I have been thinking about this. As a result of today’s decision that the individual mandate is a tax, the HHS contraceptive/abortofacient mandate is more likely to survive SCOTUS review.
Why, you say?
Because now that SCOTUS has turned the law on its head and declared it a tax, it undercuts objections to the HHS mandate.
Now the Obama administration can make the argument that you don’t have to buy a healthcare policy, if you object on religious or any other grounds, fine. Just pay the tax. Not a penalty, a tax. As we all know, there are no recognized religious objections to paying your taxes. If this merely a tax now, there is no reason to object to it.
I fear that the twisted logic employed by Justice Roberts to make this a tax even in defiance of the expressed comments of its authors, he has doomed any hope of us protecting our religious liberty as well.
Remember, this is an individual liberty issue at its core even though we speak mostly of institutions. I think Roberts just doomed us again.
June 28, 2012 at 9:05 pm
Hold on, non-profits don't have to pay taxes. This may help the HHS mandate fall for most Catholic non-profits (are Universities/Hospitals non-profit according to IRS?).
Gerry
(I plan to write about this on my blog tonight.)
June 28, 2012 at 9:07 pm
There is nothing in the Constitution saying non-profits dont have to pay any taxes. Congress can do that if it wants.
June 28, 2012 at 9:08 pm
Right, and congress can get rid of it too. As much as I don't like this idea. I think Roberts was right….just like medicaid, just like social security, it is constitutional. and thus its up for the Congress to correctly craft laws that reflect the truth, or they get voted out.
June 28, 2012 at 9:16 pm
"The Catholic Church is screwed." First words from my mouth when Obamacare survived SCOTUS. Objective law doesn't matter anymore, only subjective and maleable public opinion. It will be drilled into the public psyche that, since this "mandate" is Constitutional (sic), therefore the other "mandate" is as well.
Refuse to comply, suffer the taxequences.
June 29, 2012 at 1:25 am
I agree. This is Obama's version of the jizya. Catholics and others who refuse to convert to radical secular liberalism will earn their right to stay here by paying the tax.
Has anyone else noticed how frequently radical secularists and radical Islamists seem to refer to the same play book? Not talking about loony conspiracy stuff — I'm just sayin.
June 28, 2012 at 9:51 pm
(Thank you for replying, Mr. Archbold.)
"There is nothing in the Constitution saying non-profits dont have to pay any taxes. Congress can do that if it wants."
Yes. However, see the text of the Opinion of the Court.
CJ. Roberts used a bunch of IRS USC to say that the individual mandate was a tax. Also used the fact that IRS collects taxes. For the HHS mandate, he could cite the fact that since non-profits don't get taxed, the HHS mandate is non-lawful since it taxes non-profits (the Court first looks at the current law, then the constitutionality next).
Of course congress (maybe even ex. order) could change IRS regs, but that would be an after thought.
(The non-taxation of non-profits, esp. religious ones is also grandfathered. The question is if that makes a difference.)
June 28, 2012 at 10:48 pm
Unless Romney kills it if and when he manages to get elected, and I don’t think that is looking too promising on his performance to date you will have a US version of the UKs National Health Service. Now this is what will happen:
An over reaching bureaucracy will establish itself to meddle in all areas of health care.
A government department will be given oversight responsibility for budget and spending employ ing an army of political hacks taking back handers from every drug company wishing to make a quick buck.
Politicians will say how wonderful it is ad-nauseam, eventually you’ll believe it, the US health care system will be the best in the world and if you dare criticise it in public you will be denounced as a heretic.
Unfortunately it will also be the most expensive.
Want a boob job, emotionally traumatised; the USHCS will pay for it.
Want liposuction, emotionally traumatised; the USHCS will pay for it.
Want a nose job, a tuck here, a lift there, emotionally traumatised; the USHCS will pay for it.
Want an abortion, emotionally traumatised; the USHCS will pay for it.
Want a stretching a couple of inches (yes no kidding, legs broken and gap fills with new bone), emotionally traumatised; the USHCS will pay for it.
All this and a bunch more can be gotten on the UK NHS. How much you ask? Well we have a population of approx 65 million in the UK and this is how it breaks down:
Scale
The NHS employs more than 1.7m people. Of those, just under half are clinically qualified or 1 NHS person employed for every 38 UK people. Only the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, the Wal-Mart supermarket chain and the Indian Railways directly employ more people. That is of course until the USHCS becomes a reality. The US population is 312 million; the USHCS will employ 8.2 million people on your taxes (pro rata) it may take a few years but it will get there.
Funding
When the NHS was launched in 1948 it had a budget of £437 million, about $678 million, how’s that deficit. For 2011/12 the NHS budget is around (yes we don’t even know for certain) £106 billion or £1,630 ($2529) per UK person per year and remember that is per person, not per tax payer. Pro Rata the US will pay $789,048,000,000 a year just to be as bad as the NHS Woo-Hoo, welcome to socialism.
I could go-on but I think you have enough on your plate.
This is how empires die.
June 28, 2012 at 11:52 pm
So this is a "tax." A tax on what? Something you choose not to do. Never in the history of SCOTUS has it acknowledged a TAX ON SOMETHING YOU CHOOSE NOT TO DO.
No, my caps are not stuck. I AM SHOUTING.
Foremost in my mind is the tragic picture of that poor mother in China, with her bloodied, dead baby next to her, ripped from her body because she did not pay the "tax" for not having an abortion.
Now, they can tax us for anything. What we choose to do. What we choose not to do. And when we cannot or will not pay the tax, the horrors that await us are limitless.
June 29, 2012 at 12:27 am
Take hope people, even the senior counsel of the HHS mandate lawsuit finds hope in this ruling.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/court-ruling-allows-religious-freedom-lawsuits-to-proceed-with-hope/
I mean, if she has reason to hope, why shouldn't we?
Plus, check out newadvent.org, there are several heartening opinions on the subtleties of this. Taking this loss may serve us in the long run. I know that some here disbelieve that, but you never know what will happen.
Regardless, I think I am not mistaken in thinking in and of itself, without the abortion/contraception regulations, this law is at worst morally neutral. It may turn to be bad policy, but I don't believe the size of a government is of great concern to moral teaching.
But maybe I'm wrong, maybe Judge Roberts should have voted differently, maybe the mandate will stand, but for now I think we should share in the hope of Mrs. Smith and not needlessly grow angry or despondent. The battle is not over, even if the worst happens.
Remember, our hope is that all things happen in accord with the will of God, and all we can do is pray and give loving and faithful witness to that hope.
June 29, 2012 at 12:39 am
Blackrep is right. Pat is right. Hope means we keep fighting and don't just go hide in our respective corners, taking solace in our private amusements and looking at the speculative bright side. When things get this bad, the most hopeful response is to keep trying to get the warning out. My hope is that the silver lining crowd is ready to mobilize to use whatever means we still have left to fight this monstrous thing.
June 29, 2012 at 1:16 am
Whatever happens from this point forward, we must recognize that many people will say, as friends of mine do, "I'm glad that Obamacare is there to provide affordable health care to…name the person. Some of these people are experiencing financial hardships that blind them to the fact that they will have far fewer dollars in their pockets, and far fewer options in healthcare. They believe the lie. We must work to make them hear the truth!
June 29, 2012 at 2:25 am
Word is the wh has resumed some dialogue with the bishops on the HHS mandate, if they get a concession will they back obamacare without other conscience safeguards?
June 29, 2012 at 3:55 am
"Hope means we keep fighting and don't just go hide in our respective corners, taking solace in our private amusements and looking at the speculative bright side. When things get this bad, the most hopeful response is to keep trying to get the warning out. My hope is that the silver lining crowd is ready to mobilize to use whatever means we still have left to fight this monstrous thing."
That's one way to look at it, but the problem is that at least some of us who lack hope are not relegated to this because we see any possible "bright side." It's actually the opposite: that there is no bright side and no silver lining. At this point, I would just rather have the ship go down as fast as possible to get it over with and avoid a longer, more tortuous collapse. A quick destruction is infinitely more tolerable than death by a thousand cuts. The bottom line is that we ARE going to collapse.
The question is how long, drawn out and excruciating the collapse will be.
June 29, 2012 at 7:57 am
I have a feeling that Mitt won't even mention the HHS Mandate a single time from the Convention on.
June 29, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I am seeing far too many knee-jerk reactions. There is a good article titled, Court ruling allows religious freedom lawsuits to proceed with hope: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/court-ruling-allows-religious-freedom-lawsuits-to-proceed-with-hope
From the article: Ginsberg wrote, “A mandate to purchase a particular product would be unconstitutional if, for example, the edict impermissibly abridged the freedom of speech, interfered with the free exercise of religion, or infringed on a liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause.”
…The direct mention of religious freedom as a reason to find such a mandate unconstitutional is a hopeful sign in the battle over the contraception requirement, Smith said….
KM
June 29, 2012 at 4:50 pm
All souls are Catholic first and Americans second. And I say "all souls" , that part of the human person, the citizen who reasons, and will endure immortally forever and forever, in heaven or in hell. Government has no authority over any soul and this is what this battle is about; the souls of the unborn may not be removed from their human bodies by abortion, the souls of the human being may not be scandalized by pornography, blasphemy and atheism and now our very souls steeped in abortion, pornography, blasphemy and atheism. Government has no authority over the human being's soul. Man's conscience is part of the human being's soul, as is man's free will and FREEDOM. Government cannot tax or control man's soul in any way. Only through informed consent of the human beings' immortal soul can government serve man or even exist. Government has no soul because it is an artificial person, a legal artificial person, without immortality, constituted by the sovereign personhood endowed by "their Creator". In essence, government cannot impose it's soul on the souls of its constitutents because government has no soul.
June 29, 2012 at 4:54 pm
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June 29, 2012 at 7:32 pm
Can we be hopeful that as tax-exempt institutions, the churches will NOT have to comply with this mess?
June 30, 2012 at 4:59 pm
All these government "programs" and policies are indeed creating a fundamental transformation in this country. We Catholics and our brethren in other communities of faith are not looking down the road. We fail to recognize the threats that exist in the minds of the secularists who have decided to "rule" rather than govern. Must we wait for the arrest of our clergy and the locks on our church doors before we awaken to those threats. If we quietly accept government by fiat, edict or executive order then liberty goes on life support and we(and our children) are changed forever and the promise of hope is a pile of ashes.
June 30, 2012 at 8:17 pm
Non-profits DO pay taxes, especially in regards to employees. They pay social security taxes, they pay Medicare taxes, they pay unemployment taxes, they pay workers' compensation taxes.
And the contraceptive mandate has just become the non-contraceptive coverage tax. There is now no penalty for not providing contraception, there is no compulsion to provide contraception, there is merely a generally applicable tax.
And since there is no Catholic teaching prohibition on paying taxes per se, then it is more likely that the courts will find that imposition of the non-contraceptive coverage tax is permissible and not a violation of religious liberty.