Posted on 11/17/2009 10:26:55 AM PST by Mrs. Don-o
USCCB staffer's remarks are in (black, italics) and mine in (red).
“Subsidiarity is a fine thing. That is the principle that has been at work since we first started talking about the need for health care reform, during the Truman administration. Subsidiarity has had over 50 years to work since then...”
I do not agree that "subsidiarity" is "the principle that has been at work for the past 50 years"; nor do think that many of the critics of Pelosi-Reid are supporters of the status quo. A strong case can be made that it was not "subsidiarity," but poorly-crafted public policy which distorted “private” healthcare and insurance, usually by way of unintended consequences.
A scattering of examples:
"...resulting in higher premiums, and motivating millions of people (e.g. young single males) to forego insurance entirely because it's not in fact a good deal for them.
"Dramatically reduce the regulations and taxes, and the Knights of Columbus could sell a lot more insurance that would be cheaper, crafted to the needs of particular subgroups, available to all immigrants, subsidized for the poor by charitable giving, and prolife.
"...and the number of Americans who lack any health coverage seems only to have gone up and up, now totaling in the tens of millions.”
The real numbers on that? A few months ago the O Admin was saying "48 million uninsured," but in last speech I heard he was saying "over 30 million" --- wow, they reduced it by 18 million just by talking about universal coverage!
There are (in round numbers) roughly 10 million people who make more than $75,000 a year who for whatever reason decide not to buy insurance (who are they? Amish? Anarchists? Startup Entrepreneurs? Airheads? There's a sizeable constituency!); another 10 million who are already eligible for Medicaid or S-CHIP but for some reason are not enrolled and do not utilize it (Gypsies? Naturopaths? J-Dubs? People who didn’t get around to enrolling yet because they haven’t needed a doctor?); another 6 million who are "transitionally uninsured" (en route from one state to another, from one job to another. typical uninsured period 4-6 months), leaving say 4 million people who need insurance, want insurance, but don't have insurance.
My written-on-a-3x5 solution? Give each of the people in this core-needy group a $2,000 worth of hospitalization/catastrophic coverage and $1,000 routine wellness/preventative care annually over the next 10 years. Cost: $120 billion. Savings over Pelosi-Reid? $1.2 trillion minus 120 billion. So, $880 billion in savings, ballpark.
Like I said, that's a conceptual thing, but it gets us into the correct order of magnitude.
For more round numbers on "how many uninsured do we actually have?"
“We just went through 8 years of a Republican administration …Congress squarely in Repub hands, and we got... nothing that significantly reduces the number of uninsured.”
You won't find me defending Republican do-nothings. But I understand that Republicans with various proposed reform packages have been asking to meet with Obama since April, and O has declined to meet with them; 700 amendments have been crafted to the Big Bill which Pelosi has not even allowed to be presented and debated. How many of those 700 amendments would have proved productive? Who knows? But some had a passing resemblance to the following package, which I collected out of various proposals:
Just these reforms alone --- "experts" "say" ---- would quickly cut the cost of health care in America by 30-40%. And a lot less hassle.
“I believe the principle is that we should address problems at the most local level THAT CAN DO THE JOB. I guess the question is, how long do we wait for the lower levels to solve things before deciding that something bigger may be needed?”
Conversely, how long do we wait for the government gets off its suffocating taxation and regulation binge, and lets the Knights of Columbus (and many others: profitable providers, non-profits, etc.) show what they can do?
I understand that other Western nations have found ways to achieve universal health coverage through more commonsense means than the expensive-but-shabby centralized systems in e.g Canada and the UK. The Dutch have done it entirely through fierce competition between private insurers, and the Germans allow workers to move from job to job without losing insurance. The Swiss, who have made an art of subsidiarity, achieved universal coverage through competing non-profit insurance plans.
“That's a prudential decision and the bishops don't claim to have the chief expertise on when we've waited long enough. But at this point in time, after all this waiting, I don't think they're going to block a solution that claims to get that number of uninsured down by 80 to 90 percent, solely because it involves more federal involvement.”
‘Claims’? You take the claims emanating from Pelosi-Reid at face value?
And federal “involvement”? That’s like calling gang rape “sexual involvement.”
OK, dreadful strong rhetoric. But there is less health-care improvement, and more comprehensive force, injury, and coercion in the Pelosi-Reid Bill than you are letting on. Pelosi made it quite clear, for instance, that she allowed a vote on the Stupak Amendment only because of her confidence that she could use Stupak to squeak the bill through the House, and then either strip out the Amendment in the Senate, or (worse) leave it in there, and then use HHS regulations and/or Federal courts to overturn it. Who do you think writes the HHS regulations? Who do you think appoints the judges?
But not to worry. Obama has excellent connections to the Catholic Community. Expect something highly beneficial from our next Supreme Court appointee, Doug Kmiec.
It is not just a gratifying add-on, it is a substantial requirement of justice, to insist on the right kind of Health Reform legislation, the kind that will:
impose no crushing bureaucracies on the non-government healthcare sector,
“I'm not so sure that more government equals less individual control in this case. The power now is held by the insurance companies, who reject individuals because they have a pre-existing condition (including pregnancy) and unilaterally decide to include in individuals' coverage things that they don't want and even seriously object to (like abortion). (Sometimes it's a joint decision between insurance company and the individual's employer, neither of which the individual has any real control over.)
So if the government comes along and puts down the insurance company, saying individuals have a right to be considered for insurance despite pre-existing conditions, and they have a right to abortion-free insurance if they want that, and they can buy plans individually from a menu of lots of plans competing against each other on these new "insurance exchanges" at lower cost than before, etc., seems like Big Brother is a nice guy to have in my corner against the "private" big guys who have been pushing me around.”
Fair enough. Authentic reforms (like the ideas in blue, above) would do that. Some reforms (like Pelosi-Reid) … ahem… I’m pretty sure will make things worse.
It's the private plans that routinely include abortion (and would love to include euthanasia) in their coverage for profit motives, and it's the federal government plans that insist on excluding both.
I seriously doubt that Pelosi-Reid “insists” on “excluding” both, especially since Pelosi and Reid are working around the clock to overturn the Stupak Amendment, which has done its star turn in clinching the Nov. 7 House vote and can now be dumped. And since what we have coming down on us is government-mandated health rationing, as elucidated in the attached paper (“Health Care Reform: Where We Are Now”.)
I’ll make some concluding points here concerning something I care deeply about: the USCCB, and the future of the Catholic Community in the United States.
1. An Apostolic Hierarchy is not the same as a Clericalized Bureaucracy.
A large number of faithful, committed prolife Catholics are against the Pelosi-Reid Reform in its entirety. We now realize that we not only can’t count on the USCCB as our Ally, but rather we must exert exhausting efforts to prevent them from siding with the Enemy. As we see it.
I have my opinion on questions like “the best way to achieve the common good in healthcare,” and you have yours, but it is not right in this prudential matter that the USCCB can engage in intense lobbying and deal-making against my judgment. I suspect that the false leak the spurious “Catholics United” group put out to the press last week (“Stupek wins, USCCB OK’s Pelosi bill”) was, as Dan Rather would say, “fake but accurate.”
This is unfair and uncanonical. The USCCB should make it clear in EVERY communiqué that they DO support Stupek (don’t pay for abortion: a clear doctrinal imperative) but CAN NOT AND WILL NOT ENDORSE the Pelosi Bill with or without Stupek.
2. “We must not abandon the poor to the tender mercies of Holy Mother the State.” - Dorothy Day
No American saint ever implied that the State must regulate, coordinate or fund our proper ministries. On the contrary, faced with the moral imperative to educate the poor, to care for the sick and the immigrant, to secure justice for the marginalized and the minorities, what did the saints do? St. Elizabeth Seton founded Catholic schools, St. Frances Xavier Cabrini founded Catholic hospitals, and St. Katharine Drexel founded missions promoting the material and spiritual well-being of black and native Americans.
Dorothy Day, a tireless critic of Holy Mother the State as quote above, also noted, “You don’t need permission to perform the Works of Mercy.”
Listen to these holy women. They were on to something. As were the holy men:
“The American thesis is that government is not juridically omnicompetent.” – John Courtney Murray, SJ
3. Subsidiarity is a core value of Social Justice, not an Optional Extra.
As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches: (Para 1894) In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies. Catechism of the Catholic Church
Pope Benedict's latest encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate,” or “Charity in Truth,” has a very full and solid section on subsidiarity, which is the principle that social responsibilities are always to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. Pope Benedict declares:
“Subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all encompassing welfare state…”
In terms which Catholic social justice philosophy applies to all forms of governance, from the local to the global, Pope Benedict says, “In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, governance must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together…
“Authority must be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way, if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice.”
Thus Subsidiarity is not in competition with Solidarity. On the contrary, Subsidiarity specifies how Solidarity "must" be carried out.
Faithfully,
[signed]
Part II
(The interval between “What harm could it do?” and “How was I supposed to know?”)
What harm could it do? It will hurt:
Today’s Seniors, and people who will retire in the next 10 years:
Washington Post reports: Pelosi Bill would "sharply" reduce senior care "for millions"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402597.html?hpid=topnews
Young Adults:
ObamaCare: A Bad Deal for Young Adults
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=10933
Low-Income Workers:
The ’employer mandate feature’ disproportionately hurts low-income workers.
http://www.heritage.org/RESEARCH/HEALTHCARE/bg2325.cfm
The Unemployed:
The health insurance surtax will adversely affect small business job creation and boost rates of unemployment
http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/wm2687.cfm
The Sick, Injured, and Disabled
Meet the unelected body that will dictate future medical decisions.
Meet the Washington State board it is modeled on
“So far, the commission has banned knee arthroscopy for osteoarthritis, discography for chronic back pain, and implantable infusion pumps for pain not related to cancer. This year, it is targeting such frivolous luxuries as knee replacements, spinal cord stimulation, a specialized autism therapy and MRIs of the abdomen, pelvis or breasts for cancer. It will also rule on routine ultrasounds for pregnancy, which have a ‘high’ efficacy but also a ‘high’ cost.”
Your children and mine:
Obama vowed the reform wouldn’t add “a dime” to the deficit, but just the fix to Medicare physician payments will add $4.1 TRILLION to Medicare’s long-term unfunded liability.
(This “fix” was originally in the House health reform bill. Because it costs $210 billion over the next 10 years, they stripped it out so that the House bill as approved a week ago would appear less expensive than it really was. The Medicare physician fee fix is in the docket to be passed as separate legislation without any added revenues to pay for it. Thus, everyone from Obama to Pelosi on down knows it will add to the deficit, but because it isn’t “technically” part of “the” health reform bill, it allows Obama to keep his promise in a deceptively convoluted sense that only a Bill Clinton could find plausible.)
Anyone who has a Religious, Conscientious, or Personal objection against health insurance:
Nearly all Old Order Amish and Mennonite families refuse to participate inemployer-offered health insurance plans, will not individually subscribe a health insurance, and reject Madicare and Medicaid because they believe it is the religious duty of their communities to provide for one another when sick.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3919/is_200210/ai_n9130436/pg_8/
And Christian Science members object to paying premiums for insurance which does not cover the kinds of treatment they use.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-tc-health-religion-1031-1101nov01,0,7735579.story
Plus, approx 10 million other people with an annual income of at least $75,000, who presumably could afford private health insurance, for whatever reason decline to purchase it. They have apparently decided for themselves to save their money or spend it elsewhere.
Does Lack of Insurance Cause Premature Death? Probably Not
http://www.john-goodman-blog.com/does-lack-of-insurance-cause-premature-death-probably-not/
According to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the Pelosi health care reform bill requires the conscientious-objector religious believers mentioned above, and these 10 million who at present choose not to purchase health insurance, and everybody else, to purchase a government-approved plan. Or else:
Face a penalty of up to 2.5 percent of their income (collected by the IRS, of course) if they fail to maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage.”
As Congressman Dave Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you to buy, or go to jail.”
The only good news is probably this right here:
Health Care Passage Unlikely With or Without Stupak
http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=8e23fb10-b735-4e5f-836c-0ef4bf5125e4
It looks like this is our best hope: to stop the Pelosi-Reid Health Reform Bill in its entirety.
[signed]
This is excellent. Why is it posted in Religion?
Should I stick it over in News/Activism too, sans the Caucus tag?
Who mandates the insurance barriers at state lines and why? I’ve always wondered if that’s something the insurance companies do.
ping
I don’t know. Maybe some smart FReeper will tell us.
Very, very good. I’ll probably be swiping parts of it if you don’t mind.
That’s the whole idea, m’dear! And ping it around to your especially special FRiends!
Thought you might like this.
This is the clearest statement of the situation I have seen. One point: many of our clergy are socialists but don’t know it, because they were brought up in (social)Democratic families. They may think Dorothy Day was a saint, but didn’t know, as she did, that government is a dangerous animal that needs chaining. Her comrades —some of them—called themselves anarchists, in fact.
Wonderful thoughts. You have a great way of expressing them!
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