{"id":11329,"date":"2012-03-03T07:48:51","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T13:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=11329"},"modified":"2016-09-30T17:24:25","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T21:24:25","slug":"what-if-the-bishops-arent-bluffing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2012\/03\/what-if-the-bishops-arent-bluffing\/","title":{"rendered":"What if the bishops aren’t bluffing?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the question at the heart of this piece<\/a><\/strong> by Ed Morrissey:<\/p>\n

Earlier this week<\/a>, Francis Cardinal George of the archdiocese of Chicago sent a message to parishioners<\/a> in Barack Obama\u2019s home town that imposition of the HHS mandate to fund and facilitate contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization would force the Catholic Church to close its hospitals, clinics, schools, and all other organizations that would otherwise have to comply.\u00a0 \u201cTwo Lents from now,\u201d Cardinal George warned, \u201cunless something changes, the page [listing Catholic organizations] will be blank.\u201d\u00a0 At the time, some commenters wrote that this has been Obama\u2019s plan all along \u2014 to force religious charities out of business to make people more dependent on government.\u00a0 Others, including myself, figure that Obama just thinks the bishops are bluffing, and wants to engage in a high-stakes bout of brinksmanship to force them to kneel to secular authority over doctrine.<\/p>\n

But how high are<\/em> those stakes?\u00a0 In my column for The Fiscal Times<\/a> today, I did a little research just on Catholic hospitals and their significance in American health care.\u00a0 As it turns out, this bet involved nearly $100 billion in annual costs and about one-seventh of all hospital beds in the US \u2014 and that\u2019s not all:<\/p>\n

The Catholic Church has perhaps the most extensive private health-care delivery system in the nation.\u00a0It operates 12.6 percent of hospitals in the U.S.,\u00a0according to the Catholic Health Association of the U.S.<\/a>,\u00a0accounting for 15.6 percent of all admissions and 14.5 percent of all hospital expenses, a total for Catholic hospitals in 2010 of $98.6 billion. Whom do these hospitals serve?\u00a0Catholic hospitals handle more than their share of Medicare (16.6 percent) and Medicaid (13.65) discharges, meaning that more than one in six seniors and disabled patients get attention from these hospitals, and more than one in every eight low-income patients as well.\u00a0Almost a third (32 percent) of these hospitals\u00a0are located in rural areas, where patients usually have few other options for care.<\/em><\/p>\n

Compared to their competition, Catholic hospitals take a leading role in providing less-profitable services to patients.\u00a0They lead the sector in breast cancer screenings, nutrition programs, trauma, geriatric services, and social work.\u00a0In most of these areas, other non-profits come close, but hospitals run by state and local governments fall significantly off the pace.\u00a0Where patients have trouble paying for care, Catholic hospitals cover more of the costs. For instance, Catholic Health Services\u00a0in Florida provides free care to families below 200 percent of federal poverty line, accepting Medicaid reimbursements as payment in full, and caps costs at 20 percent of household income for families that fall between 200 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty line.<\/em><\/p>\n

Imagine the impact if these hospitals shut down, discounting the other 400-plus health centers and 1,500 specialized homes that the Catholic Church operates as part of its mission that would also disappear.\u00a0Thanks to the economic models of these hospitals, no one will rush to buy them.\u00a0One in six patients in the current system would have to vie for service in the remaining system, which would have to absorb almost $100 billion in costs each year to treat them.\u00a0Over 120,000 beds would disappear from an already-stressed system.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read it all. <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That\u2019s the question at the heart of this piece by Ed Morrissey: Earlier this week, Francis Cardinal George of the archdiocese of Chicago sent a message to parishioners in Barack Obama\u2019s home town that imposition of the HHS mandate to fund and facilitate contraception, abortifacients, and sterilization would force the Catholic Church to close its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,38],"tags":[11165,928,11190],"class_list":["post-11329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-politics","tag-bishops","tag-hhs","tag-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat if the bishops aren't bluffing?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"That's the question at the heart of this piece by Ed Morrissey: Earlier this week, Francis Cardinal George of the archdiocese of Chicago sent a 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