Would Jesus have declined to buy health insurance? Well, knowing what was in store for him, possibly. But most of us have no idea when we're going to become seriously ill or injured, so the rationale for having health insurance is pretty obvious.
Full disclosure: My 21-year-old daughter will graduate from college this spring, and thanks to "Obamacare" she won't be kicked off her mom's health insurance! When she eventually gets a job, her employer's health insurance plan won't be able to exclude her pre-existing conditions, and the reforms are saving the nation money! With apologies to McDonald's ... I'm loving it!
And I'm not alone. As the Huffington Post reports, the paranoid Right's frantic drive to demonize the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" is rapidly losing steam. That being the case, the Right is seizing on a well-worn tactic: to declare it an attack on freedom of religion.
Here's an excerpt from piece titled "Best Option to Repeal Obamacare" that is ricocheting around rightwing sites such as Hannity's blog:
Requiring people to purchase private health insurance violates the freedom of religion guarantees of the First Amendment. Some religions such as the Amish religion and Islam consider purchasing private insurance wrong. The Christian Science religion questions the use of medical doctors. Requiring members of these religions to purchase private health insurance deprives them of their right to practice their religion.
Unfortunately, with its penchant for making stuff up, the Right has already staked out wildly contradictory claims about "Obamacare" and religion. For the last year or more, some on the Right have been championing the religious exemptions in the Act as a means to get around it. Here's a contributor to Free Republic, one who evidently champions freedom from punctuation as well:
Change your Religion get Exemption from Obamacare! [sic]HEALTH REFORM: People with religious objections can opt out Federal health care reform .... Hundreds of Amish families in the region are likely to be free from that requirement. Although the Amish consist of several branches, some more conservative than others, they generally rely upon a community ethic that disdains government assistance. Families rely upon one another, and communities pitch in to help neighbors pay health care expenses ...I doubt many people will be willing to change their Religious beliefs but I do see this as a possible way to Beat The System just like Obama and our Congressional Representatives seem to be able to do by not mandating they be forced to participate in the same crap they are shoveling off on the populace!
Those lucky Amish! Community ethic, huh? Relying on each other, eh? Isn't it just like the Obama Administration to give an exemption to a socialistic group like that? But what about Muslims? In a rare show of sympathy for the Islamic faith, WorldNet Daily cries foul against the Obamacare exemption:
The recent health-care reform legislation carries a controversial mandate that all Americans obtain health insurance, but careful study of the passed law reveals there are some groups -- the Amish, for example -- that can obtain an exemption.For devout Muslims, however, whose religious beliefs forbid purchasing insurance, the mandate is still binding, religion or not.
Or is it? SodaHead argues that the exemption applies primarily to Muslims, along with a few other apparent undesirables.
CHRISTIANS AND JEWS NEED NOT APPLY FOR THE MUSLIM EXEMPTION TO OBAMACAREObamaCare discriminates against Christians and Jews by denying them special exemptions extended to other religions.If you are a mainstream Christian or a Jew, you need not apply to Opt Out of ObamaCare; that exemption is reserved for Muslims, Scientologists, Amish, Christian Scientists and Native American Indians who have a conscientious objection to insurance
Why ObamaCare is the Most Important Sacrament of False Religion ...The Democrats, Progressives, and Socialists in this country have done everything -- bribes, lies, schemes -- to get this bill passed and the question is "Why?" Why is passing "health care reform" so important to those with a humanistic worldview and how should Christians respond?
And on and on they go, stumbling around like drunken revelers on the deck of the Titanic. In case you've become mildly intoxicated just reading this drivel, here's some strong black coffee: The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," demeaningly called "Obamacare" by its opponents, does not exempt any religious group by name. It does have a provision allowing for a religious conscience exemption. How that will play out in 2014, when the mandatory insurance provisions take effect, God alone knows.
But in any event, all this folderol and hoo-hah do raise a good question: why should there be religious exemptions? The policy is intended to assure that a) no one goes untreated for lack of health insurance and b) responsible taxpayers who DO buy health insurance DO NOT have to pay for the poor decisions of refusniks. Since everyone needs healthcare to a greater or lesser degree during their lifetimes, this is a highly rational public policy.
Why should religion be an excuse to opt out? We don't grant religious exemptions from paying taxes for war. We don't grant religious exemptions from providing children with medical care. We don't even exempt Amish employers from withholding social security taxes from their employees' pay. As Chief Justice Warren Burger, a notable conservative, wrote in the Supreme Court opinion deciding this issue, "Not all burdens on religion are unconstitutional."
So why should we let religion be the ticket that allows some people to be free riders on our healthcare system? Or does the Right really mean to stick to its principles and let people who don't have health insurance go broke or just get sick and die when medical calamity strikes?
Maybe so. Provided they can cut taxes, they will defend to the death your God-given right to suffer.
Follow Clay Farris Naff on Twitter: www.twitter.com/claynaff
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I can only speak for my own experiences while meditating and my experiences have been earth shattering. I was raised Catholic, became an Atheist (doesn't everyone who was raised Catholic?), and just recently have become spiritual. If there's one thing I want to share with readers, it's that all spiritual belief cannot be lumped together with crazy fundies. There's an old saying "Trust those who seek the truth, doubt those who find it." Extremism in either direction isn't helpful, and if religion is a must-have, we need to develop a kinder one based on our more advanced knowledge of the universe. I think if you're not at least a little interested in this stuff, you're halfway to dead.
1 Woe to those who make unjust laws (or try to repeal just ones),
to those who issue oppressive decrees,
2 to deprive the poor of their rights
and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,
making widows their prey
and robbing the fatherless.
3 What will you do on the day of reckoning,
when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help?
Where will you leave your riches?
4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives
or fall among the slain.
Thank you for exposing the hypocrisy!
It was not about challenging your physical health or making others healthy or health cheaper or of course 180 degrees of these. but using free will to be healthy within you existence, not changing your existence. Not that one does not create the other, but only within your life. Why Christ, Buddha, Krishna and others did not free the group, but showed the individual to gain his free will to follow his journey to salvation or enlightenment
It was accepting your birth right of eternity by expanding your consciousness that you are not a body or mind, but a soul. To live free expanding the soul to the SOUL of the universe.
a very ignorant nation that the majority of the nation lacks empathy for others.
over half of americans will have to suffer some event with health care insurance before they awaken to the reality that private insurance cannot provide health care for its citizens. the profits over people's medical needs thing.
americans are not the brightest bulbs on the planet as other industrialized nations see the need for some level of national health care. the cost of our products and service due to private insurance paid for by the employer is very great.
the obama plan is weak very weak. europe looks at us and wonders why. the answer is simple. americans look at themselves as special and exceptional in spite of the evidence. that exceptionalism thing.
private insurance looks for ways not to pay for services. that profits over people thing we call capitalism.
even the liberals love their capitalism while it takes them to third world status; as they are so busy blaming the repubs that cannot see the immoral reality of a capitalist system of profits over the general welfare of the people. ie consitution thing.
Simple math would say we could easily have free health and education. But that has more to do with freeing the knowledge that the CIA keeps to themselves. Or an education system that uses a piece of paper to restrict one opportunities.
Abe Lincoln became president from becoming learned for Webster. TODAY we change the meaning of words so that is not as easy, but in the end. Education is what one learns, not how he learns.
And what he know is what he does or can do. Instead of swallowing information on TV
Solving our health-care crisis is simple...but it is not easy.
It is simple because what needs to be fixed can be explained to a five year old.
It is not easy, because it triggers a fundamental clash of values. Between those who value power and property vs those who value their fellow human beings. Between those who see a world of only conflict and competition....and those who see a world of mutually beneficial cooperation.
You cannot legislate values. If you try...as you said...people will use their energies to circumvent these laws and behave in a manner that reflect what their own values are....
...or aren't.
God is love.
Point well made as usual, GodIs. Good to read your comments again.
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Yes. But do you really even know what that word really means?
Stripping people of their individuality and reducing them to nothing more than hated "labels" is hardly a loving act....and NOTHING like the way of living that Jesus modelled in the New Testament.
Try being less "Christian", and being more like Jesus in how you treat others.
Nuns support health-care reforms
http://www.newsweek.com/blogs/the-gaggle/2010/03/17/nuns-support-health-care-reform-defy-bishops.html
Pastors launch national campaign for health-care reform
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20090522/pastors-launch-national-campaign-for-health-care-reform/
Christians for health-care reform gather in D.C.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2009/September/Christians-for-Health-Care-Reform-Gather-in-DC/
...and it is about using religion as a way of whipping up fear...and then using that fear to attack government policies that do not serve the rich-and-powerful.
It is an ugly, cynical way of being in the world. But the powers behind Movement Conservatism have raised to an art form....and are virtuosos at manipulating the emotions of their "footsoldiers"..and using them to get them to do as they wish.
No, he would have healed himself...right?
Isn't that the only possible thing to be done? Try buying fire insurance AFTER you home burns down. Of course this won't affect the Republicans who make the law, they'll be covered one way or another but for all of you people living in trailer parks and voting Republican be prepared take care of yourself when you're ill. Or maybe you can call up Speaker Boehner and he'll come over with some chicken soup.
The Republicans are just going through the motions to say they fulfilled a campaign promise. The religion ploy is already too late and too lame.