Obama's Catholic hospital decision

[Beet]

Is it against Church doctrine to promote writings contrary to the teachings of the Church?

[Beet]

As a side note, what are the theological justifications for opposition to birth control? I'm not terribly familiar with this sort of thing.

"In 1968, Pope Paul VI issued his landmark encyclical letter Humanae Vitae (Latin, "Human Life"), which reemphasized the Church’s constant teaching that it is always intrinsically wrong to use contraception to prevent new human beings from coming into existence.

Contraception is "any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods. "

[Beet]

Yes, if not for the government, a quadruple bypass would be easily affordable for all without any sort of insurance

I certainly never made such a claim--"easily affordable for all" are your words, not mine--and you are picking an extreme example, but just to be a good sport and play your game, I'd say that one can easily make a sound argument that a quadruple bypass in the United States, which costs about 40 thousand dollars, would cost about five thousand dollars in an alternate universe in which the trend toward government-sponsored medical services, which started in the 60s, had never taken hold.

What argument is that? Most of the argument I've seen to that end go something like this- government subsidy to X increases demand for X; the higher the demand for X, the higher the price. That seems intuitive enough, but it also assumes that X is more widely used than otherwise, which defeats the whole problem of high cost.

[Beet]

The reason why this is being spun as a devastating political blunder is because the White House, while it started with a better-than-even and even strategically favored position, has been staying off the field. It's like taking up position at Little Roundtop, but then falling back instead of defending. They don't have anyone in the WH who publicly feels strongly about contraceptive availability. As a result, all their statements have been milquetoast and vaccillating. Rhetorically they've put themselves in the worst possible position. It's very strange.

[Beet]

I don't see what's more radical about this than regulations that require all buildings to be constructed with fire exits, all food to be processed in a certain way, certain industries to charge non-monopolistic prices, and the whole gamut of government regulations on industry. You can agree or disagree with the specific regulation, or even agree or disagree with the constitutionality of this type of government regulation as a whole, but I don't think you can single out the requirement of contraceptive coverage by insurance companies as more extreme than these other things. The main difference seems to be that one is relatively new and politically charged, while the rest have been with us since we were little.

Further, the fact of the modern world is that Congress is made up of politicians and inherently limited in number; each Congressmember's career is of limited and uncertain duration. Congress cannot oversee all of the laws it enacts. So it delegates much of it to the executive branch. Again, this is nothing new. The executive branch was designed to execute. Part of the execution, is the creation of more specific rules designed to execute the more general or broad intent of Congress, in a process overseen by the courts and by Congress itself. What Obama is doing here is "making" one of those rules. But the Federal Register is thousands of pages long. This is not some novel post-9/11 invention. The President is not 'usurping' any authority, he is implementing a bill passed by Congress, which Congress delegated to him the authority to implement.

[Beet]

That's a slippery slope argument. I think it's worth talking about long term trends in personal and economic freedoms (where there have been historical movements in both directions), but the "My son will not know a time when the government wasn't expected to control every aspect of his life, from cradle to grave" is clearly hyperbolic and inaccurate. A government that mandates the provision of health care insurance is hardly an authoritarian or Orwellian government, unless you think that the Canadian government is Orwellian, and such.

[Beet]

Okay, let's try another tac.  I'm not trying to put words into your mouth--or anything else into your mouth, for that matter--but it strikes me as astonishing that it doesn't bother you, or anyone, that we have come to a point of saying, "well, the autocracy will tell us what it will tell us, and we have no other recourse than to make the best of it."  This is outrageous!  A private company is expected to eat the cost, all because of executive fiat.  And this isn't even a congressionally-mandated clusterfuck.  That, at least, is legitimate.  This is presidential fiat on a matter that isn't even remotely related to the executive branch description, as envisioned by The Founders.  

Deeply disturbing.  

That's not 'another tac'. That's the same old hyperbolic crap you've been spewing from the beginning- it's crap. Did you even read my post? This provision is mandated in the bill (section 2713, the preventative care section) by Congress. Not "executive fiat". The executive branch is simply carrying out rulemaking as part of the implementation process that Congress delegated to it. This process is nearly 100 years old-- it's nothing new, nothing nearly new, and about as far from novel as you can possibly get. You could look up "conventional" in the dictionary and find "executive rulemaking" in there.

[Beet]

At some point it seems that it became morally and politically fashionable to assume that it is the government's right and responsibility to ensure medical coverage to the masses.  I hold out slim hope that it was just a bad dream.

"At some point"? Please read this.

[Beet]

It's very different with drugs and medical services.  Moreover, a building has no rights.  There is no guarantor that a building can say, "By god I'm an American building, and you cannot tell me how many doors I must have."  People are not buildings.  People have liberties.  Or, at least, they used to.

But one can say "By god" (somehow the god part is import), "I'm an American, and you cannot tell me how many doors my house can have."

Health insurance, too, has no rights. Like buildings, insurance policies are an artificial construction. Their existence is even more tenuous than that of a building; while buildings have a physical presence, insurance policies are only entries in a database somewhere, backed up by the force of law.

The supporters of universal health care have always wanted health care to be funded by the same pool run by the state, which is in turn funded by payroll taxes, just like Social Security. Such taxes would necessarily be compulsory. Compromises have forced the current situation, which attempts to get universal care, but leaves insurance out of the hands of the state and in the private sector. ACA would not have existed if it were not more palatable to political centrists than a single-payer system, modeled on Social Security. So to suggest that ACA is anything other than a less bold, timid version of Social Security for healthcare, (or less bold, timid version of Medicare for the young) is wrong.

In any case, Obama is bound by law to follow section 2713 of the ACA, which directs the executive branch as the authority on the preventative care rules. Even if Ron Paul had been President, he still would have been bound to follow the law, and if he were not, he would be in breach of his duties as President.