rule abortion and other evils a 'right' and order the government to pay for it). But he also mentions that "the principle of subsidiarity teaches (as the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1894) puts it) that 'neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.' Since health-care coverage can surely be handled by private organizations, resort to the government is questionable at best. Since state governments can surely regulate health insurance, federal involvement is clearly unnecessary."

A good case can be made that capitalism in health care with subsides for the poor is far more Catholic than is socialism. Capitalism delivers better quality anything than does socialism. People in countries with socialized may respond to polls that they like socialized medicine but a fair, scientific analysis shows that heath care in countries with socialize medicine have a much lower quality of care and pay a higher price for it than do Americans.

Socialized medicine (really socialized anything) takes away individual responsibility and reassigns it to the state. History shows that it enslaves man rather the frees him, as well as not really proving what it intended to provide. Governments don't do anything very well, and the founding fathers of the United States purposely limited their powers, and especially limited the power of the federal government. Given that those proposing the government takeover of health care are quite open about the next step being full single payer socialized medicine I think that every Catholic should be opposing it.

You can reject what is true. But I suppose you consider The Los Angeles Times an evil, right wing newspaper?

Not true. Fox gives more balanced coverage all around.

Yes, Fox news has been called out for utilizing pictures from other rallies. So have other networks in the past. CNN, ABC and the rest are also not candidates for sainthood.

As I noted earlier, a liberal newspaper (the Los Angeles Time) pronounced Fox as the most balanced. You can disagree but that does not make you correct.

That is insulting and very unfair. It is very odd that I have approached these discussions in stating that those who favor socialized medicine are well intentioned but wrong. But you have simply and repeatedly insulted and made false accusations against me and others. That says a lot about you.

As far as the "death panels" I have noted that it is hyperbole. But really not far from the truth. When you have a government bureaucracy that decides what treatment you get (will they pay for the latest cancer treatment) they are making life and death decisions. President Obama himself said that old people should not expect treatment but rather accept pain care (a fact you repeatedly ignore).

This quote says alot about you! Why would truth be insulting and unfair??? You once again refer to the health care reform bill as "socialized medicine". This is insulting and unfair as well. I don't see a single payor system being proposed here rather mandated PRIVATE INSURANCE coverage. I would not only say your comments are insulting and unfair...but deliberate lies being repeated over and over knowing that if you keep throwing out loaded words like "socialized" it will influence some people.



John, once again this is patently UNTRUE! And I don't know that president Obama said it or not, and I really don't care, as I have stated before...President Obama is president of the USA...not emperor or king where his word is law...Please!

Senator Harken said today that this is a first step towards single payer. President Obama has said during the campaign that they could not get single payer in one step, but that there would be a compromise and it would take additional legislation to get to single payer.

What you have said about me is not the truth. It has been patently false.

As to socialism, the definition is pretty clear: "From each according to his means to each according to his needs." That is the groundwork being laid with this bill. We get a huge step into socialism now and more later in future legislation.

First, you can probably still find his infomercial on YouTube. It ran on ABC last summer and was hosted by Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson. Watch for the section where the lady asked the question about her 100 year old mother getting a pacemaker. He said that under his plan she would not get it, and then he spoke about giving the elderly pain medication. The context was that the rules for who gets health care treatment and who would be denied health care treatment would be subjective.

There is a moral difference between denying quality health care to an otherwise healthy older person and recommending the possibility of palliative care in the case (for example) of someone needing a knee replacement but who is already dying of an incurable form of cancer.

Second, yes, President Obama is not a dictator. But he has stated his intention to bring a fully socialist system for health care to the United States. The current legislation is not the end but only the start. Surely you've read that in even the mainstream papers and on tv? One rightly opposes not just the first step toward socialism in the current legislation but also the foundation being laid for additional socialism in the future.

Third, yes, I can see where you do not care or, possibly, support it.

It should be mentioned that the Senate bill includes a clause that will make it impossible for future Congresses to amend or repeal the bill--all will be bound by the bill as now written. Needless to say, the constitutionality of such a clause is dubous--as is the so-called individual mandate that will require all citizens to buy a health insurance policy or face fines equal to 2.5% of AGI.

Even assuming a bill gets through conference, is passed and signed into law, the legal challenges will be unending and injunctions will prevent its implementation for years.

On the Death Penalty

This may be broken off into another thread if it becomes a topic of discussion. I post it here to extend my comments in a previous post.

Firstly, read Lumen Gentium (from Vatican II), which speaks about to understand the principles of authority in the Catholic Church. There are ranges of issues on which there is room for legitimate disagreement on how and what the Church teaches, and even more room for legitimate disagreement on how to apply that teaching. Most teachings on social and economic issues involve the stating of general principles, with the application of those teachings being left to individual Catholics (sometimes in consultation with their bishops). How we minister to the poor, protect innocent life, fight terrorism and even look at the death penalty falls into this category.

The Church looks at the death penalty differently than it does abortion or euthanasia. The death penalty can justly be applied to those individuals who have engaged in activities of a nature that cause them to forfeit their lives. Abortion and euthanasia of innocent lives is different because those people are put to death while innocent, having been convicted of no crime. The death penalty can be used justly and morally. Abortion and euthanasia are never just and always immoral.

In the Catholic Catechism we find:
There is legitimate disagreement about what “the Church does not exclude recourse to the death penalty, if this is the only possible way of effectively defending human lives against an unjust aggressor” means.

In Evangelium Vitae we find:
The Church clearly recognizes that there can be times where it necessary for the common good for the death penalty to be applied. Few wish to see it applied even in those cases where is just. But the last part of 56 is still wishful thinking. Given that we in America have a history of putting people convicted of murder back on the streets (a typical first time murderer is out in just over 7 years) it can be legitimately argued the death penalty is still necessary to defend society. If, however, those convicted of capital crimes were sentenced to life without parole and actually kept incarcerated for life (i.e., guaranteed never again to be a threat to innocent human life) then one could say that there were “steady improvements of the penal system” to render such cases very rare, if practically non-existent. But we are far from being there, and it is just to argue that until we are the death penalty remains necessary to protect the innocent.

I will also note that EV continues to allow the death penalty. It clearly notes that there are occasions (if rare and almost non-existent in a more advanced world) when the death penalty is just.

If Wikipedia is correct (and it is not always overly accurate) under 16,000 people have been executed in what is now the United States since 1600, and under 5,000 of those since 1930 (a Google search to a news article reports 37 executed in the USA in 2007). Contrast that with over 40,000,000 murders through abortion since 1973 noting that the Church sees a difference between human live taken through due process and innocent human life taken without due process. One is legitimate in certain cases. The other is always murder.

We see the legitimate use of the death penalty becoming used less often. And we see one party demanding that taxpayers pay for the murder of the innocent through abortion.

Today HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated:
That is the end round to guarantee taxpayer financed abortion. It effectively nullifies any provisions that taxpayer money not be used for abortion. So if you support the current legislation you support abortion.

"Evil" is maybe the only definition that fits, and maybe "newspaper", I can personally vouch for their non right wing slant. I used to subscribe to the LA Times because they had a great subscription deal. After several liberal/conservative issues were consistently reported on only the liberal side, I elected to cancel that subscription. The LA Times' competitor, The Daily News, used to be more conservative but has sadly declined to mindless liberalism lately...

Clueless is perhaps better than evil, though LAT certainly fits the "banality" that Hannah Arendt associated evil. Basking in their own rectitude, they lack any capacity for introspection and reflexively parrot tropes that are echoed by "all reasonable people". And, since they are the repository of righteousness, all those who disagree with them must, by definition, be evil--and not merely mistaken. Hence the manichean worldview and the rapid descent into demonization of the opposition that characterize its writing.

Fortunately, few people actually read the LA Times--same goes for most of the old-line bastions of liberal reporting: the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, and of course, the Gray Lady herself, the New York Times. Too obvious a lack of objectivity and too many stories skipped over or spiked in the name of political correctness did them in.

Actually the Boston Globe has run a number of articles throughout the year that have been critical of the bill. On the lighter side, Rock The Vote is calling on those who support the bill to refuse to fornicate with those who oppose it.

The "Rock the Vote" group's petition is absurd and obscene.