Obamacare Targets Catholic Hospitals to Strip Them of Tax-Exempt Status

Front Page Magazine ^ | August 11, 2013 | Daniel Greenfield

[EternalVigilance]

We’re talking about non-profit hospitals, but a sizable percentage of them are religious hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church, various Jewish and Protestant hospitals, formerly or currently representing some religious status.

Catholic hospitals make up some of the largest non-profits in the country. Indeed the top four systems in the country are Catholic.

Next on the list is Kaiser Permanente, which is non-religious and which Obama described as a model for Obamacare. Its CEO, George Halvorson, has met with Obama and his top people and pushed Obamacare.

Draw your own conclusions. In either case, the Obamacare non-profit clampdown will empower the IRS to effectively shut down non-profit hospitals.

Healthcare experts warn that the Obamacare’s new requirements make it almost impossible for charitable hospitals to navigate treacherous new waters.

“It requires tax-exempt hospitals to do a community needs survey and file additional paperwork with the IRS every three years. This is to prove that the charitable hospital is still needed in their geographical area — ‘needed’ as defined by Obamacare and overseen by IRS bureaucrats,” said John Kartch, spokesman for Americans for Tax Reform.

“Failure to comply, or to prove this continuing need, could result in the loss of the hospital’s tax-exempt status. The hospital would then become a for-profit venture, paying income tax — hence the positive revenue score” for the federal government, Kartch said.

Additionally, the rise in the number of insured Americans under Obamacare will make it more difficult for tax-exempt hospitals to continue meeting required thresholds for treating the uninsured, driving more hospitals into the for-profit category and yielding more taxable money for the federal government.

Obamacare’s new requirements could slam hospitals with massive $50,000 fines if they fail to meet bureaucrats’ standards.

Healthcare experts warn that the Obamacare’s new requirements make it almost impossible for charitable hospitals to navigate treacherous new waters.

As it will be for us all. This is Obama’s America after all. Charity was outlawed in the USSR. It will be outlawed in OSSR if things go that far.

[Still Thinking]

Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant charity hospitals all across America have two strikes against them (from O’s perspective)...,
1. they are Christian or Jewish, and
2. they are reducing America’s dependence on Obama/government/centralized control.

and 3. They've shirked the primary function of any prole in The Won's Utopia of Dysfuction....lining up to be bled for the maximum amount of taxes.

[Bernard]

Obamacare’s new requirements could slam hospitals with massive $50,000 fines if they fail to meet bureaucrats’ standards.

Considering that Michelle Obama used to get paid $340,000 per year by a hospital in Chicago while her husband was a state senator, a 50K penalty is small change.

[faithhopecharity]

well, once O imposes lots of new, impossible regulations on the charity hospitals that they can’t possibly comply with, then the next step is to either declare them ineligible for charity tax status or else ineligible for federal payments, or both.
result will predictably be lots of charity hospitals closing or losing their religious affiliations and becoming “public Obamacare hospitals” instead

or something like that. sort of like how churches and synagogues in Russia were converted by the communists there into public property warehouses or government bureaucracy offices

[tbw2]

If they strip Catholic hospitals of non-profit status, they can no longer deny contraception and abortion mandates on a religious basis.

[mosesdapoet]

Obamacare Ruling: Religious Employers MUST Provide Birth Control Coverage
Saturday, June 29, 2013 9:21:10 AM · 22 of 24
mosesdapoet to shalom aleichem
Obama: ‘If Catholics (and Protestants) Have Their Schools ... That Encourages Division’
Wednesday, June 19, 2013 5:29:13 PM · 46 of 51
mosesdapoet to Zakeet
WHAT DID YOU EXPECT ?
This address to the Irish accompanied by his usual entourage of hundreds made during his stay in europe for the June 2013 Summit 8 conference might make it to the national scene but our media will sit on it.

The democrat party after taking complete control of both the House and Senate in 2008. Lost the House in 2010 thanks to the opposition by loosely organized groups known as the tea party later characterized by members of the administration as “terrorists”.. The word and reference to GOD was removed at their 2012 national convention. A fact that went un-noticed, un-touched, un-mentioned, and un-used by the RINOS and GOPES (GOP elite snobs) during that presidential 2012 election and now who are still running todays Republican party.

Even after reconsideration the decision was derided by the majority because it was re-installed over a majority voice vote supporting the removal.

If this were a political party in a parlimentary system it would be hyphenated and would (and should despite the difference) be refered to as the Demo-Com party. But the RINOS and GOPES can’t even call them “socialist”.

Any Catholic or Christian claiming to belong to this party is a hyprocrite and should be confronted and isolated with disgust and distain. It’s time to understand and face the facts that everything that has been edicted and ruled since that time including discarding the traditional concept of marriage has come out of the closet. They must be refuted.

Next Sunday mass print up a batch of these and stick one under each windshield wiper... Watch the (who and where from) does the screaming

[Albion Wilde]

Obamacare’s new requirements could slam hospitals with massive $50,000 fines if they fail to meet bureaucrats’ standards.

$50K per day is more likely, judging by the treatment of Hobby Lobby and other Christian chainstore businesses facing fines of up to $1.2 million per day:

[Leftist article:] Hobby Lobby lawsuit: how a company is cheating its employees to make a point

[Albion Wilde]

...when governments began passing laws recognizing (and mandating) same-sex adoption. That drove many Catholic organizations to get out of adoption programs that they never should have been involved with in the first place.

Seems that confidential pastoral care, religious avoidance of baby-killing, maternity wards and adoption go hand-in-hand, to me. What is your objection?

[Albion Wilde]

Greenfield ping!

[Slyfox]

I wonder when they are going to go after Planned Parenthood's tax-free, "non-profit" status.

Cue sound of crickets chirping.

[Doomonyou]

That will help drive down the costs of heath coverage.not.

[originalbuckeye]

The Soviet Union and the Peoples Republic of China had a policy of State Atheism. Sounds like the Obama Regime is getting close to instituting that here.

[EternalVigilance]

Sure looks that way.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Yeah! Why doesn’t the rich Catholic Church sell all those hospitals and then do something for sick people for change!?

[TribalPrincess2U]

Don’t bite the hand that feeds you?

He’s not worried now. He/they have so much power now that he can do as he pleases.

Even if he confessed to DISASTROUS ECONOMY, FOREIGN POLICY, IRS SCANDAL, NSA SCANDAL, BENGHAZI, FAST & FURIOUS, EXTORTION 17, HEALTHCARE, IMMIGRATION, he wouldn’t get even a slap on the wrists.

[Louis Foxwell]

Sultan Knish ping list alert.

[grumpygresh]

Our Satanic POS president is only doing what is truly in his heart. Catholic leaders must stand firm even if it means that the Church stops providing healthcare, directly or indirectly. It’s time for choosing between God mammon; the Church knows that it cannot serve two masters.

[wonkowasright]

Chuckle.

[Sun]

So would you like to know how your Republican senator stands on defunding Obama”care”? Just click the link following the excerpt:

“But for Cruz’s effort to have teeth, the Republican senators must all be committed to absolutely refusing to vote for any spending bill that contains funding for ObamaCare. Senator Mike Lee is leading the charge to get his colleagues to commit to this approach, by putting their signatures to a letter affirming that they will refuse to vote for a CR that contains ObamaCare funding.

Support for the Cruz bill is absolutely meaningless without also signing Mike Lee’s letter.
snip

Below is the list of Republican Senators and where they stand on the Cruz bill and the Lee letter. (Updated: 7/30)

excerpt http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jwithrow/does-your-senator-stand-with-mike-lee-against-obam

Especially contact the Republicans who have lost the courage to DEFUND O’care, but it won’t hurt to call and thank the senators who will support DEFUNDING O’care, so they won’t lose their courage.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Not quite sure what you mean, saying religious organizations should not have been involved in adoptions to begin with.

The Catholic Church has been involved with adoptions since the Acts of the Apostles. St. Lawrence, the deacon-martyr and so forth: caring for "orphans and widows and sojourners in the land" was "their thing." Since the Prophets of Israel, in fact.

The Church has a lot more business doing this, than the State.

Don't you think?

[Alberta's Child]

Don't get me wrong. The Catholic Church should certainly be involved in adoptions. What it should not be doing, though, is getting involved in the state's adoption business and processing adoptions under Caesar's terms. That's the kind of thing that is ultimately going to end badly in any case, since the Church and the state have two completely different objectives (*) when it comes to adoption.

Maybe a lawyer can chime in here and tell me if I'm wrong, but is there anything that would prevent the Catholic Church from carrying out its own adoption process without any involvement of a government agency?

(*) -- I put the asterisk here because I should say that the Church and the state are supposed to have different objectives when it comes to adoption. Once you had Catholic organizations conducting business with state agencies for adoptions, I suspect the truly Catholic approach for adoption went right out the window.