Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
[From the NYT:]
The White House released text on Sunday of a pending executive order
that will reaffirm the health care measure's "consistency with
longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion."
This order will be signed after the legislation, currently being debated
on the House floor, is passed.
Citing the president’s executive order further
outlining prohibitions against the use of federal funds for abortion,
Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan and a leader of
pro-life Democrats in the House, announced that he will vote for
the legislation. “The real
victory here or the real winners here are the American people,” Mr.
Stupak concludes, noting that 31 million more people would receive
health-care coverage.
Mr. Stupak rejected the contention of Republican John Boehner, Minority Leader of the House, that the executive order
would not prohibit federal financing of abortions. The Michigan
Democrat, a Catholic, also noted that the United States Conference of
Catholic Bishops still wanted statutory language barring the use of
federal money for abortions. “I know it’s Lent,” he said, but added that
the bishops could not supply the 60 votes needed in the Senate to
approve such a law. “This has the full force of law,” he said of the executive order.
Representative Nick Rahall, pro-life Democrat of West Virginia, said, “It’s great
day for America. It’s a great day for the unborn and it’s a great day
for the uninsured.”
The text of the Executive Order:
Executive Order ensuring enforcement and implementation of abortion
restrictions in the patient protection and affordable care act
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America, including the "Patient Protection
and Affordable Care Act" (approved March __, 2010), I hereby order as
follows:
Section 1. Policy.
Following the recent passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable
Care Act ("the Act"), it is necessary to establish an adequate
enforcement mechanism to ensure that Federal funds are not used for
abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life
of the woman would be endangered), consistent with a longstanding
Federal statutory restriction that is commonly known as the Hyde
Amendment. The purpose of this Executive Order is to establish a
comprehensive, government-wide set of policies and procedures to achieve
this goal and to make certain that all relevant actors-Federal
officials, state officials (including insurance regulators) and health
care providers-are aware of their responsibilities, new and old.
The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion
policy and extends those restrictions to the newly-created health
insurance exchanges. Under the Act, longstanding Federal laws to
protect conscience (such as the Church Amendment, 42 U.S.C. §300a-7, and
the Weldon Amendment, Pub. L. No. 111-8, §508(d)(1) (2009)) remain
intact and new protections prohibit discrimination against health care
facilities and health care providers because of an unwillingness to
provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.
Numerous executive agencies have a role in ensuring that these
restrictions are enforced, including the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the
Office of Personnel Management (OPM).
Section 2. Strict Compliance with Prohibitions on Abortion Funding in
Health Insurance Exchanges. The Act specifically prohibits the use of
tax credits and cost-sharing reduction payments to pay for abortion
services (except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the
woman would be endangered) in the health insurance exchanges that will
be operational in 2014. The Act also imposes strict payment and
accounting requirements to ensure that Federal funds are not used for
abortion services in exchange plans (except in cases of rape or incest,
or when the life of the woman would be endangered) and requires state
health insurance commissioners to ensure that exchange plan funds are
segregated by insurance companies in accordance with generally accepted
accounting principles, OMB funds management circulars, and accounting
guidance provided by the Government Accountability Office.
I hereby direct the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS to develop,
within 180 days of the date of this Executive Order, a model set of
segregation guidelines for state health insurance commissioners to use
when determining whether exchange plans are complying with the Act's
segregation requirements, established in Section 1303 of the Act, for
enrollees receiving Federal financial assistance. The guidelines shall
also offer technical information that states should follow to conduct
independent regular audits of insurance companies that participate in
the health insurance exchanges. In developing these model guidelines,
the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS shall consult with
executive agencies and offices that have relevant expertise in
accounting principles, including, but not limited to, the Department of
the Treasury, and with the Government Accountability Office. Upon
completion of those model guidelines, the Secretary of HHS should
promptly initiate a rulemaking to issue regulations, which will have the
force of law, to interpret the Act's segregation requirements, and
shall provide guidance to state health insurance commissioners on how to
comply with the model guidelines.
Section 3. Community Health Center Program.
The Act establishes a new Community Health Center (CHC) Fund within HHS,
which provides additional Federal funds for the community health center
program. Existing law prohibits these centers from using federal funds
to provide abortion services (except in cases of rape or incest, or
when the life of the woman would be endangered), as a result of both the
Hyde Amendment and longstanding regulations containing the Hyde
language. Under the Act, the Hyde language shall apply to the
authorization and appropriations of funds for Community Health Centers
under section 10503 and all other relevant provisions. I hereby direct
the Secretary of HHS to ensure that program administrators and
recipients of Federal funds are aware of and comply with the limitations
on abortion services imposed on CHCs by existing law. Such actions
should include, but are not limited to, updating Grant Policy Statements
that accompany CHC grants and issuing new interpretive rules.
Section 4. General Provisions.
(a) Nothing in this Executive Order shall be construed to impair or
otherwise affect: (i) authority granted by law or presidential
directive to an agency, or the head thereof; or (ii) functions of the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary,
administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This Executive Order shall be implemented consistent with applicable
law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This Executive Order is not intended to, and does not, create any
right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in
equity against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities,
officers, employees or agents, or any other person.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Those of us working in the field of natural law theory sometimes encounter bizarre and even grotesque misunderstandings or misrepresentations of what natural law theory is all about. (I tried to clear up some of these in my 2007 John Dewey Lecture at Harvard entitled “Natural Law,” which was published in Volume 52 of the American Journal of Jurisprudence (2007).) Among writers for popular forums, Andrew Sullivan has produced some rather spectacular misunderstandings, but now I’ve encountered one that makes Sullivan’s errors seem minor. It appears, as it happens, in a vicious and flailing attack on little ol’ me on the Huffington Post. The author is someone named Frank Schaeffer. Here’s the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/catholic-bishops-ignore-t_b_505670.html
Schaeffer goes off the rails before the caboose is even out of the station by classifying natural law theories as “theological” theories. Oy vey. I suppose that what threw him off is the fact that some Christian and Jewish theologians, quite legitimately, have deployed natural law concepts in larger projects of moral theology. That’s hardly an excuse, though, for failing to see that what a natural law theory is, is a theory about what can be known regarding principles of practical (including moral) judgment by unaided (i.e., natural) reason, that is, independently of information supplied by scriptural revelation or other authoritative religious sources. From there, Schaeffer’s misunderstandings and misrepresentations get increasingly bizarre. Having evidently never read work by John Finnis, Elizabeth Anscombe, John Haldane, or other natural law writers on marriage and sexual morality, Schaeffer characterizes the natural law argument about homosexual conduct and relationships as follows: “homosexuality isn’t ‘natural’ and therefore it’s wrong.” To multiply errors, he adds that according to natural law theory, “there should be civil penalties against what is ‘unnatural.’” Then he informs his readers that “natural law is supposedly the opposite of positive law.” It goes from bad to worse, to even worse, to just plain silly. For example, Schaeffer gives his readers this pair of loony claims: “Natural Law rests on two ideas denied by the Bible: the self-sufficiency of man's mind and the capability of man to extrapolate moral understanding of right and wrong from observing the world around him.” Before the travesty is finished, Schaeffer even manages to classify the Marquis de Sade as a natural law philosopher.
I suppose no ignorant or mendacious rant about natural law is complete without throwing in a heavy dollop of anti-Catholic bigotry, so Schaeffer adds that in three paragraphs at the end.
The stuff about me personally is amusing in a sick sort of way. Schaeffer claims to have met me several times. Perhaps that’s true, but I remember meeting him only once. Admittedly, it was a memorable experience. We were on a panel together at Princeton discussing contemporary politics in the midst of the 2008 presidential election. I knew nothing about the man, but he immediately struck me as an odd and, frankly, somewhat creepily emotive character who, as they say, "had issues.” He seemed pathetically desperate to be important or, at least, to be regarded as important in elite intellectual circles. I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to decide whether this had to do with his being reared by fundamentalist Christian parents, a fact which, for some reason, he insisted on making a very big deal out of in his remarks. His speech was an emotional tirade that was perhaps the most self-referential piece of oratory I’ve ever heard. It was, you see, all about . . . him! We were supposed to be talking about the election, but what the audience got from Frank Schaeffer was autobiography—an account of the life and deeds of Frank Schaeffer. (Evidently, he was once himself connected to those dreadful right-wing fundamentlists until he "realized just how anti-American they are," which led him to forums like the the Rachel Maddow Show and the Huffington Post where he warns the Enlightened about the nefarious plans of his former comrades in arms "to derail democracy.") It was so painfully embarrassing that even people on his side (that would be the pro-Obama side) were rolling their eyes to make clear to the rest of us that they found his behavior as peculiar and embarrassing as we did.
At one point, feigning (I think) the righteous indignation of an Old Testament prophet, he launched into a wholesale defamation of his fellow citizens, declaring that the allegedly intense and deep-seated racism of the American people would, in the end, unleash itself to prevent the election of Barack Obama. While the rest of us were grateful to get a little break from listening to his autobiography, I and some others were outraged. By no means was it only the conservatives. My liberal Democratic colleague Sean Wilentz, who was also on the panel, joined me in denouncing Schaeffer’s calumny.
Schaeffer describes me as a “far right Reconstructionist extremist.” I gather that his modus operandi is to hurl such epithets to smear anyone, however reasonable and civil (or, as he puts it in speaking of me, "polite and kindly"), who has the temerity to disagree with the moral and political views of Frank Schaeffer. What is really going on, I suspect, is that he is trying to make himself into a figure of importance on the left by defaming those on the other side. Evidently, he hasn’t figured out that the left is not composed entirely or even mainly of people like him. There are men and women like Sean Wilentz who won’t countenance calumny or demagoguery even against their political opponents, or in the service of political goals they share.
Then there is the hypocrisy of it all. Schaeffer hauls out the defamations (“far right Reconstructionist extremist!”), and the anti-Catholic bigotry, against me and against the Catholic bishops, demanding that we refrain from acting on (or even speaking about) our moral convictions in politics, only when it comes to issues such as abortion and marriage. When we act or speak against the death penalty, for example, or in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, or when the bishops advocate universal health coverage, Schaeffer is strangely silent. When immigration or health care is the issue, we hear nothing from Frank Schaeffer about the Catholic Church being “the world’s best organized pedophile network.” Gee, I wonder why.
Catholic readers might be wondering what this “Reconstructionism” is that I am, by Schaeffer's reckoning, "probably the most influential" advocate of (though, “of course, George would disavow being called a Reconstructionist”). You’ll get a kick out of this. “Christian Reconstructionism” was the political theology of the radical Calvinist guru Rousas John Rushdoony. who lived from 1916-2001. Rushdoony maintained that the U.S. should be governed by Old Testament law under a theory labeled “theonomy,” which, as far as I can tell, was merely his own variant of theocracy. From a quick review of published accounts of Rushdoony's life and thought, I gather than he was a racist and a Holocaust diminisher. Oh yes, and he didn’t think much of Catholicism or Catholics either ("preachers of a polluted gospel"). Let’s see, that would make him a bit like . . . .
As Bob Hockett and I have been discussing, any conscientious, faithful Catholic who hopes to arrive at a defensible position -- as a legislator, or as a citizen -- on the current health-care proposal needs to not only be sure that he "has his head right" -- i.e., that he does not intend to promote abortion -- but also that he has made an informed, not-clouded-by-partisan-loyalties prudential judgment about what the facts, on the ground in the real world, are, and also the likely real-world effects of the proposal. Bob and I disagree about some of "the likely real-world effects" of the proposal (we also agree about many of those effects, but just think differently about whether those effects are desirable).
Now, I suppose that there are no MOJ readers who are "undecided" at this point. Still, it has been suggested, in some pro-life and Catholic quarters, that one of the "facts" to be taken account of is the alleged abortion-reducing effect of universal health coverage in some other countries. Robby has already linked to Bill Saunders' response to this suggestion. I would only add, to Robby's post, the hope that, in the future, those pro-life Catholics who are at present satisfied that the proposed health-care proposal will *not* promote, and will actually reduce the number of abortions, will display an equal appreciation for the fact that regulations of abortion -- reasonable regulations that the vast majority of people in our diverse society support, but that abortion-rights activists and most Democrats in Congress and in the Administration oppose -- clearly reduce the number of abortions.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Kansas, Villanova Bust Obama's
Men's Bracket
NEW YORK (AP) -- For everyone who picked Kansas to win the men's NCAA
basketball title, the president feels your pain.President Barack
Obama's bracket was busted Saturday when the Jayhawks, the
tournament's top seed, were stunned by No. 9 seed Northern Iowa 69-67.
Obama picked Kansas to beat Kentucky for the championship.Obama's bracket was looking good -- he correctly predicted 25 of 32
winners -- after the first round, but it took a big hit earlier Saturday
when No. 2 seed Villanova was upset by 10th-seeded Saint Mary's 75-68.
Obama, who correctly predicted North Carolina's title last year, picked
the Wildcats to make the Final Four.
Greetings Again, All,
Steve Schneck of CUA has posted a thoughtful reply, replete with detailed narrative of his involvement (which he humbly describes as 'very limited') in the course of negotiations over the House and Senate health insurance reform bills, to comments made by MoJ readers to my earlier posting of his words. Because it seems to me apt to be of interest to our readership more generally, I add it here as a post in its own right.
Herewith:
Hi, everyone! Sorry to be slow to respond to these helpful comments. I’ve been away on some travel.
Since so many of the comments seem to turn on questions of integrity (Will the administration abide by its pledge to respect existing regulations? Has Schneck been duped?) I thought it might be useful to recount how I came to support this bill. And, let me say in advance, that despite some of my friends including my name among “Catholic leaders,” my role has been very limited.
I am, though, strongly pro-life. I’m a regular at Washington’s January marches for life. I continue to advocate for overturning Roe. Moreover, I’ve been a supporter for just about every policy proposal to limit access to abortion. Despite my support for other aspects of the Obama administration, very early on I spoke publicly against its Mexico City reversal and against its handling of stem cell policies. At the same time, for me, being pro-life extends far beyond abortion to incorporate the whole of Catholic moral and social teachings.
It’s in the latter sense that I have also been a lifelong advocate for comprehensive health care for America. I see this as a moral imperative. In my estimation the failure of our society to provide for the health care needs of so many of our brethren reflects the same anti-life values behind abortion. And, I do believe—albeit without sufficient data—that comprehensive health care would reduce abortion rates.
It was in this spirit that I was an early advocate for the administration’s plan to move health care legislation. When the first bills began to be hammered out last spring, however, I was dismayed. Despite pledges by all sides that the legislation would respect Hyde, all five of the initial bills (two in the Senate and three in the House) fell short of the spirit of Hyde. With many other pro-life advocates I objected loudly. In response to our concerns, on the House side (in the circle around Henry Waxman) language was crafted to separate federal funding from abortion. It was introduced by Lois Capps and came to be called the Capps amendment.
Despite being a good faith effort, in fact the Capps language allowed significant mingling of federal funds in the exchanges that permitted abortions. This was unacceptable to me and in print and media I spoke out in opposition to the Capps amendment, working with others against it.
It was about at this time that nineteen pro-life Democrats in the House went public with a declaration that they would not vote for a bill that included such mingling. Along with Kristen Day of Democrats for Life and several other pro-life progressives I went public with my praise and support for these courageous nineteen Democrats. Among the nineteen was Bart Stupak, who was something of the leader among the group. Over the next few months, I did a few radio shows and media interviews defending and promoting Stupak’s efforts.
When these pro-life Democrats ultimately succeeded in forcing the House to amend its version of the health care legislation to respect Hyde by forbidding insurance coverage of any abortions (with the usual exceptions) in the exchanges. I rejoiced and celebrated this tremendous victory, again in print and in media interviews.
As the legislative ball moved to the Senate side, however, things began to look dire for pro-life concerns and I feared that I might not be able to support the legislation. Stupak’s language, (introduced by Democratic Sens. Casey and Nelson, and the Republican Hatch) failed overwhelmingly, with even many Republicans voting against it. But taking advantage of the need for sixty votes, tough negotiations by Nelson and especially Casey pushed back against their own leadership for hard won pro-life changes to the bill. In November, Casey crafted a new mechanism for segregating federal funds from abortion in the exchanges that required rigorous accounting mechanisms and even separately written “abortion checks” so that all abortion coverage would be paid not by federal dollars but privately and out of pocket. And, thanks to Nelson, states were given the opportunity to opt out of offering any abortion coverage in their respective exchanges. I still preferred Stupak’s approach for incorporating Hyde, but saw some legitimacy in the Casey-Nelson approach. What did win me over to the Senate bill, though, was what else Casey and friends achieved. They used their leverage to write into the Senate bill all the key provisions of the Pregnant Women Support Act, which puts in place a ton of money to encourage at risk women to carry their babies to term and provided generous incentives for adoption. Coupled with the Senate bill’s greater largess to the health care needs of the poorest of the poor, I concluded that Senate bill was more pro-life than the House bill. I endorsed it at that time and beginning in early December began to speak publicly on its behalf.
Throughout my engagement with this legislative effort, pro-life advocates negotiated and contested stridently with pro-choice advocates. Anyone who has ever worked in Washington’s policy-making can imagine how tough this was. I was continually struck, however, with the sensitivity that the administration evidenced for the concerns of the pro-life side in regard to this legislation. In my encounters with administration people working on this legislation, I found them to be very seriously attentive to my pro-life concerns, even when we disagreed.
This is probably much more than any of us want to hear about the pro-life history of this legislation. I offer this level of detail, frankly, in an effort to allay the questions of integrity that have been raised. As I said at the outset, the moral questions at issue here are very difficult and not to be taken lightly. I utterly respect any fellow pro-lifer who comes to a different determination.
I thank Bob for this wonderful site and wish very best wishes to you all!
Steve Schneck
"One way or another, the fate of health care reform is going to be
decided in the next few days. If House Democratic leaders find 216
votes, reform will almost immediately become the law of the land. If
they don’t, reform may well be put off for many years — possibly a
decade or more.
So this seems like a good time to revisit the reasons we need this
reform, imperfect as it is.
As it happens, Reuters
published an investigative report this week that powerfully
illustrates the vileness of our current system. The report concerns the
insurer Fortis, now part of Assurant Health, which turns out to have had
a systematic policy of revoking its clients’ policies when they got
sick. In particular, according to the Reuters report, it targeted every
single policyholder who contracted H.I.V., looking for any excuse, no
matter how flimsy, for cancellation. In the case that brought all this
to light, Assurant Health used an obviously misdated handwritten note by
a nurse, who wrote “2001” instead of “2002,” to claim that the
infection was a pre-existing condition that the client had failed to
declare, and revoked his policy.
This was illegal, and the company must have known it: the South
Carolina Supreme Court, after upholding a decision granting large
damages to the wronged policyholder, concluded that the company had been
systematically concealing its actions when withdrawing coverage, not
just in this case, but across the board.
But this is much more than a law enforcement issue. For one thing,
it’s an example those who castigate President Obama for “demonizing”
insurance companies should consider. The truth, widely documented, is
that behavior like Assurant Health’s is widespread for a simple reason:
it pays. A House committee estimated that Assurant made $150 million in
profits between 2003 and 2007 by canceling coverage of people who
thought they had insurance, a sum that dwarfs the fine the court imposed
in this particular case. It’s not demonizing insurers to describe what
they actually do.
Beyond that, this is a story that could happen only in America. In
every other advanced nation, insurance coverage is available to everyone
regardless of medical history. Our system is unique in its cruelty.
And one more thing: employment-based health insurance, which is
already regulated in a way that mostly prevents this kind of abuse, is
unraveling. Less than half of workers at small businesses were covered
last year, down from 58 percent a decade ago. This means that in the
absence of reform, an ever-growing number of Americans will be at the
mercy of the likes of Assurant Health.
So what’s the answer? Americans overwhelmingly favor guaranteeing
coverage to those with pre-existing conditions — but you can’t do that
without pursuing broad-based reform. To make insurance affordable, you
have to keep currently healthy people in the risk pool, which means
requiring that everyone or almost everyone buy coverage. You can’t do
that without financial aid to lower-income Americans so that they can
pay the premiums. So you end up with a tripartite policy: elimination of
medical discrimination, mandated coverage, and premium subsidies.
Or to put it another way, you end up with something like the health
care plan Mitt Romney introduced in Massachusetts in 2006, and the very
similar plan the House either will or won’t pass in the next few days.
Comprehensive reform is the only way forward.
Can we afford this? Yes, says the Congressional Budget Office, which
on Thursday concluded that the proposed legislation would reduce the
deficit by $138 billion in its first decade and half of 1 percent of
G.D.P., amounting to around $1.2 trillion, in its second decade.
But shouldn’t we be focused on controlling costs rather than
extending coverage? Actually, the proposed reform does more to control
health care costs than any previous legislation, paying for expanded
coverage by reducing the rate at which Medicare costs will grow,
substantially improving Medicare’s long-run financing along the way. And
this combination of broader coverage and cost control is no accident:
It has long been clear to health-policy experts that these concerns go
hand in hand. The United States is the only advanced nation without
universal health care, and it also has by far the world’s highest health
care costs.
Can you imagine a better reform? Sure. If Harry Truman had managed to
add health care to Social Security back in 1947, we’d have a better,
cheaper system than the one whose fate now hangs in the balance. But an
ideal plan isn’t on the table. And what is on the table, ready to go, is
legislation that is fiscally responsible, takes major steps toward
dealing with rising health care costs, and would make us a better,
fairer, more decent nation.
All it will take to make this happen is for a handful of on-the-fence
House members to do the right thing. Here’s hoping."
--Paul Krugman, "Why We Reform," NYT, 3/19/10
