progressive involvement

Good thing they're infallible

Otherwise, they'd seem ridiculous.

Catholic bishops are way out-of-step with their flock on many issues.  To take merely two of them, they're out-of-step, first of all, on homosexuality and gays.  The most gay-friendly people on earth are Catholic and mainline protestant lay people.  Every poll says so.

They've been out-of-step on contraception since 1968, ever since Pope Paul VI, in a major flinch, refused to endorse the findings of his own papal commission on the subject, and chose to stick with the traditional position on birth control.

The US bishops are now aghast at the idea that federal health insurance regulations require coverage for contraception.  Access to contraception is part of a total health package that enables people better to plan for their families, and also brings down maternal and infant mortality rates.  

The provision applies to Catholic institutions, if they employ non-Catholics.  If they employ only Catholics, they do not need to provide contraception coverage.  

In other words, the church can't impose its teachings on people who aren't Catholic.

Yet, the church frames the issue the other way around, i.e. that it is their religious freedom which is being compromised.  The bishops are no longer able to tell people what to do, in an area in which they have no competence or (it is said) practice, and, in their minds, this constitutes religious persecution.

This in a church where a strong majority of people, on the order of 80-90%, practice birth control.  The bishops would impose on the entire country a practice which their own people overwhelmingly reject.  Is this Bizarro World?

World AIDS Day

Donate here.

Poverty increases in world's largest Christian country

Up to 15%, the highest level since 1993.  Not that anyone should be surprised.  Unemployment and indifference will cause the level of poverty to rise every time.

According to the CIA, the countries with a lower level of poverty than the United States include, but are not limited to:  Albania, Azerbaijan, Chile, Denmark, France, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.

One headline fits all

Obama caves.  On clean air this time.

The weird effects of placebos

 

And then we wonder why we're all neurotic

 

People haven't known this?

News alert:  Psychiatrists don't do therapy; they dish pills.  This has been true for quite some time.  

Most of the research shows that a combination of talk therapy and pill therapy is the most effective.  As it happens, psychologists and social workers are often more widely trained in therapeutic technique anyway.   You go to a psychologist or social worker for talk therapy, and to determine if medication is indicated in your case.  If it is determined that this might be a helpful approach, you go to a psychiatrist.

It's not necessarily the world's worst system, but you do wonder why anyone would want to become a psychiatrist.  Who would want to spend each and every day managing 1000 med checks?

Yet another failure of imagination

House Republicans have scheduled a vote on something called the "Repeal of the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act."

That's the best they could do?  Why not:  "Repeal and Regurgitate the freedom-gutting Socialist Gulag of Private Insurers given access to 40,000,000 new customers Law Act Bill"?

The vote will be January 12.  The "law act" will never become law because the Senate won't pass it, and President Obama won't sign it.  Therefore, it's all for show.  The House Republicans can show their tea party backers a vote against health care reform.

They will also demonstrate to the rest of the country that they believe children with pre-existing conditions should be on their own, that it's OK to cancel someone's insurance when they get sick, that adult off-springs can no longer stay on their parents' insurance until age 26, that seniors no longer get free cancer screenings--oh, and health insurance companies may charge what the market will bear and don't have to worry about paying all those pesky claims.

UPDATE:  Opponents of health care reform won't have any success legislatively, but judicially is another matter.  I'd almost be willing to bet that the Supreme Court will declare the mandate to get insurance as unconstitutional.

People don't realize:  Power is more closely divided than people think.  Each party controls one-and-a-half of the three branches of government--the Senate and presidency for the Democrats, the House and the Supreme Court for the Republicans.  Has this court ever failed to rule, usually 5-4, in a way that supports the ideological position of the GOP?

 

Under tyrannical new law, health insurance companies must now pay for health care

Americans lost more of their freedoms today as seniors' receive more assistance to pay for pharmaceutical drugs, and a number of preventative services for seniors, such as mammogram screenings and annual physicals, go into effect.

Also going into effect is a provision that makes insurance companies pay out 80-85% of their premiums in actual medical care.  The oppressed CEO's now must take their multi-millionaire dollar salaries out of the remaining 15-20%.

Earlier, the repressive new law had allowed young people to stay on their parents' insurance until age 26, and children with pre-existing conditions could not be denied care even if their freedom-loving insurance company wanted to deny it. 

End-of-life counseling to be added to Medicare benefits

Under the new policy, doctors may counsel patients on end-of-life decisions.  This would include information about living wills, "do not resuscitate" orders, and other advance directives.

This is an eminently good idea, though you can bet that we'll be hearing more about supposed "death panels."  

“Advance care planning improves end-of-life care and patient and family satisfaction and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives,” the administration said in the preamble to the Medicare regulation...