Obamacare: JUST SAY NO!

I've come to the conclusion that the only thing to do is to oppose Obamacare lock, stock and barrel. I believe the Catholic focus on whether or not the plan funds abortion, includes conscience protection, permits euthanasia, etc., is misguided. I believe that when Obama says these things are "distractions," he's telling his supporters: don't worry about it--just help me get it passed. He's taking a page from Stalin, who thought Churchill and Roosevelt were idiots for demanding unconditional surrender in WWII. Stalin said: just get your enemy to lay down his arms, then you can make it unconditional--and Stalin did, and the Democrats will. For heaven's sake, a California Catholic hospital has already been forced by the courts to do a boob job on a transsexual! Does anyone think that when the government controls all health care that Catholic hospitals or doctors (or you or me) will have even the limited freedom they have now?

On Sunday, Mark Steyn:

"The president needs to get something passed. Anything. The details don’t matter. Once it’s in place, health-care “reform” can be re-reformed endlessly. Indeed, you’ll be surprised how little else we talk about. So, for example, public funding for abortions can be discarded now, and written in — as it surely will be by some judge — down the road. What matters is to ram it through, get it done, pass it now — in whatever form."

Well, abortion funding is in the bill now, anyway. Still, I see no reason to think Mr. Steyn is wrong. If it is removed from the bill, it will be added later.

Once government heath care exists, it will be impossible, short of some disaster or miracle, to get rid of it. There will be enormously powerful interests created that will prevent any change--except for enlarging it. It will be like government education, which everybody knows doesn't work, but which cannot be changed. The last time school vouchers were on the ballot in California, public sector unions, led by the California Teachers Association with $26,366,491, contributed over $30 million to defeat the measure. And the money these groups use to defend government education was your money, taxpayers money!

Clifford Assness, writing on July 22:

"Perhaps the best example of the destructive 'public option' is our nation’s schools. Here we clearly have a government provided 'public option' competing with (and in fact dominating in size) private schooling. But, is it fair? Does it work well? Not by a long-shot....

"With a “public option” things inevitably would go the horrific way of our public schools. Instead of existing to please customers (patients and students, respectively) the “public option” in schools exists largely to benefit empowered stakeholders of the system (health administrators and unionized school employees, respectively), who will shamelessly pretend to give a darn about sick people and children. Watch the analogy play out if we go this route in health care. It will be like looking in a funhouse mirror and seeing a doctor where you used to see a teacher. All else will be the same."

Did you know that more Americans than Canadians are satisfied with their health care? Here's a good rundown on how our current system stacks up against those in other countries.

I work with a priest who had to wait 18 months for a hip operation in Canada--in pain every day. I believe they were hoping he would die before they had to perform the operation. That's our future if Obamacare passes.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney