The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has granted an injunction which excuses the businesses owned by Frank and Phil Gilardi, of Ohio, from compliance with the Obamacare HHS mandate. The Gilardi’s own food distribution businesses, and operate them in accordance with their Catholic beliefs. Their health insurance does not cover contraception and abortion. After a final emergency appeal from the ACLJ, the Court of Appeals, changed their position on March 29th, allowing the Gilardis to continue to freely practice their religion in their business operations, while their lawsuit opposing the HHS mandate proceeds through the courts. This is the fifth injunction obtained by the American Center for Law and Justice against the HHS Mandate of Obamacare.
Category: health care
Legitimate Reason to Leave the Catholic Church ??
Magdi Allam made international news when he converted from his Muslim faith to Catholicism on Easter, 2008, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, with Pope Benedict XVI officiating.
Allam now says that he is leaving Catholicism, but will always remain a Christian. He is upset that the Catholic Church has stood by for the “Islamization” of Europe, which he sees as an affront to Western civilization, and the “fundamental rights of the person”. He points to the persecution of Christians in the Muslim countries, and explains that a practice of appeasement will not be effective in stopping the maltreatment.
Pharmer does not see all Muslims as being cut from the same cloth, though Allam is certainly correct about the more extreme Islamic groups. The main difficulty with Islam occurs when it is practiced as a political system, rather than as a religion. There are those who hold that Islam is inherently a political system.
There are some additional forces driving people from the Catholic Church. In the U.S. the Church has been very weak in speaking up for the rights of the unborn, the elderly and disabled, preferring to sell them out for government funding of their charitable and educational interests. The U.S. Catholic church has also seen fit to place charitable functions and health care into the hands of a very corrupt government. After doing this, the Bishops then feigned surprise that abortion, birth control coercion, and IPAB death panels were a part of the government health care plan, brought by the most pro-abortion/infanticide president in history.
Yours truly thinks it is plausible that the Catholic leadership in the U.S. knew what was coming all along. It is observed that the nominally Catholic lawmakers who pushed this abortive health care agenda are still able to publicly partake in the Eucharist. This serves as an indication that Obamacare, and all the death and destruction it is bringing our way, might have been pre-approved by the church leadership in America.
Does it make sense, with this in mind, to follow the example of Magdi Allam? Pharmer is not taking such a step. Perhaps it makes more sense to stick with the ideals of the Catholic religion as an ethical system apart from so many current clergy and leaders who not taking it seriously.
Perhaps it also makes more sense to abstain from the Eucharist in the place of Biden, Pelosi, et al, and do penance for having allowed them to govern us.
Obama Care Application at Least as Bad as Your Tax Forms
According to the AP, (which usually shills for Obama), the part one of the application for Obamacare is an excessively complex, 21 step, 15 page long process for a three person family. This constitutes only the financial part of the process. Later there is also the onerous job of picking the health care plan.
This form is mandated, and it will be interesting to see how well the semi-literate members of the population are able to comply.
About 10 years ago, Pharmer obtained prior understanding of this kind of burden, from a German citizen who had refused to fill out his government health care paperwork. He said that because of this, he had no health care coverage.
Those who are unable to navigate the new Obamacare system should expect to similarly find themselves out in the cold with respect to “healthcare for all”.
Celestial Discharge: Ms. Lorraine Bayless, Trailed by Media Mayhem.
Prayers for the peaceful repose of Ms. Lorraine Bayless, and prayers for her family, which, by all appearances, is being victimized by a bumbling news media and generally uninformed public.
Prior to her natural death, following a collapse in the dining hall of the Glenwood Gardens Extended Care Facility, the 87 year old Ms. Bayless was residing in the independent living section of the facility. Her condition precipitated a call to 911, by an unnamed nurse. The 911 dispatcher, in a much publicized call, begged the nurse to administer CPR. When the nurse refused, the dispatcher begged her to find someone else who would.
The daughter of Ms. Bayless, also a nurse, has stated that she is satisfied with the care given to her mother at Glenwood Gardens.
What has precipitated the media storm, foaming at the mouth, and gnashing of teeth by so many uninformed people, is a statement by KGET television of Bakersfield, California, that the elderly lady had not signed a DNR form.
Interestingly, over in the UK, the Daily Mail says just the opposite, that the women had indeed signed the DNR form. Most who are commenting at that source are wondering what is causing the big fuss in the U.S.. In their minds, the Glenwood nurse was fulfilling the lady’s wishes.
The two opposing claims are juxtaposed below.
NO DNR:
YES DNR:
Your friendly Pharmer would like to add that not all elderly people want to be bagged and thumped when they are in the process of leaving this world. Many truly do opt out of it, as they have accumulated too many health ailments, or fear doing so. Some realize that the success rate of CPR is not all that terrific, and the outcome for an elderly person very seldom involves springing back to the prior state of health. CPR is also generally painful after the fact, due to cracked ribs, and many other possible injuries.
None of us know the circumstances of Ms. Bayless, nor do we know her final wishes, since reports are conflicting regarding her paperwork. She need not have used a form to convey how she wished to go, and might have made her intentions known by other means.
Please avoid the temptation to ascribe this event to Obamacare (which is much worse than being allowed to die a natural death in old age). Please also withhold judgment on the nurse who stayed with Ms. Bayless as the emergency care was summoned. It would also be good to avoid assumptions about the daughter of this lady, about whom we know little, other than that she does not intend to rain down legal punishments upon Glenwood Gardens extended care facility.
Having attended a good number of code blue events, Pharmer quite understands the choice of people to opt out of CPR, and expects to make this choice for herself long before the age of 80. Many health care professionals actually feel guilty when they have to perform it on an elderly person who has not expressed their wishes on the matter.
Click here for a statement from the family of Lorraine Bayless, and please don’t hound them! If the first link does not work, try THIS.
Dr. Benjamin Carson for President
Even prior to his famous and viral speech, lots of people have been asking the plain spoken and practical Dr. Benjamin Carson to run for president.
Here’s another interview, in which Dr. Carson informs us that he will retire from pediatric neurosurgery, and move into the area of education.
Available HERE is an interview with Allen West, who explains that, in the eyes of the leftie media, Dr. Carson broke the unwritten rule that Black men cannot criticize Obama.
Dr. Benjamin Carson proposes health care reform at National Prayer Breakfast – Arlington Conservative | Examiner.com
Dr. Benjamin Carson proposes health care reform at National Prayer Breakfast – Arlington Conservative | Examiner.com.
CLICK ABOVE FAST. Dr. Benjamin Carson wants to reform health care in a way that would work. His plan is so simple, he could relay in in less than a minute. (The media focused on sleepy Obama and yawning Kerry, and not on the most important part of the National Prayer Breakfast, Dr Carson’s speech).
This 2008 Presidential Award of Freedom Winner is Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins hospital. Dr. Carson’s three point plan is built around a medical savings account that returns control of health care back to the patients.
Dr Carson also spoke against the dangers of political correctness. Below is his speech. LISTEN UP!!
Get to know more about Dr. Carson’s upbringing and career HERE! Kudos to his Mom.
Why You Should Not Trust Statistics Coming From Abortionists
The British Department of Health gets its figures on the abortion of babies with congenital anomalies from forms that abortionists fill out at the time of the procedure.
Eurocat (agency which monitors congenital abnormalies in 23 countries) tracks a foetus from the time that he or she has been identified with an abnormality, with the initial data coming from those who make the diagnosis. The fate of the fetus is then connected with this data.
While the UK Dept of Health recorded 14 abortions due to cleft palate in that country from 2006-2010, Eurocat logged 147 such events in the UK.
During the same period, Eurocat also caught 250 babies aborted in the UK for club foot. The UK dept of health stopped recording this figure as a separate category after 2002, when they only recorded 2 cases.
The Eurocat number of abortions for Down syndrome in 2010 was 886, compared to the Dept of Health number, 482.
Abortionists are said to avoid filling out the reason for abortions on the forms either to spare the mother’s feelings or to avoid backlash from controversy over eugenic killings.
The UK Telegraph has some PAST related articles:
Twenty-six babies aborted for cleft lips or palates
Government secrecy on cleft palate abortions
Baby that survived abortion rejected for ‘cleft lip’
Glaucoma is Cause for Euthanasia in Belgium
Euthanasia twins ‘had nothing to live for’ – Telegraph.
Marc and Eddy Verbessem, two identical twins, opted for euthanasia at age 45. The pair had been born deaf and lived together throughout their lives, working as cobblers. They communicated with each other and with their other family members via a unique sign language. After being told that they had glaucoma, and would go blind, the two were driven to despair, thinking that they would not be able to see each other anymore, and would need to be institutionalized.
The Verbessem twins, of Putte, a village outside of Brussels were refused euthanasia by their local hospital. They did not fit the criterion of unbearable pain, which is the usual standard applied to allow this form of killing. Their request was accepted by Professor Wim Distelmans, and was carried out at Brussels University Hospital in Jette.
Remy Verbessem, the twins’ older brother said that the two had suffered other medical conditions, and that Eddy had a deformed spine, and had undergone heart surgery. The twins feared that they would become blind from the glaucoma. Apparently the socialized medicine system of Belgium offers no adequate treatments for glaucoma.
Belgium is considering a new law which will allow euthanasia of children and Alzheimer’s patients. The organs of those who are euthanized in Belgium are harvested for use in transplants.
Lefties at NYT decry for-profit health care institutions
Health Care and Pursuit of Profit Make a Poor Mix – NYTimes.com.
If you’re feeling bulimic today, you can read (above) a leftist, Eduardo Porter, telling us that profit and health care don’t mix.
Health care professionals are supposed to do their work for free. Profit is evil and the motivation for making money should not have any association with health care. How this leftie expects to attract people to incur huge educational debt, and enter into a very difficult field to work for nothing, is anyone’s guess.
There’s a claim in the NYT article that a health care institution which switches from non-profit to for-profit is more likely to experience patient deaths over subsequent two years. The cited study admits that the shock of switching management and workers, and a myriad of other factors could have much more to do with this effect than the mere acquisition of a profit motive. In fact, the effect of the staffing changes, and the patient mortality rate recedes after the initial shock of change. This is a strong indicator that the mere profitability has nothing to do with the mortality rate, and that the shock of reorganization and personnel changes has everything to do with it. The initial pressures of an institution to sell out to private investors is also discussed in the original study as a major factor.
The NYT also cites a 30 year old study of an unmentioned number of Southern Wisconsin nursing homes, and implied from the invisible data that for-profit institutions used higher doses of sedatives in their patients than the non-profits.
That the New York Times would try to convince you that health care workers and institutions should provide services for free, or at cost, is no surprise. That they would extrapolate the study results from religious affiliated non-profits, and pretend that government-run institutions would operate similarly is similarly not a surprise.
It would, however, be a huge shock and surprise to see the leftie press calling for ABORTIONISTS to provide their services at cost, and take no profits. There’s a fortune in abortion, and this is true for Planned Parenthood, which is excused from taxes as a supposed non-profit (though it does make and report profit), as well as the multitudinous for-profit abortion industries. See an example of Planned Parenthood’s form 990. Don’t ever hold your breath waiting for abortionists to be held to the same standards as real health care providers.
You will NEVER hear a cry from the New York Times that Universities should cease to take profits, or stop paying their instructors and administrators well over the salaries and benefits of equally educated private sector employees. You will never hear them ask that the salaries and benefits of public school teachers be reduced to that of similarly educated private sector employees.
Those involved in furthering the agenda of the left will continue to reap profits and rewards well above the national average with the blessings of their media machine. However, they won’t be satisfied until the rest of us, who provide essential goods and services, are working and living as slaves.
Mass Murderers in the Wings: The Mental Health Problem
Lisa Long writes in the Blue Review, predicting that her own son, a kid with serious behavioral problems, could become the next mass murderer. She sequesters all the sharp objects, and has a rapid escape routine for the rest of her kids to keep them safe from her increasingly violent 13 year old son. Take the time to read her description of life with a violent and mentally ill child, for whom adequate treatment and resources do not exist.