Catholic Health Association condemns opponents of expanded Medicaid benefits
July 03, 2014
In a sharply partisan public statement, the president of the Catholic Health Association (CHA) has denounced the 24 American states that have declined to expand Medicaid benefits as “morally and economically irresponsible.”
“It is absolutely callous to block the expansion of Medicaid,” said Sister Carol Keehan. Basing her statement on a White House press release, she said that the expansion of Medicaid benefits would not only broaden access to medical services but also stimulate economic growth in the 24 states that have not yet adopted President Obama’s proposals.
Failure to expand the Medicaid program, Sister Keehan said, causes “senseless suffering and denial of a basic human right.” She argued that the states’ reluctance to accept the federal health-care reform program “cannot be justified from any perspective.”
Sister Keehan, under whose leadership the CHA worked energetically to ensure passage of the Obama health-care reform program, said that the expansion of Medicaid is essential for the benefit of the poor. “There is simply no credible reason or moral justification for obstructing their ability to achieve some health security,” she insisted.
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Posted by: unum -
Jul. 04, 2014 8:47 AM ET USA
Sister Carol shows the typical Church leaders ignorance of economics and personal freedom of all progressive liberals. She is willing to sacrifice the personal freedom of citizens for state control of our institutions, a decidedly un-American concept!
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Posted by: aclune9083 -
Jul. 03, 2014 9:23 PM ET USA
What else would you expect from Carol Keehan, who has shilled the programs of the current occupant of the White House from the beginning. She fails to mention that Medicaid expansion is a sleight-of-hand that raises the qualifying income level for this state-funded program from 100 to 133% of the poverty line, an unfunded mandate with federal reimbursement offered only until 2016. Thus, the true cost of obamacare to the federal budget is masked. Transparency, anyone?
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Posted by: tjbenjamin -
Jul. 03, 2014 7:03 PM ET USA
This is the sort of thing we must expect when we leave such matters as care for the poor in the hands of a government. That is what is morally irresponsible. Isn't charity, caring for others, a personal decision, done out of love and a sense of ministry? Shouldn't we, as a Church, properly have that role? The government has muscled us out, taxing people, and then using the money as they see fit, which too often means wastefully and with negative impact on the people they claim to "serve."
