How low can Thomas Peters go?

Extremely low. Bottom-of-the-barrel low. As noted by Michael Sean Winters, Peters was caught red-handed peddling lies about the Affordable Care Act causing Catholic hospitals to close down in Pennsylvania. He picked this up from that paragon of truth, the American Spectator. But this is not just some harmless curmudgeonly blogger shaking his fist in the air. This little whippersnapper is trying to stir up outrage to raise money for an outfit called Catholic Vote – which has no right to use that name – so that it can get Republicans elected (that would be Republicans like Sharron Angle, who gets 9.9 out of 10 from Catholic Vote, and who runs racist ads against immigrants while expressing outrage that she should be forced to cover luxuries like maternity and autism costs in healthcare). Catholic Vote is waging a special jihad against the pro-life Democrats who supported the Affordable Care Act. They do this because they detest consistent pro-lifers who don’t toe the ideological line.

Peters was slapped down pretty hard for his latest stunt. The president and CEO of Mercy Health Partners, the group involved with the closings said that the decision was “mischaracterized by certain politicized media outlets and severely distorted by some special-interest groups”. Peters went on the attack…against Sister Carol Keehan of course, as Peters and his ilk detest poor Sister Carol for actually caring about the poor. Oh, the local newspaper in Scranton also went after Peters. In an editorial entitled “Health reform can’t cure bald-faced lies”, it refers to Catholic Vote as “political hit-and-run artists who pervert the facts in quest of short-term gain”. I’m sure Sister Carol leaned on the editorial board too, using her Don Corleone-like negotiation skills.

Let’s remember what this is really about. Peters and Catholic Vote hammered at the healthcare reform and demonized its supporters, like Sister Carol, because they claimed it was a  mandate for taxpayer-funded abortion. Except that there is no abortion funding.  The Ohio Elections Commission just declared that the so-called pro-life “Susan B. Anthony List” might have broken the law by making this claim in ads. Given the extremely low bar for political slime in ads, this is a pretty big deal. According to Catholics United, the National Right to Life Committee’s Doug Johnson had declared back in January that “his group could not say that the legislation funded abortion”. And indeed, if you look at their website today, you will find heaps on information on so-called rationing in the Affordable Care Act and how they oppose cuts to Medicare Advantage (a federal subsidy program that – unlike the Affordable Care Act – actually did allow for abortion funding). I won’t get into it now, but the rationing argument has no basis, and ignores the very real rationing with lack of insurance and widespread underinsurance (about 80 million people in total). But they have very little to say on abortion funding in healthcare these days. It’s well hidden.

Even Peters seems to know the game is up. Like a petulant child, he claims that “Obamacare is not now paying for abortions like it would have is because of our efforts”. Whatever you  say, Master Peters, whatever you say. Here’s the rub: Peters and his Catholic Vote crowd oppose the Affordable Care Act because it offends their ideology. They don’t like the idea of the individual mandate, of solidarity in subsidizing the healthcare of others. They are very much aligned with the Calvinist notion of one being responsible for one’s own healthcare, or the liberal notion that this compromise the supreme virtue of individual freedom and self-determination. If you want to see this rubbish more explicitly, just stop by Peters’ other home – the American Principles Project. Of course, a Catholic group (or as Peters would say, a “catholyc group”) can’t say this. So they need to marshal other arguments. The exploitation of the unborn for political gain is a tried and tested strategy, but this ran up against some clear limits in the Affordable Care Act. Hence Peters needs to grasp at ever more feeble straws. Obamacare closes hospitals. Obamacare raises costs. Obamacare leads to worse care for people. All with a hint of desperation.

There certainly isn’t a hint of actually studying up on the economics of healthcare. There isn’t a hint of applying intellect and practical reason to this issue. There is a lot of foot stamping and tantrum throwing. This is the guy who petulantly declares that there is no government obligation to provide the “right” to healthcare (good thing the Affordable Care Act relies on private insurance, and somebody tell the NRLC who seems to regard a government-run single-care system called Medicare as the greatest achievement in the history of civilization). This is the guy who petulantly declares that his view that the Affordable Care Act makes things worse is “a prudential conclusion that…I am entitled to”. Indeed. Nobody misses the sense of “entitlement” coming from young Master Peters. But calling this outfit “Catholic” is a scandal.