Will the Catholic Bishops Decide How You Die or Whether You Live?

[marmar]

Will the Catholic Bishops Decide How You Die or Whether You Live?

Thursday, 16 May 2013 11:08
By Valerie Tarico, Truthout | News Analysis

What happens when religious institutions get to manage public funds, absorb secular hospitals, and put theology above medical science and individual patient conscience? Religious freedom suffers.

In 2010, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an elderly woman was rushed to a local hospital called St. John. She had suffered a massive stroke and could no longer eat, drink or speak. Mercifully, she was one of the growing percent of Americans who have prepared for such an eventuality by writing an end-of-life directive. Hers said that said she did not want artificial hydration or nutrition if she wasn't going to recover. Unfortunately, St. John is a facility where the directives of the Catholic bishops take precedence over the directives of individual patients, and one such directive orders hospitals to feed and hydrate end-of-life patients whether they want it or not.

Americans would do well to consider what happens when theology dictates health care.

In the official language of the bishops, St. John is a "Catholic health care ministry," their term for all Church-affiliated hospitals and clinics. Catholic health care ministries are publicly licensed institutions intended to serve the general public. They are highly subsidized by public dollars. To fund them, the Church uses a variety of public revenue streams including Medicare, Medicaid, county appropriations, federal dollars allocated through the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and tax-exempt government bonds. As with any hospital, additional revenues come from insurance payments and investments, with the end result that the Catholic Church contributes less than 5 percent of the funds flowing through their hospitals and clinics. And yet the bishops place theological restrictions on care for all patients and sometimes forbid providers from telling patients that treatment options exist elsewhere.

According to MergerWatch, Catholic control of health dollars and hospital facilities is on the rise across the United States. In Washington State, for example, if all currently proposed mergers go through, almost half of hospital beds will lie in the hands of religious institutions by the end of 2013. Across the US, as Catholic systems such as Peace Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) quietly absorb secular hospitals, the bishops are fighting in court for the religious equivalent of corporate personhood, claiming that the constitution gives them institutional conscience rights that trump patient choice. Meanwhile, Catholic-owned pharmacies are suing for the right to deny services; and other Catholic-owned business are demanding (and winning) religious exemptions from health insurance obligations. ......................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/16391-will-the-catholic-bishops-decide-how-you-die-or-whether-you-live

[earthside]

1. What does Obamacare do about this?

I suspect nothing -- this is a real scandal.

[Puzzledtraveller]

2. You've been busy this morning Marmar!

[marmar]

3. Two cups of coffee.

[Buzz Clik]

4. Death panels?

[KansDem]

5. I don't need a group who harbored pedophiles telling me my end-of-life business.

Catholic Bishops as well as their Church have lost all credibility as far as I'm concerned...

[rhett o rick]

6. k&r thanks for posting.

[IrishAyes]

7. A pox on their house

I consider myself a devout Catholic (regardless of opinions to the contrary here in RedNeckLand), but I intend to carry with me written instructions to avoid Catholic Hospitals in the event of life-threatening emergencies when traveling. I've always vowed to stick around and haunt anyone who even tried to circumvent my end-of-life directive, and if they think I'm a pain in the neck now, just wait!

[MattBaggins]

8. It's our stupid "private business uber alles" mentality

We think we can let the commons be managed by so called private-public mergers and it never actually works.

We really need to start a slow implementation of creating true "community general hospitals" around the country and let the Catholic hospitals know they are on their own from here on out. Either they accept that they are serving the "Public" and must follow all laws, event those they do not like, or we will provide them with some competition.

[forestpath]

9. K&R It's not just women of childbearing age who should avoid Catholic hospitals. ANYONE

who wants to be in charge of their own health care should.

[Dawson Leery]

10. Is this part of a larger plan to enforce Catholic dogma onto society at large?

http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/mar/24/ACLU-faith-based-hospitals-jeopardize-care/

Stay out of Roman hospitals.