The Republican Party claims to represent religious America. But when it comes to healthcare – the two couldn’t be farther apart. As the Supreme Court gets ready to hear arguments on Obamacare – a broad coalition of religious groups in America filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the high court in support of Obamacare. From Methodists to Presbyterians to Catholics – several different denominations are represented in the brief – putting them at odds with nearly every single Republican in Congress and on the campaign trail who have vowed to repeal the President’ health reform law.
Considering that the bible calls for the weak and needy to be rescued – and the Pope recently declared healthcare was a “inalienable right” – it’s no surprise that religious organizations are lining up in favor of Obamacare. What is surprising - and tragic - is that Republicans would rather let sick Americans die than give President Obama a legislative victory.
Comments
Probably. Unfortunatley, the dems are just as bad. It's politics before principle.
I think it's more money before principle than politics. Everyone wants to be known as a champion for the sick and needy until they are required to pay for it.
the Pope recently declared healthcare was a “inalienable right” –
OOOooooo Well since The Pope says so. Because the Left always believes everything he says.
We see how the US candidate for Pope Mr. Rick Sanatorium squares this with his Ayn Rand belief of free markets.
I don't mind paying for health care for all in this country. I choose medicine over bombs and a bloated military anyday. I choose health care for all over the billions that are pissed away every year in welfare for the rich. If the insurance companies are not driven out of the health care industry nothing will ever change or have a chance too.....They provide nothing in actual health care but damn do they drive the price of health care up with their own greed......That's my opinion.
Capital, unlike the ideological Right where nobody on the other side can ever do or say anything they affirm, we are able to hear truth and reason even when it comes from an unlikely source. The Pope, and the Catholic Church, has spoken well about economic justice, peace and the exploitation of Third World people. The Culture War where homophobia and misogyny have become the public image, along with the pedophile priests, do not make us fans of the conservative bishops or the Vatican. We just don't indict the whole thing or ignore what is good while we lay into what is bad. I wish the Right could be that fair and balanced, but their Obama hate campaign is relentless and irrational. It only makes sense when you account for their war against Liberalism and personal conscience.
While I applaud the religious community on their stance regarding universal care (very rare praise coming from me) we shouldn't forget that court battles aren't about what's right and wrong. I appreciate that they filed a "friend of the court" brief but I'm curious as to whether it contained anything helpful to the specific issue being contested, i.e. whether or not the individual mandate is Constitutional, or whether it is just an endorsement of the plan which might not even receive consideration from the justices. I hope that, if these institutions are sincere in their advocacy, they went as far as is actually necessary and presented sound legal arguments helpful to the case.
If this is just a "blessing" then I'm not sure that I actually approve of their meddling.
Capital, unlike the ideological Right where nobody on the other side can ever do or say anything they affirm, we are able to hear truth and reason even when it comes from an unlikely source. The Pope, and the Catholic Church, has spoken well about economic justice, peace and the exploitation of Third World people. The Culture War where homophobia and misogyny have become the public image, along with the pedophile priests, do not make us fans of the conservative bishops or the Vatican. We just don't indict the whole thing or ignore what is good while we lay into what is bad. I wish the Right could be that fair and balanced, but their Obama hate campaign is relentless and irrational. It only makes sense when you account for their war against Liberalism and personal conscience.
Do you normally take ideas from heads of both a foreign country and known religious zealots? The Popes opinion hold now place in American Politics. It smacks of desperation to try win over those who would oppose gross intrusion of the Federal government by using religious idolism. I can only hope they are not that stupid.
Is the Pope pro-Obamacare?
When orthodox Catholics take Vatican statements to be applicable to US affairs, liberals cry foul, but when their favored policies may be the background to a Vatican statement, suddenly what the Vatican says becomes important to them.
The problem is, the pope isn’t endorsing Obamacare in this message. But the good news is his message provides me with the opportunity to, once again, express my strong commitment to his (and church teaching’s) vision for heath care justice, something that has been almost completely lost amid all the noise of opposing Obamacare’s false solutions for achieving this bulwark of the common good.
The first thing to realize is that just because the Church is in favor of ensuring that people receive health care does not mean the Church automatically endorses any proposal that walks through the door claiming to do this. In this case, I believe the legislation passed by the Democrats will result in a net detriment to what our dollars earn in terms of health.
continued.....
I think they would prefer Single Payer or maybe even pure State run medicine. They are not in the pockets of Wall St. or the health insurance industry like the GOPimp Congress is.
Considering that the bible calls for the weak and needy to be rescued – and the Pope recently declared healthcare was a “inalienable right”
Thom let's put aside your call to blur Church and State, for a second. Your statement is no different from some crazy Muslim Jihadi using the words of the Ayatollah as legitimate political authority.
I am also sure you are well aware, (because I have heard many of your guests and callers mention this,) that Jesus and the Bible demand PERSONAL giving on an individual level, charity that is given via FREE WILL.
The State extracting money from a man and then giving it to his neighbor is not charity in the biblical sense. If you do not pay your taxes the IRS will put you in JAIL. Does this sound like free will giving to you?
What I find disingenuous is that YOU know this, and yet choose to score cheap political points against the church to further the expansion of government.
If few comments if you are equating the comment of Thom's administrator to the Ayatollah, how is that different from the statements of Rick Sanitarium?
If you want to quote the bible how about " give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" when Jesus was asked about taxes.
Also be thankful, 'for it is easier for a camel to pass through an eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the gates of heaven", so if the government makes you a poor man, you are more likely to get into Heaven. Unless you are contributing to Romney's 100 foot needle project with the 10 foot eye.
It is ok for churches and religious people to advocate sound social policies and good government as long as they are not pushing narrow points of dogma that cannot be justified separately by secular philosophical and social evidence. Peace, for example, is about international relations and the case does not hang on anything Jesus or any other religious figure says or believes. Universal healthcare is about taking care of people in general, not advancing a narrow theological issue about contraception or abortion. The idea that the secular government is supposed to care for the general welfare and conduct the legitimate business of the state is hardly a narrow religious belief. It is what the separation of powers and render unto Caesar is about. Caesar's failure to be a good emperor does come under indictment, not the legitimate role of civil government. In fact, the failure is the logical counterpoint to there being being a legitimate authority for civil government that is not the business of the church to run, but is to speak to. Establishing justice and caring for citizens is what the church expects the state to do. It has the job of caring about that, not taking over the civil government or establishing its dogma in the secular policies of the State.
I don't mind paying for health care for all in this country. I choose medicine over bombs and a bloated military anyday. I choose health care for all over the billions that are pissed away every year in welfare for the rich. If the insurance companies are not driven out of the health care industry nothing will ever change or have a chance too.....They provide nothing in actual health care but damn do they drive the price of health care up with their own greed......That's my opinion.
That mirrors my take on the subject too. I lived in British Columbia and we had single payer health care. People ask me how I liked it and I reply, in 20 years the subject of how anyone was going to pay for their health care never came up. It was pro-rated to your income topping out at about the $50 grand income so it was hardly noticable. When you lost your job you were still 100 % covered. Things have changed a little though, you have to expect US companies are putting pressure on all functioning social systems on all foreign govts. When my buddies from Canada and I took a three week motorcyle tour in the Western US, one of them mentioned having to pay supplemental health insurance. I said I can't recall every hearing about that before. He said it only applied to traveling into the States because our health care system has become so prohibitively expensive. Ain't that a bitch?
He said it only applied to traveling into the States because our health care system has become so prohibitively expensive. Ain't that a bitch?
Question WHY it's so expensive and yuo might begin to understand ways to fix it without Post Office running it.
Really? Is it not the payoff to health insurers who add no value, making Single Payer much better? Is it not the Bush giveaway prohibition against mass purchase leverage on drug prices to line the pockets of privateer Pharm? We could continue, but to add to Choco's biker friends, let me add my wife's English relative who flew home after experiencing a heart attack to avoid being crushed by debt as well as his medical problem.
It is not a pipe dream, and I would take the Post Office and its service and efficiencies over the Fedex System of cherrypicking profits you want instead.
Those who have done the studies reject your assertion with overwhelming agreement. Mad as Hell Docs are not complaining about State run healthcare, they are pissed about privateers and profiteers. They know more than you do.
We could continue,
I seriously doubt that. Asked for the real reasons. not vacuous political platitudes.
Although there does appear to be a common theme developing.
What an idiot you are! I pointed to where the costs in our system are and you call it vacuous political platitudes. The privateer sector's entitlements are pervasive, and healthcare is a prime example of why we need to get them out of the picture. The myth of competetive efficiency and the profit motive as a control on costs is what qualifies as vacuous and erroneous. I did not exhaust the list of price inflaters involved in privatized health care and the duplication of high price machinery while basic public health priorities are starved for funds. You cannot defend your thesis.
Obamacare is a "wolf in sheeps clothing". Just like the banks packaging and selling phony mortgage derivatives and making billions, and then when it all came tumbling down , they got bailed out with a huge stimulus of taxpayer money because they were "too big to fail". The regs that come out of this will be written by the "too big to fail" gang for their benefit and to the detriment of small community banks that will be forced to sell out to the "too big to fail" giant banks because they cannot afford to comply with the burdensome regs supposedly designed to prevent another mortgage crises that they did not create in the first place.
Obamacare was written by the health insurance industry and is setting us on the road to the corporatization of the healthcare industry. It has already started. The same thing will happen in the healthcare industry and small community hospitals will be swallowed up by giant healthcare corporations.
Damn it, if you are arguing for Single Payer, join the ranks. If you are saying that Wendell Potter is wrong about Obamacare saving some lives even if it does not really get at the pathology, why go so far? Obamacare is hardly setting us on the road we were already further on down. It includes some initial steps that help people, but is is only a start and nobody I know has called it more than that. Calling it less than that as an indictment of Obama instead of the system is not honest.
What an idiot you are!
Immediately to Ad Homing. The pillar of intellectualism
I ask for reasons and you give me “Bush giveaway” “Payoff insurers” “Privateer Pham” That is rhetorical fancy and at best are minor issues to the Cost of Healthcare.
Some of the legitimate reasons being.
Artificial restraint of trade, limiting insurance to fifty individual markets.
Cost shifting due primarily to Government short paying it bill.
Government unfunded mandates.
Do you notice the common theme between your political rhetoric and my list? Government is to blame for screwing up US Healthcare. You want fix healthcare. Get government out of it .
I love the Post office analogy. You will take the Post office that is losing Billions a year, staffed by nasty apthatic people, Lines like the DMV, Is going to start closing branch’s and limiting service to 4 days a week. Priceless.
It seems to me that with the VAST amount of money being spent on political ads and events that this money would be better served helping those in need than those that just want power.
On the Pope, he did imply back in 2010 that health was a "precious good to the person and society to promote, conserve and protect, dedicating the means, resources and energies necessary so that more persons can enjoy it." He also basically endorsed universal health care over what he termed "pharmacological consumerism".
I am pretty sure that inspite what conservative preach about the Affordable Care Act and wanting to get rid of it, they really don't mind the concept of everyone getting access to care. What they really are against is the government regulating the industry to control costs.
They can debate healthcare all they want for public spectacle, in truth the FEMA Camps aren't for long term care they are for short term eugenics.
They want to put the you in eugenics.
Alright, Lon-Paul-spelled-backward. We get what you want us to know. We've had a steady diet of this conspiracy stuff for some time now. It's worn really thin, but there are still a few folks here who might like to exchange with you. Have fun!
Do you normally take ideas from heads of both a foreign country and known religious zealots? The Pope's opinion holds no place in American Politics.
Are you now coming around to my side in this debate?
If the Pope wants conservatives to listen to him he should form a corporation that is owned 51% by Americans and fund a SuperPAC with all the treasure in the Vatican.
Capital, the term "idiot" refers to being politically absent. When you cite stuff that has been refuted over and over and insist that it is true anyway, you deserve the term.
If you knew anything about the Post Office you would not say what you did about it. If you knew anything about who was taking the unearned money in healthcare, you would not think that getting the government out of the way would be the solution. If the mob is running the cops, you don't just fire the cops and let the mob have a free field. Blaming government for the privateers and hoping that there will be a 'free market' of honest value adders only get you the "adders," a nest of vipers.
I insulted your ideas, and if you want to identify yourself with them, accept the insult as personal. Had you not been repeating yourself I would just think you had a bad idea, not that you were wedded to them.
Capital, one is not supposed to hold a different opinion or view of what DRC's ideation of Utopia, lest he risk DRC's rath. He must know something about the PO we don't. I thought they were broke from years of mismanagement in typical government fashion. Getting the corporations out of government would be a good start. We need to find out which cops, especially those at the top, are in the pockets of the mob and get rid of them and take the mobs power away.
Beware Bull, I also do not forgive bad English and my 'rath' is fearsome! What crap!. Do you really hate democracy so much that you would let privateers run our world? The politics of PO bashing are evident to those paying attention. Compare it with the postal services elsewhere, and once again one can find better ways to run it than our conservatives have allowed. Then there is the absurd pension and benefits funding burden added by cons who really want to give more of our money to their privateer friends. Yes, you do fire the corrupt cops and hire honest ones or the mob runs you. It is easy to criticize government if you don't have to think about governing. Trusting the 'free market' is idiotic after all this time.
TYPO!, SMARTASS, maybe I should have used the term vengeance, or divine retribution. Did I type that correctly?
For those seeking moral perfection and a utopian society, a 'free market' is not the answer. Failing to acknowledge human imperfection has and will always end in one form or the other of tyranny or anarchy. In recent decades, as planned socialistic economies collapsed under their own contradictions, this utopian experiment has proved to be a systematic failure.
A true free market, a market in which all are free to engage in consensual exchange without force, can never be attained with state franchised incorporation. The force of the state has been used to by corporations to give an unfair advantage over all others. Freedom of the marketplace has been compromised. None of the Founding Fathers would have ever considered giving corproations the same rights as a person. The line between big government and multinational corporations has disappeared. Politicians seem to serve corporate interests, who enable their election through contributions, more than the people who voted them into office.
Corporate subsidies consume an enormous part our government's budget. Bailouts have become commonplace. The notion that a free market still actually exists, and is the cause of all economic ills is absurd, to say the least.
Your indictment of the corporate domination of government and the ridiculous personhood dogma put forth by the Supremes is correct. The Myth of freeing the power of the business class is what has led to this nonsense, however, not some American attempt to institute 'socialism' and government control of Commerce.
If you want to talk about having democracy, we could agree about a lot that is wrong and not have to part ways about your misinterpretation of Europe or what socialism means. I think Poly has given very good refutations or your positions on that.
Have you not heard me say that I reject utopianism too? I have repeatedly asserted that democracy is about not having someone else rule over us because we have to do that or they will. It is not a theory about human goodness and rationality. Quite the opposite; but it is also not a theory of human evil where only the strong hand of a parental magistrate will keep the mob from chaos and destruction. I begin with my own disqualification from being the ruler, even though I think I know what would be best. It is a comment of irony, bull.
I invite you to stop trying to convince us that we are socialist utopians because we believe that democracy is the only way to have something other than tyranny, monarchy or plutocracy. My meeting place for the American conversation of reconciliation and future steps is the Pledge of Allegiance because it is a "republic" instead of an empire, it is united instead of warring factions, and it is about "liberty and justice for all." I will talk about the "under God" part because it matters to a lot of others, but how it came to be added is as important as its being there. I oppose all religious nationalism.
I am willing to treat you with respect if you show some. It helps if you avoid saying the same thing no matter how well your rhetoric and memes have been exposed and rejected. We have had a deluge of libertarian nonsense without much engagement in thought from the bearers of that dogma. You need to do more than assert that "socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried" when places like Denmark are doing very well. We might agree that they are not the type of socialism that fails, but then you would have to engage how they understand what works. OK?
I don't take bullying well, so those who come to this site with a chip on their shoulder can find it knocked off.
DRC-" The Myth of freeing the power of the business class is what has led to this nonsense, however, not some American attempt to institute 'socialism' and government control of Commerce."
The myth was in the giant "too big to fail" multinationals controlling and using government, (ie fannie mae and freedie mac for example) to fraudulently make billions then, when it began to unravel, use the government (ie taxpayers) to bail them out. The supposed "private" federal reserve artificially kept interest rates low to facillitate the fraud. Just like healthcare, socialize costs and privatize profits.
I have read some of Chomsky, even before Poly suggested, he is nothing but an anarchist.
DRC-"Quite the opposite; but it is also not a theory of human evil where only the strong hand of a parental magistrate will keep the mob from chaos and destruction."
The economic direction this country is heading, the shrinking middleclass and ever faster expanding poor class, through more and more concentration of wealth in the hands of the 1%, a massive insurmountable and increasing debt, the militarization of our domestic police, the passage of legislation that violates or negates altogether our rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, all of this intended to cause the mobs chaos and destruction, therefore leading to the further creation of a police state.
It has not been done entirely under the Obama administration but he and congress's patriot act, tsa, homeland security, ndaa passage and class warfare certainly seem to be setting the stage for just that type of outcome.
Denmark is a tiny country with a homogeneous society that has been inplace for many centuries. We, on the other hand are a huge country with an extremely diverse population. They pay extremely high taxes, even on middle class incomes, value added taxes, and other special taxes on puchases.
Yes, the Danish are such happy people that young people after they recieve their free government education are leaving Denmark to work elswhere, where taxes are lower.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/business/worldbusiness/26labor.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1330363930-XNbKyuKi9Xpsn4KA99tbKg
Ah, so they're moving to London (according to the article)! What can we make of theis?
Having been to Europe and having talked to happy taxpaying Europeans, I can attest that they think we are primitive crazies. They are not as homogeneous as we presume, and most speak several languages and are not making big stinks about nationalism and patriotism. They are not religious wackos either. We ought to give it a try.
Bullwinkle, the people on the side of "law and order" come from the Right. If you want to stop them, you have to give up your campaign against lefties. We could agree on the evil of corporate.
Well, the article says it is principally be cause of high taxes. That to maintain a socialistic democracy ultimatley results in a failure of that system or, as in the case of Denmark, the need to reassess their system and lower taxes.
Oprah Winfrey did a show there and was impressed for the mosrt part, but remarked on how spartan even an upscale apartment was.
http://socialismdoesntwork.com/denmark-is-no-proof-that-socialism-is-good/
I suppose the luxury class might want to move. I would let them. Upgrades the neighborhood. To think of the Danes as 'spartan' is to live in TV royal land.
I guess they are a fairly happy lot.
http://www.partapuoli.com/Texts/A_horrible_place.htm
As Thom quotes the wealthy German, "I don't want to be a rich man in a poor country." Shared prosperity beats gated communities in mass poverty every time. It is also in the Bible.
Are you now coming around to my side in this debate?
If the Pope wants conservatives to listen to him he should form a corporation that is owned 51% by Americans and fund a SuperPAC with all the treasure in the Vatican.
As long as he follows the US Federal Elections laws regarding Electioneering of a foriegn national, He can do whatever he wants. I imagine there are any number of atheist that would gladly accept his money and suck the Vatican dry.
Really ironic. Conservatives once got their panties twisted worrying that some American politician would take his orders from the Vatican. They could see the Pope ruling against usury and calling "free market capitalism" Mammon. They hardly knew who their friends would be.
Our election laws are a joke. Money doesn't talk, it swears.
Idiotic to suggest the Dems are remotely the same as republiklans on any issue, ever....
I am listening to Mark Thompson right now and an idiot rightwing caller is complaining that we shouldnt have health care, he is saying insurance and not health care but he hates Black Presidents SOOOOOOOOOOO much that he is willing to go without health care
I really hate rightwingers, sorry, but I do
Try disgust. Hate can be bad for you.
Try disgust. Hate can be bad for you.
just words...i feel for them what i am suppose to feel for them, considering how disgusting they are
hey, disgust, works for me
It is fine to hate the abuse of power, but pity the fools. Work for what you want. Peace and joy.
but he hates Black Presidents SOOOOOOOOOOO much that he is willing to go without health care
Did he really say he hates Black Presidents or are you editorizing off your own assumptions?
Let's see, is it part of the most ridiculously racist hate campaign ever waged about an American President, at least since Lincoln, or is it just hate without the racism and the Black President part is pure accident? How do I know the difference in all the bluster and nonsense? Maybe we just feel it in our bones. Maybe it is just hate without the racism. Excuse us if it turns out to be the latter, but how can one tell the difference with all the dogwhistles being tooted?