Monday, January 30, 2012

HOW MANY TIMES MUST I SAY THIS?

From Ross Douthat in the New York Times on the evils of the new rules of Obamacare:
But sometimes the state goes further. Not content with crowding out alternative forms of common effort, it presents its rivals an impossible choice: Play by our rules, even if it means violating the moral ideals that inspired your efforts in the first place, or get out of the community-building business entirely.

This is exactly the choice that the White House has decided to offer a host of religious institutions — hospitals, schools and charities — in the era of Obamacare. The new health care law requires that all employer-provided insurance plans cover contraception, sterilization and the morning-after (or week-after) pill known as ella, which can work as an abortifacient. A number of religious groups, led by the American Catholic bishops, had requested an exemption for plans purchased by their institutions. Instead, the White House has settled on an exemption that only covers religious institutions that primarily serve members of their own faith. A parish would be exempt from the mandate, in other words, but a Catholic hospital would not.

Ponder that for a moment. In effect, the Department of Health and Human Services is telling religious groups that if they don’t want to pay for practices they consider immoral, they should stick to serving their own co-religionists rather than the wider public. Sectarian self-segregation is O.K., but good Samaritanism is not. The rule suggests a preposterous scenario in which a Catholic hospital avoids paying for sterilizations and the morning-after pill by closing its doors to atheists and Muslims, and hanging out a sign saying “no Protestants need apply.”
Ross, I ponder that, and I am not at all disturbed that the Roman Catholic hospitals and universities will need to provide all types of health care to all of their employees. Not one bit. Have you pondered that some communities have only a Roman Catholic hospital to serve them and that not all of their employees are members of the RCC? Why should everyone who works in the community hospital have to play by Roman Catholic rules? What about the common good?

Furthermore, Ross, have you pondered the fact that Roman Catholic hospitals and universities already provide coverage for contraceptives in health care packages? See below from NPR. How does the church square the coverage that is already offered in some states with their consciences? Whatever the reasoning of the powers in the case of the states which mandate coverage for contraceptives, the same powers should apply that reasoning to the hospitals and universities in the rest of the country under the new rules for health care coverage.

From NPR:
But while some insist that the rules, which spring from last year's health law, break new ground, many states as well as federal civil rights law already require most religious employers to cover prescription contraceptives if they provide coverage of other prescription drugs.

While some religious employers take advantage of loopholes or religious exemptions, the fact remains that dozens of Catholic hospitals and universities currently offer contraceptive coverage as part of their health insurance packages.

"We've always had contraceptive birth control included in our health care benefits," said Michelle Michaud, a labor and delivery nurse at Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif. "It's something that we've come to expect for ourselves and our family."

Dominican is part of the Catholic Healthcare West System. A spokeswoman for the 40-hospital chain confirmed that it has offered the benefits since 1997.
Ross takes it further. The way of Obamacare is a slippery slope that leads to what? Armageddon? A dark future surely.
The White House attack on conscience is a vindication of health care reform’s critics, who saw exactly this kind of overreach coming. But it’s also an intimation of a darker American future, in which our voluntary communities wither away and government becomes the only word we have for the things we do together.
Ross, I doubt that. I doubt much of what you write.

That Douthat, along with David Brooks, writes for the Yew Nork Times, the newspaper of record, continues to amaze me. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I believe the paper could hire better opinion writers from the freshman class of a school of journalism.

22 comments:

  1. I agree with every word you said here.

    The RC church and the religious conservatives don't mind laying donw the law one damn bit - when THEY are in control of other people's lives, do they?

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  2. Russ, thanks. It's very difficult for me to read Douthat, so comments like yours make it almost worthwhile.

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  3. If I recall correctly, it's only about 100 years since RC canon law was changed to reclassify abortion from being merely a venial sin. Yet the RC bishops pretend that their current view on abortion constitutes eternal verity.

    Orwell and Stalin ain't got nothing on the leaders of the Catholic Church!

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  4. Douthat and Brooks are fine writers and journalists, you just disagree with them.

    What you actually want are opinion writers who write your opinions. You consider "better opinion writers" to be those that agree with you, while "bad opinion writers" don't agree with you.

    - Sarah

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  5. And Russ Manley, your point "the religious conservatives don't mind laying donw the law one damn bit - when THEY are in control of other people's lives, do they?" exactly fits with Douthat's commentary.

    We are setting up a situation where the government dictates to private groups what they can and can't do. That's all cool if the government in place is one that agrees with YOUR values. But that may not always be the case. The point is about the over-reach of government - and that government can be laying down progressive values or conservative values.

    Be careful what you ask for.

    - Sarah

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  6. Paul (A.), also, if memory serves, in medieval times, abortion was permitted until the woman felt life or movement.

    Sarah, Douthat's syntax is not that bad, but his writing is often not well-reasoned. Why do neither he nor the RCC mention that they already provide health insurance that covers contraceptives? It would seem only fair.

    As for Brooks, I see no way that anyone who knows even a little about rhetoric will conclude that he is a fine writer. Sometimes, he makes no sense at all.

    Just out of curiosity, do you think Paul Krugman is a fine writer? What about Frank Rich, the former opinion writer for the NYT?

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  7. Right on Grandmère Mimi, if the RC Church doesn't want to be involved in birth control they should try and convince the 98% of sexually active Catholic women who use it, not to. (Or to use the rhythm method which is okay by them). If Catholics are opposed to contraceptives why do most of them use them?

    And Annie, Grandmère was disagreeing with the fellow. Isn't that allowed? Or does her right to post an opinion on her blog end when it contradicts your own? Most folks will still think Douthat is a dipshit even without her making the case you know, his own convoluted logic will tend to that. Obama isn't forcing anybody to use the pill, he's just giving everybody employed in secular business's the right to decide for themselves. It's called Democracy.

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  8. Wade, thanks. What are the chances that Douthat will read my post? Slim to none, I'd say, but I felt better after writing it.

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  9. PS: I was a lot kinder to Douthat than Charles Pierce, that's for sure.

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  10. Douthat is an @sshat. That is all.

    [Well, not all. But I just had to get that off my chest! ;-/]

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  11. Perhaps we can get Andrew Sullivan to point out that Douthat's being a dipshit. He reads him. Then again Douthat probably already knows he's a dipshit!

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  12. JCF and Wade, I take it that you two are not great fans of Douthat.

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  13. Sarah,

    Mimi is a fine opinion writer, you just don't like the opinion. What you want is opinion writers who write your opinion - go there?

    The difference is, Mimi doesn't use the professional mass media to play at falling-skies.

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  14. Robert Brooks serves up so much nonsense it should embarrass the NYT. One sometimes wonders which planet he inhabits, and this is not an issue of where he falls on a political spectrum. Many careful writers have no trouble slicing and dicing his nonsense. Mimi has plenty of good company.

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  15. So being forced to provide contraceptive coverage is terrible, but choosing to provide it is good?

    If I understand the context of this ruling correctly (and I've only marginally paid attention to it; life insists I pay attention to things I can do something about), it applies to religious institutions which serve the general public, not to what those institutions do among their own members. So to compare, this ruling is not equivalent to demanding Roman Catholics ordain women, or Episcopalians ordain gays and lesbians; but they can't refuse services like healthcare through their hospitals to non-believers.

    That, at least, is how I understand the reasoning here. That bit from NPR, though, is extremely helpful, especially from a church which should be a bit more mea culpa about it's very recent history, and a bit more humble about its own institutional morality.

    "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God...." Or, as Charles Pierce said of Douthat's opinion: "To which the cradle Catholic must reply, as Augustine did to the people of Hippo, 'What the fk are you talking about, dude?' "

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  16. Obama is actually to the right of Presidents Nixon and Eisenhower, who both considered themselves to be "conservatives". It was Nixon, not McGovern or Ted Kennedy, who first proposed a guaranteed national income, something unthinkable today. It was that radical Bolshevik Dwight Eisenhower who created the old Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and who initiated what is arguably the last great construction project of the New Deal, the Interstate Highway System.

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  17. Mark, thanks.

    Paul, David Brooks, not Robert, please! The man is famous. He not only writes for the NYT, but he's a teevee pundit.

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  18. If I understand the context of this ruling correctly,...it applies to religious institutions which serve the general public, not to what those institutions do among their own members.

    Rmj, that is my understanding also. For instance, a parish church would not be obliged to provide coverage for contraceptives in the health insurance plan for their employees.

    Counterlight, yes indeed. How did we get here from there? If only one of the damn commies you mention had pushed for something similar to the Interstate Highway system for travel by rail.

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  19. Mimi, sorry, I was typing in the heat of the moment. I usually call him Bobo.

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  20. Pablito, Bobo is fine here, but Robert Brooks? Who dat?

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  21. I know a fine gentleman by the name of Robert Brooks, so please let's put this typo behind us.

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  22. Paul, as you wish, I've put the typo behind me, because of the fine man you know by the name. :-)

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