Fool Me Once? Obama Administration Offers Purported Accommodation on HHS Mandate
I remember the first purported accomodation. It was a shell game.
There is an idiom familiar to most of us, Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. The announcement from the Obama Administration may just give it new meaning.
PrintWASHINGTON, D.C. (Catholic Online) - There is an idiom familiar to most of us, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
The announcement from the Obama Administration claiming to represent an accommodation to the unconstitutional HHS Mandate which seeks to compel the Church, faith based organizations, and faith informed based businesses to provide sterilization, artificial contraception and abortificacients or face the police power of the State - may just give it new meaning.
The Catholic Bishops of the United States were prudent in their measured response: "In response to today's release of revised regulations for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, provided the following statement on behalf of the USCCB.
"Today, the Administration issued proposed regulations regarding the HHS mandate. We welcome the opportunity to study the proposed regulations closely. We look forward to issuing a more detailed statement later."
Priests for Life responded a bit more cautiously. Fr. Frank Pavone issued this statement : "The HHS is giving the public an opportunity to provide its feedback to the proposed rules. I first of all want to urge the public to take advantage of this opportunity. Moreover, we at Priests for Life remind the Administration that religious liberty does not just belong to religious groups and individuals; it belongs to all Americans.
"Objections to contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs aren't based just on dogmas and Bibles, but on adverse health consequences and the fact that human beings, no matter how small, should not be killed. We see only one acceptable change regarding the mandate: rescind it completely."
The indefatigable Bill Donohue of the Catholic League issued a cautious but welcoming response: "Bill Donohue comments on the revised rules, announced today, regarding the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate: The rules proposed today by HHS appear to go a long way toward rectifying the most problematic provisions of the mandate. Essentially, the rules provide insularity for Catholic institutions: they will not be directly involved in providing health insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs."
"Perhaps the most welcome aspect of the new strictures is the elimination of the criteria that define what constitutes a religious institution. Gone altogether is the highly objectionable definition that excludes an exemption for those religious entities that hire and serve mostly people of other religions. As has been pointed out many times, this definition punishes Catholic institutions for not discriminating against Jews, Protestants, Muslims, Mormons, agnostics, and atheists. The new rules now simply revert to the established understanding of a religious employer as defined by the IRS. This makes eminently good sense."
"Still unresolved is the issue of private employers who invoke a religious objection to providing insurance coverage for services they deem morally objectionable. Because the new rules have not been finalized, and there is an opportunity for further public discussion, more progress may yet be made.While many aspects of the new proposal need to be examined before a final conclusion can be rendered, the decision to expand religious exemptions, and to adopt the IRS definition of a religious institution, is a sign of goodwill by the Obama administration toward the Catholic community."
However, the voice which caused the most caution in this Deacon/Editor/Lawyer and Activist came from the Congressional Office one of my long time heroes, Congressman Chris Smith of New Jersey:
Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04) released the following statement in response to President Obama's announcement today that violates the religious freedoms of people of faith and people of conscience.
"The so-called new policy is the discredited old policy, dressed up to look like something else," said Smith. "It remains a serious violation of religious freedom. Only the most naïve or gullible would accept this as a change in policy.The newest iteration of Obama's coercion rule utterly fails because it still forces religious employers and employees who have moral objections to paying for abortion inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception to pay for these things, because it is still the employers who buy the coverage for their employees.
"Today's announcement is a political manipulation designed to get Obama past his own self-made controversy and past the next election.The White House Fact Sheet is riddled with doublespeak and contradiction. It states, for example, that religious employers "will not" have to pay for abortion pills, sterilization and contraception, but their "insurance companies" will. Who pays for the insurance policy? The religious employer.
"However, Obama has tipped his hand-at the end of the day, he will use force, coercion and ruinous fines that put faith-based charities, hospitals and schools at risk of closure, harming millions of kids, as well as the poor, sick and disabled, that they serve, in order to force obedience to Obama's will."
Stay Tuned. I will be digesting the words of this purported accomodation thoroughly.Then, I will offer my own opinion. I remember the first purported accomodation. It was a shell game. In the meantime, pray.
- - -
Pope Benedict XVI's Prayer Intentions for January 2013
General Intention: The Faith of Christians. That in this Year of Faith Christians may deepen their knowledge of the mystery of Christ and witness joyfully to the gift of faith in him.
Missionary Intention: Middle Eastern Christians. That the Christian communities of the Middle East, often discriminated against, may receive from the Holy Spirit the strength of fidelity and perseverance.
Keywords: Priests for Life, Catholic League, Bill Donohue, Fr Frank Pavone, Health and Human Services, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, U.S. bishops, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, First Amendment, Deacon Keith Fournier
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Why did I have to read this article on line and not in our church bulletin?
This is just another typical Obama "fraud" put upon the American people designed to gain their support. All it says is that if you're a "non-profit" religious based organization, you may not be forced to pay for contraceptives and abotions for your employees. On the other hand if you own a chain of gas stations employing a certain numbe of people or more, you "will" be "forced" to pay for contaceptives and abortions for your employees, regardless of any religious beliefs you may have.
This is just all about the Obama govt forcing employers to do what "he" chooses for them to do for his reasons! It's all about Obama having more power thanthe people!
We say we live in a free country, however, the Gov't has set the rules on the unborn and refuses to hear their cries. A Gov't that allows the killing of the unborn can not be trusted.
No surprise, as everyone on this page has observed: Our President has no concern for human life in the womb, beyond a "pick and choose," as you want--or don't want.... We are on the road to our own self-destruction as a nation, thanks to President Obama and his co-horts. But: "A nation that kills it's children has no future." (Either Pope Benedict XVI or Bl. Pope JP II said that....) I fear this President like no other in all the history of the USA; he has plans for our ruin--our "tranformation," as he called it when he was campaigning for his first election. And we fell for him "hook, line and sinker"--and, indeed, we are, literally, sinking!" May God deliver us from all evil!
Don't worry Deacon Fournier, I'm Praying. I encourage everyone who read this article and this comment to Pray the Rosary with me so that things will change.
Are these people really this stupid? Or is their real objective to totally remove religion from the public square and keep it behind closed church doors? I think we all know the answer and we must fight this evil with all our strength. Obama and Sibelius understand that no indirect method will ever satisfy the consciences of the faithful who just want NOTHING to do with immorality, not just be pushed to the side of it. And this isn't about covering catastrophic medical situations which can drive people to bankruptcy. Contraceptives can be bought cheaply by individuals if that's their thing. The whole issue nothing more than a means to an end, and that end isn't just providing for "Women's Health." Give me a break.
Baravo! Finally we don't have totalism government, hovwever, if we take a close examination,
Obamacare somehow makes our civil right paralized.
does President obama mean that all empoyersmust turn to faith based inorder to get away fromHHS mandate?
The world is too good a place to have a congress like the uS has today.
Obama's accommodations are very short of what a leader like john Adams left as blank pages for the women and children today to watch Obama and Congress play around with like they are still experimenting with something that is and was done.
Obama needs read the 9th amendment...
Hopefully he read what the founders of the uS asked God for in 1776...it certainly was never that children be killed straight from the womb or that our remains be a great financial investment.
I agree...why would anyone even try to fool a real citizen of the uS...especially a religious one?
We all need our freedom and the empowerment to carry out the rights we were given. Congress employs money to govern us. They need stop and think what they have actually accomplished doing so.
There is another saying, Loose one soul and you lost them all. Gain one soul and you gained them all.
All living creatures have rights that are in jeopardy due to a dysfunctional Congress that has something in addition to men present...traits that are not righteous.
Congressman Chris Smith is exactly right. This is nothing more than Pres Obama and crew trying out a new song for forcing the faithful into the same old unconstitutional dance. Who will actually be paying for the cost of these new contraceptives policies that are now mandated to be provided "for free" by the insurance companies? If you guessed "not the insurance companies", go to the head of the class. And where is the "exception" for the self-employed who are still being forced to pay for insurance that is mandated by HHS to include coverages that violate their morals?
I am an American! My genesis goes back a long time. I am part Indian, German, Austrian, and can even go back into History and I bet you that I can trace my ancestry back to Adam and Eve! Many times President Barack Housein Obama says things that are not true or only half true or are twisted. He says I am for the poor, but how much of his fortunes does he really give away! He gives the enemies of this world like Egypt all of our special vehicles and Iran gets our help whenever they need it. Also he does NOT listen to the Admirals nor anybody who tells him that he is wrong. He is wrong in that Abortion technique! He is also wrong with the Pills, and other things that women and men use to prevent having children from coming into this world. I think that God has the right to see the facts. After all He is the one who is the Creator. God saw you forming in the womb and He has seen everything that we have done in this life. I am not writing this right now it is the God who created me from a mother and a father who wanted me and who has been watching me from even before the beginning of my life in 1945.
During the whole time of my life, I was brought up be a good mother and father. My mother used to send packages to Europe where parts of her family lived, and she kept sending letters and packages to them when there was the aftermath of the war. They were so grateful that they sent her a few gold coins and a beautiful wax figure of the Baby Jesus born in a wooden feeder. This made quite an impression on me as a child. My only wish is that this president will see that He is NOT God and while he is in this role as a leader in our United States of America, it is important for him to be a leader(of God's people) and not a follower (of Satan).