www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Comments on this forum concerning the presidential election

The CLASS Act, which was supposed to provide consumers government-financed long-term care insurance has been abandoned, blowing an $86 billion dollar hole in Obamacare's cost estimates. The CLASS Act was never financially viable. Its costs would have outstripped revenue as soon as it was in full operation. But since it took in money five years before it started to pay out benefits, budget gimmickry let Mr. Obama capture that revenue and use it to finance Obamacare. In abandoning the measure, the President's own health secretary called the scheme "unsustainable."


The CLASS ACT is the Long Term Care portion of Obamacare

Need to verify the costs spent on this program - they diverted the funds so it is hard to estimate what was lost on bureaucrats.

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Sorry, I messed up my earlier post above.

I will not get involved in a debate, as the election is behind us and we all went and cast our ballots in private. I respect my fellow Americans' right to their opinion, whether I agree with it or not.

One opinion of mine that I will express here is in regards to Planned Parenthood. I suspect that many of those who oppose its funding, have never had to use its services. I am someone who did. When I was younger and had no health insurance, including during my college years, I went to Planned Parenthood for routine feminine care as well as for treatment whenever it was needed. So did my friends - in fact, my college roommate told me about it. I used the PP offices in New Brunswick, Morristown and Hackensack, NJ, depending on where I lived and worked. I am immensely appreciative to those offices for being available and offering the sliding pricing scale, late evening and Saturday hours, and their considerate, respectful staff. I will never forget how during my first exam, the nurse said to me: "I don't want to hurt you, honey!" I never heard an unknown doctor talk to me so sweetly - I remembered for the rest of my life.

The women that I sat in the waiting room with, were not dressed like prostitutes and did not look like hungover sorority girls. They were women from the neighborhood - of different ages, some had children with them. They were there for affordable feminine care and contraception.

Sorry to get graphic, but in fact, some infection has been bothering me for the past week and I need to see a gyno. So tomorrow, first thing in the morning I'll get on the phone with Planned Parenthood to schedule an appointment at one of their convenient locations during the late afterwork hours that they so kindly offer. I have insurance now and I have a lot more options than Planned Parenthood - but I choose to support them. Thank you and a deep Orthodox bow to you, Planned Parenthood, from me on behalf of all uninsured women for whom you are not one of the options, but the only option.

I've never heard anyone put down as "trashy" any woman using PP. I have a question, though. Unfortunately, its the abortions which we object to; keep in mind that all the services which you listed above are taxpayer funded; it's just immoral that legislators have allowed PP to include for-profit abortions in the same facilities.

With no deductibles and totally paid contraception, why are women still going there?

Paul, what do you mean by no deductibles and totally paid contraception? PP does not provide anything for free, they have a sliding scale, as far as I know anyway.

Mariaya,

For those who have hospitalizaton, the HHS mandate exempts reproductive services from deductibles. Also, all "children" up to 26 are covered by their parents hospitalization. The college that my grandson goes to MANDATES that he have hospitalization; if this is widespread, how many women really need PP's services?

As I understand it, except for abortion, PP is only the agent for government paid services. Most anti-PP people would rather see those services provided by traditional clinics. Taxpayers are subsidizing abortions by covering much of PP's overhead through other services.

I'm sure there are some good people who worked at Planned Parenthood; they would have no problem working for other facilities.

Well, abortion has been legal in our country for 30 years. Those who want to turn this country from a secular one back to a religious one, should take the issue up with the government and see how far they get rather than harass service providers and their patients. Today, when I went to PP, I could not get in without ringing the doorbell and introducing myself first - they instituted that 2 years ago for safety due to all the harassment. But once I was in - as always, I got exceptional service!

I agree with Mariya in the vein PP does provide exceptional service to their patients. PP provides many services (I am not speaking of the abortion issue) for health care. Women who are working low paying jobs or, have no health insurance, PP provides a vast array of womens health care services (i.e. Breast Cancer Screenings, check ups and testing, women's cancers and menopause issues, etc.) If you have no health insurance or, have a limited insurance plan and little funds, its hard to afford (at least in the NY/NJ Metro area) a visit and all this testing at a private office, the fees are astronomical. It is my understanding PP does utilize a sliding scale for payment. We all know the importance of prevention and early screening/dectection of problems and I believe these are necessary services provided for women's healthcare according to what they can afford.

JEK - absolutely. They told me today at PP that the average income of a PP patient is about $13,000.00 (I went to the Morristown, NJ office). Even combined with one or more other incomes in the household, I cannot imagine surviving on this kind of money, let alone paying for private healthcare.

There was, by the way, a gray-haired senior lady in their waiting room today. Clearly not for an abortion. :-)

To be accurate, PP isn't providing the services out of the goodness of their heart....they are paid by taxpayers. You don't know if the services could be provided better by someone else because they bully everyone into contracting them.

They chose to lock the doors to demonize people who have a constitutional right to free speech, except when AG Janet Reno and the Clinton administration took it away.

PP isn't the angelic philanthropist organization that the propaganda has put out. They are hardnosed and excellent at lobbying and public relations.

Let me ask a question....Why shouldn't these services be put out for bid? Do you think that no one could do it better and cheaper? Why do their backers refuse to allow competition?

I have no problem with that... I agree to help my struggling compatriots, just as my compatriots helped me when I was unemployed for quite some time after the financial collapse. While on unemployment, I went back to school - and unemployment was extended for me while I was a student. Now I'm back on the payroll and back to contributing to the same funds I took from. Fair and square in my eyes.

I will admit that I am not aware of any attempts by PP to monopolize their sphere of services... All I know about them is my personal experience with them which left me very impressed.

I would like to ask the following question of JEK and MariyaNJ.

Planned Parenthood most definitely is the largest provider / promoter of abortion in the USA. All the funding they get clearly helps them achieve the abortion mill numbers they achieve. Which if you reflect on your Orthodox Catholic faith - you may decide that abortion is wrong (even the abortifactant abortions)

My sister went to a Planned Parenthood during college when she accidently got pregnant. in 1976 they were pressuring her to get an abortion - gave her no options - it was abortion or nothing - luckily she bolted out of the facility and decided to have the baby.

But my question(s) are these.

What part of the abortion procedure do you like?
What is HOLY about the abortion procedure?
Would you be willing to watch a video about the abortion procedure to decide if it a good thing?
Do you know the number of abortions provided/recommended by Planned Parenthood vs. routine medical exams and assistance with gynecological issues? I do have those if you care to hear it. It would shock you.

I ask this in all humility - trying to understand the how and why of rectifying your faith with the abortion procedure and Planned Parenthood.

Are we not our brothers keepers? No matter how small?

By the way ... HOW MANY knew that the CLASS ACT (long term care portion of Obamacare ) existed? and that it had been cancelled well before 2014 when it was supposed to be in operation and completely dropped out of Obamacare due to spending tons of money trying to implement just the bureaucratic portion of the law?

Raise your hands.

haydukovich, I don't think your question to the other two is fair.

I would be highly surprised if any Catholic, Orthodox, or traditional Protestant on this forum had any truck with abortion in any of its horrible aspects.

But the fact is, I can hardly think of an institution or company that isn't compromised in some way by the abortion question. You are talking specifically about Planned Parenthood (PP) - which, as we might suspect, is an active perpetrator - but it is fairly clear from your comments that you would extend your approach to PP to other groups as well: from the Democrat Party to healthcare service providers, for example.

The problem is, you make yourself vulnerable to acting against your own conscience when you fail to apply the principles you espouse rigorously to everything you do everytime you go out your door.

For example: I lived in a small 'village' prior to the neighbourhood I live in now. This village had one pharmacy. It was the pharmacy used by the local GP's clinic, as well as everyone in the area. On the side of this pharmacy, they advertised the 'Morning After Pill' as one of the products they had available. This really, really bothered me. Indeed, I agonised over it every time I passed by the shop, and I avoided ever using the shop myself as a result. Somewhat unpoetically, I called it the Pharmacy of Death.

But clearly, not everyone that used its services would have approved of abortion - especially if they stopped and considered what it actually entailed. Yet even if I stood on the street and handed out leaflets explaining the correspondence between the services that the shop offered and the wanton destruction of life that abortion is, it still wouldn't have stopped many, if any, from going in. Where, after all, could they have gone? To the city centre where they could have found a large pharmacy that didn't advertise the morning after pill? Of course not. Because it, too, like pretty much EVERY PHARMACY IN THE WESTERN WORLD, would have been complicit in some way. There is unlikely to be a 'pure' pharmacy.

So the question is, then: what is the solution?

I am trying to argue that it isn't to demonise any one person or institution or thing, but to go about our lives in pursuit of all that is good, beautiful, and true, and so to convert culture. To be the leaven, as our Lord put it.

In the process, we convert the heart of the pharmacy owner, who begins to see the error of his/her ways; we change the mind of the well-intentioned PP service provider who 'hasn't really thought of abortion that way before'; we change the hearts of future presidents and other leaders who might otherwise have legislated against Western Civilisation and life itself.

That's not rolling over and playing dead. That's not being complicit, or even silent in the face of evil. That's just not turning everyone off with insults and full-frontal attacks, when walking softly in the knowledge that all truth is on our side will do a better job.

Gentlemen: in Morristown at least, the majority of PP's patients are Roman Catholic - low-income Latin American immigrant women. I suppose it is not THE ABORTION ISSUE that is on their mind when they schedule an appointment but their everyday female health needs which they cannot afford to have met anywhere else.