Bush's new way to sneak religion into government: Via health care

[True_Blue]

Dr. Jeff Stieve is the only doctor in Escanaba who will perform tubal ligations or insert IUDs for birth control.

He delivers services that, as a matter of faith and theology, the sole hospital in town will not.

Now, OSF Health Care, which operates St. Francis Hospital in Escanaba and four Roman Catholic hospitals in Illinois, has been chosen by the Bush administration to provide a “faith-based” health plan for federal employees.

Morals are now mixing with medicine in the health plan cafeteria.

The Catholic plan — offered next month to Illinois federal workers only — costs less because it will not cover contraception, artificial insemination, sterilization procedures or abortions under any circumstances.

more....
http://www.detnews.com/2004/metro/0410/10/b01-298475.htm

[sandnsea]

1. Question

Since I don't have health insurance....

I thought health insurance plans generally didn't cover contraception, sterilizations, abortions or fertility treatments anyway. Has insurance changed on this? If most health insurance doesn't cover this, shouldn't we use this as a an example of insurance premiums being manipulated by politics?

[madrchsod]

3. your last sentence is

the real problem with osf and the bush laws

[ogradda]

4. most insurance plans cover contraceptives

i dont know about the rest of it.

[burrowowl]

5. Some cover Viagra

but not birth control pills.

[sandnsea]

7. That's what I thought

I didn't think most insurance covered pills at all. I've never had a policy that covered any of it.

[leftchick]

11. My husband has very good insurance with his company, BUT....

It will not pay for contraceptives or vasectomies. It did however pay for four cycles of IVF for me! How odd is that?

[Peanut Gallery]

19. My insurance covered b/c pills at my last job

I can't remember which insurance company it was though. My fiancee's plan covers sterilization procedures.

[jdj]

30. More and more have since several women sued to have

them covered.

It's cheaper than pregnancy and delivery.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

16. Some do, some don't

And some will only cover one type of contraception, such as the Pill but not an IUD. Which, if you can't take the Pill, pretty much leaves you screwed.

I had a health plan once that would not pay for my birth control prescription, but would pay for an abortion. How's that for fucked up?

[MaineDem]

15. My insurance covers birth control pills

Not that I need them but back when I did they were covered.

[Bandit]

23. There are many uninsured people who receive government

assistance with their health care needs. If the government will no longer help them who will?

[jwirr]

34. As far as I know

Medical Assistance the government program for the poor pays for birth control, sterilizations and vasectomies. They do not pay for an abortion - although they may pay for one if needed to save the mother's life. However, each state administers their own program and it would be interesting to hear what bushie did in Texas as governor. I know that young Texas women on welfare/medical assistance were not allowed to get mammograms and pap smears. Just let them die, I guess.

[SemperEadem]

38. some do cover the first three in varying degrees

when I had health care back in the 90's when Clinton was king, my insurance paid 100% for sterilization and a percentage for an IUD. I've never known any health care coverage to pay for abortion on demand.

[madrchsod]

2. i used to have osf and they are like any hmo.

the quality of care was very good and i had no complaints the two times i was there. you must realize that it`s a catholic hospital ,they don`t offer those services . what i am not sure of is that federal employees are offered other plans...the hospital in Illinois is located in Rockford which has a large federal workforce...

[jdj]

26. I'll bet they cover viagra.

[Steelangel]

6. oh my god

Seem that Bush wants to divide or rather, destroy America and its people.

[gavodotcom]

8. Nothing wrong with this, really.

I'm sure it's not the ONLY federal workers insurance plan.

For Catholics, abortion is murder. And, as the lady at the debate said, how do you convince someone to pay for murder?

I think this truly is a good compromise. Religious folks can rest easier. I know I'd want that comfort if my religious practices were at odds with the secular government. I just hope it doesn't embolden them. it actually makes the case stronger that abortion should be legal.

[Cats Against Frist]

12. Yeah -- I'm pretty sick of the fucking people

who don't want their tax dollars to go to abortion. My tax dollars go to the bombs that have killed THOUSANDS of innocent Iraqis. How many of these "pro-lifers" would respect my right to opt out of paying for the war??? Further -- how many of them would even blink at a dead Iraqi child, while they wax sentimental over a clump of stuff that resembles something I can find at the bottom of my fish tank?

[Skittles]

13. I am sick of it too

it is indeed pathetic

[AFSCME girl]

22. I agree...

(and I am a Catholic). I don't understand how people "square" one with the other. I detest the fact that my tax dollars are going to support a war that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis...including women and children and maimed countless others - AND FOR WHAT?! All of this is OK, but GOD FORBID you should support the right to choose.....

(BTW, your USERNAME rocks!) There's a topic for discussion as well, Frist's "rescuing" of animals from shelters............
:grr:

[Peanut Gallery]

20. it doesn't cover abortion

but it also doesn't cover the kinds of things that prevent pregnancy. It is a short-sighted policy, but not surprising given how everything the Bush administration does is short-sighted. This is the type of climate we live in now.

News flash for religious fundies - you can't prevent people from having sex. Sorry. I know how much you want to but you can't.

[jdj]

28. You're missing the point.

Bush's Dickensian ideology depends on an underclass of lots of super poor people with many mouths to feed who are desperate enough to take any kind of job under any conditions.

Birth control gives people choices in life that are in direct opposition to these goals.

Who will fight the wars of the war profiteers if there are no poor young men and women with no other options. They need a critical mass of poor people to run the world the way they want to run it, and they can't get there without restricting access to birth control and abortion

I would say that they are also concerned that people of islamic faiths are outbreeding christians (and probably Jewish people too) at a rate of at least 2 to 1. Since they see life as a march to Armageddon, they are trying to eliminate the obstacles to having an even playing field.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

25. Again...

[jdj]

27. I don't think offering an insurance plan with religion based

criteria for payment is constitutionally sound.

If these people work for the federal government, then that seems to be a violation of church and state, but only if that is the only plan they are offered.

I find it amusing people rush to defend the specific religion, which is irrelevant.

Imagine these scenarios. "No, I'm sorry, we won't approve a transfusion for your child, it's against the religious beliefs of the owners of this hospital."

"No, I'm sorry, we approve that surgery for removal of that cancerous tumor because the owners of this hospital believe only in faith healing. The nurses will be in to pray over you in just a minute."

Honestly, I just wish the women in this country would STOP FUCKING BREEDING. Z. Budapest has theorized that if women would stop bearing children for 5 years it could fuck up the economy in a major way.

[jwirr]

35. It is not a compromise

if there are no other hospitals covered by government plans in the area. Are there choices in this plan for those who are not Catholic? I agree that a hospital run by Catholics should be able to run according to their rules. What is wrong is that this plan seems to limit clients to using only this hospital/plan.

[gavodotcom]

40. Hospitals don't work with just one insurance plan, which was my point.

Just as long as you have insurance, it'll pay to the hospital.

My grandfather had most of his heart-related operations taken care of at OSF St. Francis in Peoria, one of three hospitals in the Peoria area. He had Caterpillar insurance, which was from the company he works for.

I don't think, and the article makes no mention of, the "Catholic plan" comes without other, secular government health insurance plans available, although I'm sure they exist.

The point of the 'catholic' plan is that catholics don't have to pay for abortions, through their insurance premiums. That's it. It's not a big deal.

[crossroads]

9. As tricky as Nixon was...

:eyes:

[Dark Jedi]

10. Faith-Based Every F***ing Thing, Baby!

Read about Bushie's Faith-Based Economics here

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10092004.html

[Demeter]

14. HOW CAN IT COST LESS?

Don't these morons read their own actuaries' reports?

It costs A WHOLE LOT more to pay for the pregnancies and resulting complications, not to mention the continuing care for the resulting, growing children, and the added physical and mental strains put upon families with more children than they can handle.

These policies should cost double, to pay for unrestrained breeding!

[pop goes the weasel]

17. pro-death, pro-illness

That what the such policies are. A friend of mine who needed birth control pills to treat her endometriosis was denied access to them while she was in a Catholic hospital for a related complication. My daughter, whose heart is weak, would die if she were to have a pregnancy. It's a lie that policies that do these things to people are pro-life. Call them what they are: destroyers of women, destroyers of health, murder, misogyny.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

18. A very accurate chant

I heard at a women's march:

Pro-life is a lie, you don't care if women die.

[jdj]

29. very accurate.

"Well, she shouldnta got herself raped in the first place." from Hothead Paisan.

[Sin]

21. It should be really cheap

Since the doctors treatment plans should be
O you have the flu thats 3 Our fathers and 2 Hail Marys
+ i wonder if this will cover Churches that try to pray evil out of autistic kids when they wrap them up in blankets and smother them.
and will all the minsters on TV that lay hands on the sic make them walk again will the get part of the co pay.
and will Hmo's only cover the cost of the exorcism and not the cost of the pigs that the devil has to go into.
I love how selective they are with there science if stem cell treatments for other things final come about I'm pretty sure they wont be allowed under it also so basically it will only be a matter of time before they go extinct.

[reprobate]

33. "matter of time before they go extinct. "

The Shakers had a similar policy, except they forbid any attempt at procreation. Celibacy was required. They would have gone extinct long before they did. What saved them for a while was the fact that, before the social safety net was implimented they had plenty of widows and orphans they took in and converted to their beliefs.

When the social safety net was brought into effect they lost the source of their converts and, lo and behold, the Shakers as a species, went extinct.

[FLSurfer]

24. I read somewhere

that Republicans aren't pro-life. They are pro-fetus.
Once you are born, you are no longer a priority.

I would love to see that as a bunper sticker.

[jdj]

31. Fetus fetishists

These "small guvment" fanatics sure don't have a problem with having hundreds of thousands of post-fetal children as wards of the state.

Anyone found Rilya Wilson yet? Jeb??

[undergroundpanther]

32. How long

Will it be until enough people get pissed off at these rich bastards ands thier cultie fundie syncophants and riot for human rights?
I mean these Christofascists don't want to keep thier religious'laws' to themselves and limit it to thier 'kind'who believe as they do in church. No they want touse thier religion to bully, dominate every aspect of everyones life believer or not,They have declared that they want a culture war with the rest of humanity and they will fight human rights,freedom,demoicracy,pluralism, by stealth by warping us laws and if we fight them in court they'll take it to the street because they have that winner mentality that insists on domination as it's proof op'sucess'.If we fight the fundies in the street they'll whine about it in court. Don'tcha get it folks ,these people are out of control-control freaks,bullies adept at using the mechanisms of secular society intended to restrain the religios bullies for thier own ends,using religion to force others to live and be like they are.Fundie bullies will not stop thier assults on human rights,secularism,children.government and women until they get secular culture's destruction,personal submission and adherence to thier self serving bible'gods laws'. Charges of hypocraisy in church's,Proven with history and repeated in current events.Stuff like problems with corruption,abuse, delusions and power mongering ,all this reality of power and religion and how it corrupts the state,means nothing to a BELIEVER bully who idolizes the bible and makes god his cult of a personality..and thinks it's ok to tell others who do not share his beliefs how to live thier lives according to his interpretation of the bible. These bully reconstructionist,conservative,fundies are a menace to humanity.
The sooner we stop letting them off the hook for the crap they pull the better. A bully with a bible was a bully first a believer second.
A bully cannot abuse people without a culture that is tolerat to his abuses behind him,hence the"culture war" concept fundies yakk about.
Don't underestimate this danger.

[noamnety]

36. Clinton vs. Bush

Clinton made it mandatory for insurers to cover birth control for the plans the federal employees use.

Bush tried to repeal that in 2002.

There have been laws discussed in Michigan to allow doctors, insurers, and pharmacists to refuse to provide or cover birth control - so it would be like playing the slots, you have to have a match of all three that aren't talibangelists in order to get access to birth control.

[radfringe]

37. Faith based Health care - Pray you don't get sick n/t

[Ilsa]

39. Bush isn't letting OB's practice their love on women!

I hate this shit. Women need to have all forms of legal health care available to them under their federal health plans. Too bad Barbara Bush didn't have a tubal 60 years ago.