Exactly How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

Insurers are distancing themselves:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/usa-contraceptives-aetna-idUSL2E8DAEKD20120210

NOW the obvious coercive nature of Obamacare can’t be ignored, the insurers are in the frying pan.  And those interests have large amounts of money for legal issues which this undoubtedly raises.

If I recall correctly, health insurers and pharma companies weren’t totally, shall we say, “unhappy” with the prospects of Obamacare.

Now they like the earlier supportive Catholics are learning this the hard way: government can hand out goodies and government can take them away. 

Interesting that the President, with the wave of a hand, can tell multi-billion dollar insurance companies how to run their businesses.  Why do we even bother to pay for a Congress?

Folks, if we don’t send this guy to the unemployment line in November the future will make this look like circus games.

Well if insurer’s can offer free care for this why not everything else?

Dear Mr. President,

Exactly what part of NO do you not understand?

Signed,

The Less Intelligent Citizens of the United States of America

Exactly how stupid does he think we are?

Well, if Americans elect Obama for 4 more years, than at least we will know he was right about something…

“One has to wonder if this has been the plan all along.”

Yes. I do believe it was.

From Open Secrets:

Planned Parenthood laid out $1.9 million for lobbying expenses last year, a record for the group and triple the $588,000 it spent in 2010. Pro-abortion rights groups collectively spent a total of $2.2 million making their case with the federal government, according to calculations by the Center for Responsive Politics, compared with $956,000 the year before.
Self-preservation was high on the list of issues Planned Parenthood lobbied on in 2011. According to its 2009-2010 annual report, the organization received $487.4 million that year in “government health services grants and reimbursements”—close to half of its total revenue. . . .
Meanwhile, anti-abortion groups spent just $495,000 on lobbying last year—their lowest total since 1998. However, that figure doesn’t include money spent by conservative multi-issue groups such as the Family Research Council, which put a little more than $100,000 into lobbying.

“Exactly How Stupid Do They Think We Are?”

They’re just following precedent. What evil or wasteful spending of state/local/federal taxes for the past 100 years hasn’t been made more palatable to ignorant, inattentive citizens by hiding it underneath the rock of: “all the money is fungible”?

Mandating that an entire industry provide one specific product for free??????????  W. T. F.?????????

The responses of various organizations may be found at Freedom2Care.

This is yet another swindle, and another seizure of power he doesn’t have. So in order to convince Catholics and others that he understands they might possibley perceive the mandate as a violation of the 1st Amendment, he now violates another freedom. He is taking over decision-making for private companies. Great!

Cheat me once, shame on you; cheat me twice, shame on me.

Liberals take away all your freedoms except the ones to have sex with whomever you want and they’ll even take care of all the consequences (babies) and eliminate them for you.

This word parsing is so bad, even Bill Clinton would be embarrassed.  It is totally a distinction without a difference.  Isn’t the whole point here that the Roman Catholic Church pays for the insurance that is mandated to have contraceptives and abortifacients(sp?)?  I don’t see how ANYTHING has changed.  Will the insurance company reimburse the Roman Catholic organizations for birth control pills, RU486, etc. so they aren’t technically paying for it?  What a bunch of ninnies.  If they RCs fall for this, they are stupid.

Cheat me once, shame on you; cheat me twice, shame on me.

If Obama had his way on immigration “reform”, their wouldn’t be a “twice”. Your sovereignty would be gone along with your tax dollars.

5.  Jamesw, maybe you should’ve said patsies.

“the religious employer will not be required to provide contraception coverage but her insurance company will be required to offer contraceptive care free of charge”

Okay, that is really thinking the bishops are too stupid to come in out of the rain, too stupid to live, or ‘no, contrary to what you appear to believe, I did not come down in the last shower’.

There is no such thing as free insurance.  If there isn’t a direct charge, the insurer will probably whack it onto the premium to make up what the coverage would cost, and since the employer is the one going to be paying this, it will mean that they will end up paying higher rates for the insurance they already have.

How is this supposed to work, precisely, and do they really think people believe money grows on trees, there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and unicorns are flying overhead sprinkling fairy dust?  Expecting people to swallow this is an insult to their intelligence.

The U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops has released what I think is a very strong statement against the administration’s attempts at compromise. They call it “unacceptable”:

...Today, the President has done two things.

First, he has decided to retain HHS’s nationwide mandate of insurance coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some abortifacients. This is both unsupported in the law and remains a grave moral concern. We cannot fail to reiterate this, even as so many would focus exclusively on the question of religious liberty.

Second, the President has announced some changes in how that mandate will be administered, which is still unclear in its details. As far as we can tell at this point, the change appears to have the following basic contours:

·It would still mandate that all insurers must include coverage for the objectionable services in all the policies they would write. At this point, it would appear that self-insuring religious employers, and religious insurance companies, are not exempt from this mandate.

·It would allow non-profit, religious employers to declare that they do not offer such coverage. But the employee and insurer may separately agree to add that coverage. The employee would not have to pay any additional amount to obtain this coverage, and the coverage would be provided as a part of the employer’s policy, not as a separate rider....

These changes require careful moral analysis, and moreover, appear subject to some measure of change. But we note at the outset that the lack of clear protection for key stakeholders—for self-insured religious employers; for religious and secular for-profit employers; for secular non-profit employers; for religious insurers; and for individuals—is unacceptable and must be corrected. And in the case where the employee and insurer agree to add the objectionable coverage, that coverage is still provided as a part of the objecting employer’s plan, financed in the same way as the rest of the coverage…

But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions. In a nation dedicated to religious liberty as its first and founding principle, we should not be limited to negotiating within these parameters. The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government….

Sounds like they may have figured out that the administration is tremendously untrustworthy since the USCCB will now concentrate their efforts to correct the problem at the other two branches of government.

I think the problem isn’t that the President believes that we are stupid - he just has such a bare grasp of economics that he believes it himself.  He absolutes does not grasp even the most rudimentary cause/effect dynamics involved in the economy.  I think he really expects businesses to offer certain products or services for free.  He seriously believes that there is a free lunch.

18, no the president is at heart a totalitarian and dictator.  He is an enemy to the Constitution and this Republic.

Br. Michael (18),
Just so. Many seem to be characterizing this issue as a war on religion. I submit that this is a battle on religion, part of a greater war on freedom.

This is actually a spiritual battle being played out here on earth.

A culture of Life or a culture of death?

You know whose hands are all over this - prayer is required

Are the bishops suggesting that this would be acceptable if this coverage were offered as a $0.01/month serarate rider.  I don,t see how this could be rejected.  After all, the employee has the right to purchase separate insurance if he/she desires.  In the bitter end, this will be up to the individual, as it should be.  If the bishops are unhappy with the 95% or so catholic women who use contraceptives, then address the issue from the pulpit.

As far as the “informational aspect is concerned”, i assume based on useage, that most catholic women know where to obtain birth control info.

So, if Euthanasia is dictated by HHS, Catholic (or other religious) institutions who are adamantly opposed to Euthanasia should not mind that their institution is providing health care insurance policies that allow someone to have a rider for Euthanasia? 

As has been noted elsewhere, the “cost” for the service will either be built into the premium for the particular institution to pay, or it will be built into the premiums that all customers of that insurance company pay.

The point which the Obama administration is pretending they don’t gather, is that many religious institutions opposed to these many things on religious principal, do not in any way want to be associated with these issues.

Their opposition does not restrict individuals from obtaining services which the government has decreed are legal; it just means that religious organizations are not going to be forced to subsidize these services for those who want them.

To take it a step further, I have individual health insurance.  It violates my religious principles and beliefs that my policy will be charging me for these things which I think are sinful.  But this government, which thinks it knows what my life needs better than I do, is making me pay for this anyway.

We are getting closer to a “Declaration of Independence” moment with this government.

Yes - Captian, but i am sure that your policy provides for blood transfusions, which jo wits deem immoral and unchristian.  So should these items be deleted from all policies just because a certain segment of the population finds them unacceptable.

What is the difference between deleting reproductive services from all policies because catholics (actally the leadership) think they are unacceptable, and deleteing blood transfusions from all policies because jo wits think they are unacceptable.

Why not have a broad policy that covers everything that is legal (and perhaps medican weed)  and leave it up to the INDIVIDUAL as to whether or not he/she wishes to use the servive.

Otherwise ???

Further - the issue of “subsidy” comes up a lot in these discussions.

You are subsidizing all these services right now.  We actually have two classes of users.  Those who enter thru the front door, go over to the registration desk and present their policy.  And those without policies who enter thru the emergency entrance.

The hospital cannot turn down emergency patients,.

You are paying for this inefficient setup thru your local tax support.

Issue everyone a policy and do it the most effecient way.

and leave it up to the INDIVIDUAL

If the Federal Government actually abided by the Constitution that is exactly where we would be at the State level.

Each of us could choose whether we wanted health insurance at all [there was a time when we didn’t have it/need it].

Each of us would purchase the coverage we wanted.

But since the rise of the Progressive Movement in this country since the late 1800’s, political elites have decided that we are not capable of making important decisions in our own lives.  We need their elitist intellect to properly govern our journey through life.

And of course, the political elites have an abiding belief that man can indeed be perfected through an all knowing government run by “the smart people”.

As I hope many are learning; top down, one size fits all prescriptions, don’t fit well for 300 million American individuals: thus government has to force the prescription down our throats.

Think it will stop here?

Pretty good editorial today in the Wall Street Journal.  It starts with a good title: “Immaculate Contraception” and ends with this question:

Who was it again who claimed that if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan?

President Obama thinks we are stupid not see that fewer crack babies, fewer babies with alcohol dependency, fewer babies to the extremely poor would represent a significantly less taxing burden on the Gubmint’s responsibility to care for those who need care. I think President Obama is stupid not see that the breakdown of the traditional family and familial responsibilities is the continuing demise of this (once?) great nation. A destructive cycle has been initiated where the more that Gubmint policies create problems, the more we need Gubmint to bail us out of the problems it has created. There are economic, social, and spiritual consequences to moral weakness - long term and short term. Well-intended aid for single, especially mother, families and a host of other safety net programs have created a a safety net for avoiding the immediate consequences of a moral failure. It seems that now that the icy water is lapping over our feet on the deck of the Titanic, we are starting to bail with some urgency. As Christians we are commanded to care about the souls of the people. The Government has not such mandate and indeed confuses physical relief (from hunger, lack of cell phones, pregnancy?)with genuine help and support. I suggest that it may have become too easy for us in the Church to defer to the government in supporting people in need.

The problem, capt warren, is emergency services.  You get into an accident and the ambulance takes you to emergency.  There would have to be a lawyer present to determine exactly what services you have purchased and permit the staff to decline non-purchased procedures.

There are places in the midwest where fire department services are handled this way.  You purchase a license-tag sytle decal and nail it to the front door.  If the house is burning and no tag, they turn around and leave.  Better tell your tenants, if any, about this situation.

Are personally willing to get refused at emergency if you do not have insurance.  What about your family?

No, a universal policy is best.  Eliminates confusion.  You can still decline services if you object.

Finally, the state vs. federal argument is a diversion.  16 states including MA have programs similiar to the program Obama is designing.  Why not objections from the RC bishops when these were implemented.  There a lot of RC,s in MA.  Maybe they,re all like ted kennedy?

Okay Br. Michael, Obama is at heart a totalitarian and dictator.  He is an enemy to the Constitution and this Republic.  He also has no grasp of even the most rudimentary cause/effect dynamics involved in the economy, whether that economy is Capitalist, Socialist, or Communist.  These are not mutually exclusive characteristics.

“You get into an accident and the ambulance takes you to emergency.  There would have to be a lawyer present to determine exactly what services you have purchased and permit the staff to decline non-purchased procedures.”

This argument is specious. Hospitals ask (those who are conscious, anyway) about insurance to determine who gets billed, not to decide whether or not to provide services. The indigent get treated all the time.

I’m trying to think of a scenario wherein a pregnant woman would be aborted without her prior knowledge or consent, but the usual scenario is the mother has died and the doctors try to save the baby.

Perhaps in your mythical town that issues fire tags, maybe the ambulance would rush a dying car-accident victim to an ABORTION CLINIC rather than a hospital?

30, true.  But I don’t think he is stupid and does not understand economics.  I just don’t think he cares.  He simply wants to advance his agenda and the economics are irrelevant to him.

Antiochus to the Jews:
“You don’t have to pay for the pig, just sacrifice it in the Temple. Where is the harm in that?”

In response to the original question, “Stupid enought to have elected them in the first place.”

I know that I did NOT elect this Bozo as President and I bet a lot us here did not either!  I really do feel sorry for the RC bishops if they truly ‘campaigned’ for Obama.  That was an unfortunate wasted effort.

SC Blu,

I don’t recall that the Bishops openly campaigned for Obama in 2008.  But they did campaign for Obamacare.

But there was another time when the Roman Catholic Hierarchy played nice with the guy instead of sending his campaign into the toilet.

At the October 17, 2008 Alfred E. Smith Dinner in New York, hosted by the Archdiocese, Cardinal Edward M. Egan warmly introduced Barack Obama, even though he knew full well what this man’s abortion record had been in Illinois.  If he had had the guts to take this very public and prestigious moment to speak to the record in detail and how that record so offends the Roman Catholic Church in particular and Christianity in general, it might have possibly damaged the campaign to the point that Obama would not have won.

Cardinal Egan I believe treasured his position at that moment more than he did the Faith.

No, the RC bishops didn’t “campaign” for Obama - or for anyone else. No one was going to risk losing tax-free status in this day and age. And ALREADY-GONE, I don’t know what kind of hospitals you have in your area, but our hospitals treat anyone who shows up in the emergency room needing emergency care - it’s the law. And pardon my saying so, but I think you’re being somewhat disingenuous. You know perfectly well what the real issue is here.

Capt. Deacon Warren, I think the RC’s are now reaping what they sowed. They were cozy with the Ted Kennedy, who was rabidly pro-abortion and who dumped his wife and the mother of his kids and remarried, and gave him a send-off worthy of Mother Teresa. They allowed plenty of other politicians (like Pelosi, for example) to claim to be “devout Catholics,” when they were really nothing of the sort, but were baby-killing, gay-marriage advocating slimeballs - not to mention what some of them did in their personal lives. It was as though there were 2 standards in the Church - one for politicians and one for ordinary people. This cozying up has given the left reason to believe they have nothing to fear from the Church, which is now reaping the whirlwind. Now, it seems the Church has awakened and is beginning to reclaim moral authority.

What really gives me tight jaws is being criticized for sympathizing (not actually joining) the Tea Party Movement….yet….is the fact they demand less government involvement (and lower taxes, BTW) in our lives, and they’re being roasted for it!  Obama wouldn’t have had a chance of being elected if folks like the Tea Party Movement had been around, and he wouldn’t have endorsed Ragsdale and her abortion-loving cronies at Planned Parenthood.  If we don’t oust him in November, then we clearly deserve what we get!

Why does the government, and not my wife and myself,  get to choose what kind of insurance coverage we purchase, or don’t purchase?  Are government regulators better at deciding our health care choices for us?  Should they get to decide our moral choices because of it? 

Those question are at heart of the matter.  Pro-choice has now become a mandated choice, which is no choice at all.

Nor did I choose to subsidize a whole class of freeloaders who abuse a good-intentioned law concerning emergency rooms. If that is what is driving cost, as someone earlier suggested, then we need to revisit that law, not find a way to better share the freeloader’s burden.

Two months ago my daughter spent six hours in an ER. For that I have a bill on my desk for $2,000, which I will pay.  She recieved the service; paying for it is the only moral choice.  But why should we have to pay for all of the routine colds, sniffles, and fevers that were in there that day, and who paid nothing?

40, rhetorical question right?  That is the whole problem with Obamacare and the heart of the lawsuits against it.  It’s something most of us here saw at the time and argued that it was not permitted under the Constitution.  We said that the commerce clause couldn’t be read that broadly and, if it was, we predicted that this would be the result.  We also said that it did away with the limited powers of the federal government and created a federal government with unlimited powers.

We are just watching what we predicted play out.  I do hope the Supreme Court is watching and that this will favorably (for us) influence the oral arguments set for March.

I think can all see what is coming over the horizon;

-sugar is bad for you, needs to be regulated, you prove that you need it

-guns cause deaths, they need to be removed from society, its for your health

-big SUV’s crush little wind-up electric carts, need to abolish SUV’s in the name of health

-we told you to use the CFL bulbs to cut down on harmful [unhealthy] green house gases.  Now we are going to start fining you under the health law

-cutting grass makes dust which can harm you neighbor’s health.  From now on you do it with scissors only

-driving at night is more dangerous than during the day.  To save you from yourselves, there is a mandatory curfew on driving after dark.  Apply to HHS for a permit to drive after night if we feel you have a need

Can you think of more?

Sure.  Insurance companies can save more money on the old and sick by killing them rather than paying for expensive health care.  Consider it retroactive abortion.

Come February 15 (in two days), these HHS regs will be published in the Federal Register, and will then go into effect 60 days after. Take a look at what the regs say, and how Obama’s “compromise” is no compromise.

Somebody had better tell God or Mother Nature that pregnancy is now a “disease,” and one that can be prevented.  Of course, it can be prevented, but a “disease?”  Which idiot came to this conclusion, may I ask?  Obama himself, maybe?  If so, then I’m not at all surprised!

42.  Well, Capt Deacon Warren, I can!  How about breathing?  Or seeing?

Yes, cennydd13, we will have to tax you on your breathing, because in fact you exhale Carbon Dioxide, a known dangerous greenhouse gas now regulated by the EPA, via a Supreme Court ruling.

I will send you an address to remit your taxes due!

I forgot to mention talking, because to liberals, conservatives talking is considered dangerous, “and we have to stop them.”

Some Catholics may have been willingly duped by the President’s “accommodation.”  But not “liberal” Cardinal Roger Mahony.  He has blasted the mandate:  “As a Catholic American, I am outraged ...by your incredulous contortions to justify your untenable position….  Your ‘accommodation’ actually makes the entire matter far worse.”

Wow! Pretty strong stuff from Mahony, who is about as liberal a cardinal as the Church has. Good for him! This is a great statement. He doesn’t pull any punches. Love it!