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LSN NewsBytes - US Health Care Reform

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Compiled by Steve Jalsevac

Obamacare: Senate Version is Assisted Suicide Friendly! - Wesley J. Smith
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/11/19/obamacare-senate-version-is-assisted-suicide-friendly/

Expert Explains Upcoming Battle Over Pro-Abortion Senate Health Care Bill
Catholic political analyst, Deal Hudson, said yesterday that pro-life forces will face an uphill battle over the health care bill expected to reach its peak of discussion in the Senate over the weekend. Hudson explained to CNA that the bill can be prevented from going to the floor for debate if 41 senators oppose the cloture. He added that reaching this number is possible making Saturday a day that will be “very dramatic.”
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17779

CBO: By 2019, Taxpayers Will Pay $196 Billion A Year for Obamacare, But 24 Million People Will Remain Uninsured
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/57454

The $100 Million Vote: Harry Reid Woos Skeptical Democrats
On page 432 of the Senate bill, there is a section increasing federal Medicaid subsidies for "certain states recovering from a major disaster." ABC News has been told the section applies to exactly one state: Louisiana, the home of moderate Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, who has been playing hard to get on the health care bill.

In other words, the bill spends two pages describing would could be written with a single world: Louisiana. How much does it cost? According to the Congressional Budget Office: $100 million.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/HealthCare/sen-harry-reid-woes-skeptical-democrats-health-care/story?id=9124461&nwltr=politics_featureMore

The Onward March Of ObamaCare - Joe Ellis
No group has done more to promote the public funding of abortions than the Catholic bishops of America. That might well surprise them, flushed as they are with their success in making a deal in the House in which they supported passage of the Pelosi bill in exchange for an amendment barring public funding of abortions. But when you make a deal with people whose strategic goals are diametrically opposed to yours, you must be careful that what you get is not a temporary tactical retreat that can be reversed at any time, while what you have given is a huge and lasting strategic advantage.

The bishops actually endorsed the bill, and the slim margin of its victory in the House might not have been there without them. Henry Waxman and Pelosi had simply pocketed their priceless gain, and if they could betray the bishops, they would. But the bishops should not have needed to be told this. What none of them seemed able to grasp was that the strategic goal toward which Reid and Pelosi were relentlessly advancing was something that would inevitably remove all of the protections they thought they had negotiated for themselves.

The subsidized public option that Pelosi and Reid want would inevitably drive private insurers out of business, leaving the government as sole provider of health care, including abortions. When that happens government will also control drug prices, as well as conditions of work and pay for doctors.

The archetype of the suicidal short-sighted deal will always be Neville Chamberlain’s Munich pact with Hitler. What Chamberlain got was temporary and unreliable: a promise of no more territorial demands that could be reneged on at any time, from a man who already had a track record of reneging on promises. What he gave in return was a huge and permanent boost to Nazi strength and momentum: Appeasing a hungry monster never works: it grabs what it is offered, and immediately wants more, and more. ...one day the bishops will wake up to find that all their muscle-flexing had only led to the very result that they had most feared.

The bishops, the insurers, the doctors, and the drug companies all need to grasp the rather simple fact that their own strategic goals are fundamentally in conflict with those of Pelosi and Reid, and that the public option is at the center of that conflict. For all of them, making deals that allow the public option bandwagon to gather speed is sheer folly. The only way in which they can genuinely protect their interests is by stopping it, now.
http://frontpagemag.com/2009/11/18/the-onward-march-of-obamacare-by-john-ellis/

At least in Oz, Universal Health Cover is Good Sense, Not Socialism
An Australian journalist explains why her country’s health insurance system leaves Obamacare in the dust.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/at_least_in_oz_universal_cover_is_good_sense_not_socialism/

“Pulling the Plug on Conscience” - Wesley J. Smith
I believe that the Culture of Death brooks no dissent and we are witnessing the beginning of requirements for health care professionals to either participate in medical procedures that end human life – or be complicit in them by requiring them to refer (for abortion) – the current abortion law in Victoria, Australia.

It is a sad day when medical professionals and facilities have to be protected legally from coerced participation in life-terminating medical procedures. But there is no denying the direction in which the scientific and moral currents are flowing.
I believe that medical conscience is going to be one of the most intense and bitter bioethical issues of the next ten years. The time to prepare to wage the debate is now.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/2009/11/19/pulling-the-plug-on-conscience/

The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover -- and that's just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor. The move is strictly according to Senate rules, which say any senator can demand a bill be read in its entirety before debate begins.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/19/health-bill-could-get-34-hour-reading-senate/

Abortion Causes Family Feud for Dems
House passage of a sweeping anti-abortion amendment has set off a wave of soul-searching and finger-pointing among abortion rights activists — many of whom thought they’d found a safe harbor when Democrats won the White House and big majorities in Congress last year. “The reality is that we have a Democratic Congress, but we don’t have a pro-choice Congress,” said Laurie Rubiner, vice president of Planned Parenthood.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29651.html

CNN's Toobin Complains About Stupak Amendment: 'Marginalizes' Abortion
He accused “many modern pro-choice Democrats,” including the President, of ceding “the moral high ground” to pro-lifers.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-balan/2009/11/17/cnns-toobin-complains-about-stupak-amendment-marginalizes-abortion

Are our bishops all Republicans?! By Phil Lawler
Apart from dignity-of-life issues, the American bishops do not side with Republicans on a single major political issue. Whether the issue is capital-gains taxation, welfare spending, foreign aid, climate change, immigration, gun control, or (lest we forget) health-care reform, most bishops seem clearly to disagree with most Republicans. It's only on the life issues: abortion, embryo research, marriage, and homosexuality, that Catholic bishops and Republic loyalists find common ground. Since Republicans (especially those of the "big tent" persuasion) regularly downplay those issues, it's downright absurd to think that the bishops are reflexively supporting the Republicans.

So why does any intelligent commentator feel that way? Because the quest for legal abortion on demand has become so tightly woven into the Democratic Party agenda that anyone who opposes abortion becomes a threat to the Democrats. A threat to Democratic hegemony is presumed to be a Republican, and someone who threatens the Democrats at every turn-- that is, whenever they promote the culture of death, which is nearly every day-- is perceived as a stalwart Republican.
http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=543 

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