progressive involvement

Esteemed Catholic, who knows what he's talking about, begs to differ

Garry Wills, one of the nation's most prominent historians, and also one of the nation's most prominent Roman Catholics, slices and dices the bishops in a blog post at the New York Review of Books.  Here's what he had to say about the phony "religious freedom" argument:

The bishops’ opposition to contraception is not an argument for a “conscience exemption.” It is a way of imposing Catholic requirements on non-Catholics. This is religious dictatorship, not religious freedom.

Contraception is not even a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture or the Creed is it forbidden. Catholic authorities themselves say it is a matter of “natural law,” over which natural reason is the arbiter—and natural reason, even for Catholics, has long rejected the idea that contraception is evil.

That's merely a teaser.  Read the whole thing.

 

In other words, they could approve it if they wanted to, but they clearly don't want to

David Gibson parses the bishops' argument on payment for contraception, and finds that their current logic does not match their past logic.  

They've found ways to "cooperate with evil" before, such as when Catholics vote for a pro-choice candidate because of considerations other than their position on abortion.  In such a case, "remote material cooperation" may be permissable, or so said then-Cardinal Ratzinger in 2004.

There is also a second distinction--"mediate" versus "immediate."  "Immediate"--paying directly for contraception--would be worse than "mediate", which is somehow participating, in some distanced way, from enabling contraception.  (The HHS compromise is nothing if not "mediate.")

"Mediate" participation in (whatever they may call) "evil" also happens all the time with investment portfolios.  It also happens when ordinary people pay taxes for government policies they don't like.

See Gibson for more detail.  Meanwhile, this sums it up nicely:

"This is Moral Theology 101," said one moral theologian who, like several others interviewed, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of angering the hierarchy on such a sensitive topic.

"I do not think the bishops and their advisers have thought all the way through the entire bundle of values at stake," said another. "The bishops do not seem to be able to take yes for an answer."

 

Right where he wants 'em

Somehow, the president wound up in a culture war fight with one of the most discredited groups in American history--Catholic bishops--over a practice that is routine for 99% of Americans and 98% of Roman Catholics.  

The bishops, and their fellow travelers, want to make the issue about "religious liberty" when it clearly is not.  No one is questioning the bishops' right to believe and teach whatever they want about contraception.  They may even, if they wish, excommunicate Catholics who don't do as they say.  

All they were being asked to do is respect the rights of employees who aren't Catholics.  Catholic hospitals employ Methodist doctors and Jewish nurses.  These doctors and nurses may have a religious belief that contraception is a good thing, and the world would be a better place if more people used these family planning tools.  Shouldn't their religious beliefs be respected?  

In fact, if the bishops wished to retrieve a smidgen of their lost public esteem, they might, in Christian charity, freely offer to cover contraception for their non-Catholic employees, even though they disagree with it.

The administration offered a compromise:  The employees could still get contraceptives, but the bishops' wouldn't have anything to do with it.  But no, this is not enough.  In a statement last Friday, the bishops expressed continued opposition and concluded:  "The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services."  

In other words, the "only solution" is for insurance coverage to eliminate coverage for contraception!  The "only solution" is for everyone else to capitulate to our point of view!  Yes, that would solve it.  (The bishops' message was communicated to congregations this past weekend.  These people still have a tax exemption?) 

The president's political opponents are scrambling on board to bash him, but they should think twice.  Most of them are older men, and this is an election year.  Do they really want the months of September and October to feature a bunch of old guys blathering to the country about the evils of contraception?

I don't often compliment the White House political shop, but...nice work! 

Why you can't trust ideologues

The Susan B. Komen Foundation has been in a week-long frenzy of attempted damage control, desperately trying to, as they say, save its "brand," and all because of an ideologue who got herself into a powerful position within the organization and decided to put the organization at risk in order to grind an ideological ax.

The Komen official most associated with the ending of grants for Planned Parenthood is Karen Handel, a former GOP politician in Georgia and the current vice president for public policy for Komen, last seen chortling about how Komen could end grants to PP and blame it on Congress.

Whether Komen can save itself is still up in the air, but right now it looks doubtful.  For one thing, they appear not to have entirely gotten the message.  They now say they will fulfill the grants they have made with Planned Parenthood, but it is not clear whether or not the Komen Foundation will give grants to Planned Parenthood in the future.

The Komen foundation had already made a number of questionable moves, such as partnering with just about anybody who would slap a pink ribbon on themselves, and that's not even to mention removing the words "breast" and "cancer" from the name of the organization because, one supposes, some focus group found them "negative".

Maybe the "race for the cure" could be replaced with a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood.

World AIDS Day

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5-4 against

The Supreme Court will decide today on whether or not to take up appeals to the administration's health care law.  This most predictable Court will take up the appeal, and they will rule against it on a vote of 5-4, probably some time next June.

Every time a major decision comes before the Court, the media act as if the conclusion were really in doubt, as if the Court didn't pretty much automatically side with corporations and money.  Can anyone name a case where they didn't?

MORNING UPDATE:  Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were guests of honor last evening at a shindig sponsored by the Federalist Society.  Sponsors of the dinner include the law firm that will be arguing the health care case before the Court.  Other sponsors include the firm of Jones Day which represents one of the groups that challenged the law, the National Federation of Independent Business.  Yet another sponsor was pharmaceutical giant, Pfizer

Colorado Rep. Daniel Kagan speaks to Health Care for All Colorado

 See part two here.   

Medicare's demise has been (wrongly) predicted many times before

Contrary to the reports of Medicare trustees, Medicare did not go broke, as predicted, in any of the years 2003-2008.

Plus, this chart only applies to full funding of Medicare "part C".  The other parts of Medicare are adequately funded for the foreseeable future.

McKinsey vs. McKinsey

The huge consulting firm, McKinsey and Company, issued a report last week saying that up to 30% of employers may drop health insurance in response to health care reform.  (Previous post here.)  

This McKinsey report directly contradicted studies by the Rand Corporation and the Congressional Budget Office--not to mention the actual experience of the entire state of Massachusetts.

Another study that came to the opposite conclusion was done by the Urban Institute.  It turns out the Urban Institute study was written by Bowen Garrett, who is now a chief analyst of health reform at McKinsey.

Who is McKinsey and Company, and what do they actually do?

The Wall Street Journal reports on a McKinsey and Company study saying that Obamacare might result in as much as 30% of American businesses dropping health care coverage.  The reason is because "the law will give Americans new insurance options outside the workplace, and carriers will no longer be allowed to deny people coverage because they have been sick."

This is being portrayed as a critique of Obamacare.  The White House called it "one discordant study".  Why exactly?  Some would argue that we should move away from employer-based health care.  

In any case, there is plenty of evidence that employers will continue to provide it.  In Massachusetts, the Journal notes that employer participation increased after the similar Romneycare plan went into effect.  At least three studies have projected that the same would happen with Obamacare.  This McKinsey is a distinct "outlier."

Also, the McKinsey numbers, looked at from the other angle, say that 70% of employers will still offer coverage.  Among the other 30%, many undoubtedly fell into the "probably" category, which means some will also retain it.  The glass is at least 70% full, even according to McKinsey.

Steve Benen is right to ask about the particulars of the study.  Who did they interview?  What are the raw data?  What motivated the study?  Who paid for it?  What questions were asked?  What method was used?  In fact, these questions are so basic, it's surprising that McKinsey didn't release this information to begin with.  

Kate Pickert notes that a Wilson Quarterly article had said that “…(the McKinsey) survey educated respondents about [employer sponsored insurance] implications for their companies and employees before they were asked about post-2014 strategies.”  She wonders:  Exactly what form did this "education" take?

Pickert called McKinsey up to ask them about their methods.  They interviewed 1300 employers, in both large and small business, they said, in various regions around the country.  Beyond that, they didn't add much.  When asked if a third party had funded the study, they said no, according to Pickert.

McKinsey and Company is one of the world's largest consulting firms, not that that's saying much.  What do consultant really do?  A few years back, Michael Kinsley asked a McKinsey recruiter exactly that question:

He said, "We provide expertise." I said, "But you're thinking of hiring me, and I have no expertise." He said, "We'll train you." Nothing about that interview dissuaded me from the view that consultants spend at least as much energy and brainpower selling themselves to clients as they spend doing whatever the client pays them to do.

A commenter at Washington Monthly said that, yes, McKinsey a large company and "no one ever got fired for hiring it, but it's not 'highly regarded' by anyone other than clueless CEOs."

Their typical practice is to parachute in a bunch of young, insanely overworked associates, who listen to the people on the ground for a few hours at most and then produce a report full of hard-to-verify claims and blue-sky ideas. Anyone who has actually worked for a company that took a McKinsey report seriously knows it would be a disaster.

If this is the same McKinsey and Company that made recommendations to Habitat for Humanity back in the 1990's, that observation is spot on.

The report they produced for Habitat read like it had been dished out to a couple of still-wet-behind-the-ears summer interns.  Their "recommendations" had all the creativity and imagination of notes written on cocktail napkins late into happy hour.

The task was supposedly to bring Habitat International "closer" to the affiliate chapters.  These brainiacs proposed to bring Habitat "closer" to affiliates by reducing the number of regional offices from 15 to 9, while increasing staff at those 9 "super centers."  We lost a lot of good people in the easily-predicted chaos, and roiled the whole organization while failing abysmally to achieve the stated objective.

Yet, despite its contradictions, and frankly, its sophomoric analysis and lame recommendations, the "McKinsey Study" was received as if delivered from on high.  The great McKinsey had produced it.