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Catch-22 for Catholic Hospitals under Obamacare
WDTPRS ^ | August 10, 2013 | Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Posted on 08/11/2013 5:42:26 AM PDT by NYer

You are a homeless person. You are sick and you know it is bad. You stagger into the ER of St. Ipsidipsy Catholic Hospital in Tall Tree Circle. You have no insurance, health coverage, or money. You are seen by a doctor and treated.

The Obama Administration then punishes the hospital for treating you, a person without government-approved obligatory Obamacare.

From the Daily Caller:

Obamacare installs new scrutiny, fines for charitable hospitals that treat uninsured people

Charitable hospitals that treat uninsured Americans will be subjected to new levels of scrutiny of their nonprofit status and could face sizable new fines under Obamacare.

A new provision in Section 501 of the Internal Revenue Code, which takes effect under Obamacare, sets new standards of review and installs new financial penalties for tax-exempt charitable hospitals, which devote a minimum amount of their expenses to treat uninsured poor people. Approximately 60 percent of American hospitals are currently nonprofit.

Charity for the uninsured is one of the factors that could discourage enrollment in Obamacare, which requires all Americans to purchase health insurance or else face new taxes themselves from the IRS. [You all get that, right?]

“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. “Obamacare advocates turned over every rock to find as much tax money as possible.” [Sly, no?]

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.

“The requirements generally apply to any section 501(c)(3) organization that operates at least one hospital facility,” according to a “Technical Explanation” report of new Obamacare provisions prepared by the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) on March 21, 2010, the day Obamacare passed.

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

[...]

Read the rest there.

So, the Obama Administration forces everyone to get health coverage, but for a non-profit hospital to maintain its non-profit status, it has to treat a minimum number of those without coverage. But that pool of people will shrink dramatically, thus driving hospitals into the taxable category.

Good grief.

“Good morning, ma’am! We’re from the government and we’re here to help!”



TOPICS: Catholic; Ministry/Outreach; Religion & Culture; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: charity; frjohnzuhlsdorf; health; hhsmandate
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To: GreyFriar

This is diabolical.


21 posted on 08/11/2013 2:37:47 PM PDT by zot
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To: Aevery_Freeman

“Convoluted, treacherous evil of this level is either carefully planned or supernaturally inspired. The evil here seems to be beyond normal human limits.”

The word is sinister.


22 posted on 08/11/2013 10:31:08 PM PDT by Bshaw (A nefarious deceit is upon us all!)
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To: Rashputin

No. When Obama was elected, some of his FIRST appearances as President were at Notre Dame and Georgetown. I was absolutely shocked. Georgetown even covered up “IHS” in the hall in which he spoke, at Obama’s request. Universal health care coverage has ALWAYS been supported by the USCCB. I have only seen the bishops stand up — and not TOGETHER — against the birth control mandate.


23 posted on 08/12/2013 5:02:20 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: Salvation

For the USCCB official stance, see,
http://old.usccb.org/sdwp/national/comphealth.shtml

For decades they have advocated universal health care and their hospital systems have become more and more dependent on federal funds. As long as they believed they could “control” federal policy with a seat at the table, they were happy to accept those funds. Under Obama, they have learned what it truly means to be under the thumb of totalitarianism, and I admit, they are BEGINNING to wake up. But it is too little, too late. Sorry to be so cynical, but I don’t see the Church changing government policy at this point.


24 posted on 08/12/2013 5:11:46 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: NYer

Admitted — CHA is different from the USCCB. But the Bishops have agreed to accept federal funds for its educational and medical institutions, always believing that they could INFLUENCE federal policy. It is a battle that sadly, they are losing.


25 posted on 08/12/2013 5:21:29 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: impimp

Reallyl? Was that before or after Obama’s nearly first appearances as President took place at Notre Dame and Georgetown? Yes, he’s diabolically clever. And they fell for it!


26 posted on 08/12/2013 5:23:00 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: The Great RJ

The immigration bill puts illegals into Obamacare!! You have to keep up!


27 posted on 08/12/2013 5:23:52 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: browniexyz

Notre Dame and Georgetown do not speak for the Catholic Church just as Dr. Tiller didn’t speak for the Lutheran church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church speaks for the Catholic Church. Not even the Pope speaks magisterially for the Catholic Church unless he says he is speaking magisterially.


28 posted on 08/12/2013 5:38:26 AM PDT by impimp
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To: impimp

I know that and you know that — but it was symbolic for Obama and those institutions got used by him. Shame on them!


29 posted on 08/12/2013 5:42:47 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: Rashputin

And, let’s see, what do the Bishops say about the immigration bill — which registers illegals who show up at their hospitals for health care directly into Obamacare exchanges!!! Yup, they support the Gang of 8 bill too!


30 posted on 08/12/2013 5:44:59 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: browniexyz

Yes. Shame on them. I hope that the two Bishops overseeing their diocese take steps to get them back on track.


31 posted on 08/12/2013 5:46:01 AM PDT by impimp
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To: impimp

It will never happen!! Georgetown let him speak again this past spring on its campus. Georgetown takes so much money in federal funds; it can’t risk losing that funding by ticking off Dear Leader. It’s a shame. I can’t believe in my lifetime I am watching the Church become completely co-opted by government and fall victim to widespread persecution. I see the Blue Ribbon Catholic schools proudly sporting the federal eagle, and local Bishops totally clueless as to what that really means!! They think it means a federal seal of approval and some funding....so very very sad!! This is the same government that is forcing church members to fund abortion, contraception, and to violate their beliefs!!!


32 posted on 08/12/2013 5:56:03 AM PDT by browniexyz
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To: browniexyz
Since 1973 there have been 60 million assisted abortions and for each of those a bare minimum of two more abortions of already developing infants due to the most commonly used "contraceptive" all the good "Christians" except Catholics approve of. Immigrants aren't the problem, the problem is a lack of Americans due to infanticide for the sake of convenience.

If you feel so strongly about immigrants pretend they're Irish and post, "Irish Need Not Apply" and "No Irish" signs everywhere or be really brave and start a campaign to declare them "nonpersons" and murder them just like infants are routinely murdered.

33 posted on 08/12/2013 6:43:37 AM PDT by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: browniexyz
They were willing to support socialized medicine (in violation of papal encyclicals condemning coercive systems) and foolishly imagined they could invoke the conscience clause in regard to abortion:

Boston’s Roman Catholic Cardinal Says He Confronted Obama about Abortion in Health Care Plan at Ted Kennedy’s Funeral

...“President Obama and three former presidents attended Senator Kennedy’s funeral,” wrote O’Malley. “I had the opportunity to speak briefly with President Obama, to welcome him to the Basilica and to share with him that the bishops of the Catholic Church are anxious to support a plan for universal health care, but we will not support a plan that will include a provision for abortion or could open the way to abortions in the future.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/boston-s-roman-catholic-cardinal-says-he-confronted-obama-about-abortion-health-care

34 posted on 08/12/2013 6:54:20 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
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To: browniexyz
I see the Blue Ribbon Catholic schools proudly sporting the federal eagle, and local Bishops totally clueless as to what that really means!!

Also dioceses around the country are now adopting Common Core (national curriculum).

35 posted on 08/12/2013 7:01:01 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
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To: Rashputin
Immigrants aren't the problem

They are when our economy and our social welfare systems are already collapsing and when the unemployment rate for Americans with comparable education levels to the illegals in question is 30.8% among all U.S. born citizens, 26.4% among U.S. born Hispanics, and 53.9% among U.S. born Blacks.

The principal of subsidiarity requires that we take care of our own first, before moving beyond our direct duties. No country can afford to provide welfare to the world. As another FReeper posted elsewhere, charity does not require self-destruction as part of the process.

36 posted on 08/12/2013 7:25:12 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
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To: BlatherNaut
The moral outlook and sense of responsibility of people who voluntarily participate in murdering 180 million infants in the womb rather than being responsible and exercising self-control is basically no different than the moral outlook and sense of personal responsibility of people on the welfare rolls.

People signed onto a suicide pact when they never demanded the funding assumptions built into SS, Medicaid, and Medicaid, change to reflect their desire to murder the children who were supposed to be paying for those things. Those are the welfare programs that out of control. The welfare programs that keep the slaves on the welfare plantations are destined to eliminate themselves since welfare plantations are part of an old, old, democrat eugenics plan. With roughly sixty percent of assisted abortions being abortions of black infants you can see the end of welfare plantations coming no matter how many flukes with twelve kids someone can dig up.

But I see your perspective, the ongoing mass murder of infants isn't important even if it is the primary cause of our problems with immigrants and with the economy. The real problem is how expensive it is for you to help pay the taxes all those aborted infants should be paying.

37 posted on 08/12/2013 9:04:09 AM PDT by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: Rashputin
The fact that I oppose illegal immigration and amnesty makes me indifferent to the evils of abortion? Wrong! Seems like you're conflating two separate issues and arriving at a faulty conclusion.

The welfare programs that keep the slaves on the welfare plantations are destined to eliminate themselves since welfare plantations are part of an old, old, democrat eugenics plan. With roughly sixty percent of assisted abortions being abortions of black infants you can see the end of welfare plantations

Not if you're simply replacing a homegrown underclass with an imported one or by destructive economic policies converting increasing numbers of native-born Americans into the growing underclass, thus forcing them onto the plantation as well.

Aside from that, you seem to be making the assumption that economic contributions of illegal immigrants fill the gap left by American abortion victims. This is simply not the case. Illegal immigrants cost the nation approximately $113 billion per year (an average of $1,117 for every “native-headed” household in America). Since they are such an enormous strain on our economy, a larger influx of these immigrants through the type of chain immigration provided for in the reform bill would likely encourage more abortions by U.S. citizens reduced to poverty by the oppressive taxation necessary to subsidize 30 million more people. It is fallacious to make the claim that we are importing foreign replacements to fill the revenue void left by abortion.

While immigrants seem to benefit from employment gains, the data paints a dismal picture for adult natives (18 and over).

Unemployment rates by education attainment for adult natives for the third quarter of 2012:

•30.8% for high school dropouts

•18.1% for those with a high school education

•13.8% for those with some college

•8% for all college graduates and 13% for college graduates under age 30.

https://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/issues/american-workers/americas-jobless-description.html

Seems like we could start filling the void with unemployed natives before resorting to rewarding foreign law breakers for violating our borders.

38 posted on 08/12/2013 11:40:07 AM PDT by BlatherNaut
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To: BlatherNaut
"The fact that I oppose illegal immigration and amnesty . . ."

Illegal immigration and amnesty are tossed into the topic of this thread as if they are equal to or worse than the anti-Christ, anti-Christian, intrinsic evil of mass murder. That's the fact.

The issue was whether Catholic Bishops support the mass murder intrinsic to BarryCare and somehow that's not important if they don't have a suitable view on illegal immigration, a claim that the two things are equal pure and simple. There's no comparison at all but the immigration garbage is brought up as if it's equally evil when the claim that Catholic Bishops in this country supported the passage of BarryCare is refuted.

No matter what someone thinks about immigration, pretending it is as immoral in every way as mass murder is nothing but a typical Alynsky style diversionary tactic everyone tries these days to avoid looking at the real problem.

The immoral rot in this country manifests itself first and foremost in the acceptance of massive infanticide.

Immoral people ignore the law and once a people is so immoral that even the right to life itself is null and void immigration laws, drug laws, and even trivia like bankruptcy laws are all a joke anyway. Unless and until mass people can see the evil of mass infanticide what's done about the rest is all wasted effort anyway.

Until the basic morality of the majority of the population is addressed anything done about immigration will be totally ignored anyway just like drug laws are ignored.

39 posted on 08/12/2013 1:50:19 PM PDT by Rashputin (Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)
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To: Rashputin
Illegal immigration and amnesty are tossed into the topic of this thread as if they are equal to or worse than the anti-Christ, anti-Christian, intrinsic evil of mass murder.

Amnesty will will accelerate the evil of abortion. The only major political party that opposes abortion (tenuously) will become extinct with amnesty. Immigrants from Mexico and Central/South America vote for the party that promises them other people's money, which happens to be the party that promotes abortion. That is the connection.

An ancillary, or perhaps more intrinsic problem is the bishops' approval and promotion of statism, in this case government control of medical care. What they are in effect saying is, "Yes, I believe that the government should control every individual, (except us), and every organization, (except ours), and that the government should force every American citizen to comply with the demands of the Enlightened Government Elite, except for us.

A jackboot on the throats of everybody else, but give us an exemption. Now we hear whining because the jackboot makes no exceptions. Boo hoo.

40 posted on 08/12/2013 2:19:03 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler (People are idiots.)
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