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The wheels come off

07 Jun 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday's reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses marvels at God's creative activity in the world, asking, "Did anything so great ever happen before? Was it ever heard of?" Americans who grew up in an era when General Motors was the undisputed king of the global automobile industry marveled at the sight of the iconic corporation filing for bankruptcy protection Monday. GM's bankruptcy capped a frenetic few months in which the Obama administration scrambled to salvage GM as well as Chrysler LLC, the country's first- and third-largest car makers, at a cost to taxpayers of more than $62 billion. The bankruptcy filing represents a dramatic downfall for GM, founded in 1908 by William C. Durant, who brought several car companies under one roof and developed a strategy of "a car for every purse and purpose." GM officials, however, portrayed the bankruptcy as an unprecedented opportunity to reverse decades of decline. GM said it would close 17 factories and parts centers and cut 20,000 more jobs by the end of 2011 in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and other states. The government-orchestrated shrinkage will cost taxpayers $30 billion, on top of $20 billion in U.S. funds already put into the company. In exchange the U.S. will own 60 percent of the new GM. The government has needed to take ownership stakes in private enterprises during the economic crisis, President Obama said Monday, "for the simple and compelling reason that their survival and the success of our overall economy depend on it." GM, which hasn't made a profit since 2004, declared in its filing that it had $172 billion in debt and $82 billion in assets. Chief Executive Frederick "Fritz" Henderson appealed to consumers to "give us another chance." Source: Articles by Neil King Jr. and Sharon Terlep for the Wall Street Journal, Peter Whoriskey, Tomoeh Murakami Tse, and Kendra Marr for the Washington Post, and Dan Strumpf and Kimberly S. Johnson for Associated Press

general motors bailout bankruptcy gmc obama administration william c durant frederick henderson
Government mediation on price of medications

28 Jun 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

"Your abundance at the present time should supply their needs," the apostle Paul exhorts the church at Corinth in the second reading this Sunday. Applying a similar principle, the Obama administration on Monday announced that the pharmaceutical industry had pledged about $80 billion over the next decade to help close a gap in Medicare drug coverage and reduce costs for senior citizens. The move on Medicare will help correct an anomaly in the prescription drug benefit available through the government health care program for the elderly and disabled. The drug companies will pay part of the cost of brand-name drugs for lower- and middle-income older people in the "doughnut hole," a feature of the current program that requires beneficiaries to pay the entire cost of prescriptions after initial coverage is exhausted but before catastrophic coverage begins. On a parallel track, the White House and U.S. Senate Democrats have been holding private, separate talks with representatives of doctors, hospitals, insurers, and medical device manufacturers in hopes of finding specific savings those groups would be willing to produce. None of those negotiations have yet to yield an agreement. Source: An article by Jennifer Loven for the Associated Press

medicare pharmaceutical companies obama administration medications prescription drug benefit doughnut hole
Hospitals hospitable to savings

12 Jul 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday's reading from the Letter to the Ephesians speaks of redemption. The Obama administration, hoping to redeem a push for comprehensive healthcare legislation that some say has been floundering, announced this week that major hospital organizations have agreed to save the nation $155 billion in healthcare expenses over the next 10 years. Vice President Joe Biden announced the agreement Wednesday but offered few details on how the savings would be achieved, saying only that they would come about as a result of delivery system reforms and trimming the annual inflationary adjustment to hospital reimbursement payments from government programs. The administration is pursuing such agreements with key sectors in healthcare to build support and funding for sweeping reforms that are estimated to cost upward of 1 trillion dollars. "Folks, reform is coming," Biden said as he announced the agreement with the hospital groups. "It is on track. . . . We have tried for decades and decades to fix the broken system and we have never in my entire career in public life been this close." "Our hospitals are cracking under the weight of providing quality healthcare for Americans who lack insurance," he added. "The status quo is simply unacceptable. Rising costs are crushing us." The three groups participating in the deal were the Catholic Health Association of the United States, the American Hospital Association, and the Hospital Corporation of America. Source: An article by Reuters

health care reform obama administration hospitals joe biden american hospital association hospital corporation of america
Dateline, Havana: Relations improving?

02 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

". . . . Put away the old self of your former way of life" is the counsel in this Sunday's reading from the Letter to the Ephesians. In a signal that the U.S. is putting aside old ways of relating to Cuba, its diplomatic mission in Havana has turned off a news ticker critical of the Cuban government that has angered Cuban leaders since it was turned on in January 2006 at a moment of high political tension. The ticker streamed news, political statements, and messages blaming Cuba's problems on the country's communist system and socialist economy. Throughout most of July the five-foot-high news streamer, which ran across 25 windows on the fifth floor of the U.S. Interests Section, has been turned off. Western diplomats in Havana said there were no plans for its crimson letters to be switched on again anytime soon. The turn-off comes amid moves by the Obama administration to ease nearly half a century of enmity between the United States and Cuba. "Like other Bush initiatives, [the ticker] caused lots of fanfare in Miami and very little impact in Cuba, and President Obama is right to bury it," said Phil Peters, a Cuba expert at the Washington-based Lexington Institute. The news ticker in Havana often sought to cast blame for everyday problems experienced by Cubans on the communist authorities. "Some go around in Mercedes, some in Ladas (a Russian car), but the system forces almost everyone to hitch rides," read one message, playing on a common complaint that there are few buses and that Cubans need government permission to buy a new car. In his angry reaction to the news streamer, Fidel Castro had accused the U.S. mission of becoming "the headquarters of the counterrevolution," which he said was in gross violation of diplomatic protocol. He ordered the parking lot in front of the building to be dug up and 100-foot-high flags installed to block the ticker from view. The Obama administration this year has also lifted restrictions on Cuban-Americans traveling to the Caribbean island and sending remittances to family members. But Obama has made clear he will keep in place the 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba until the Cuban leadership moves to improve political and human rights. "We're taking it step by step, seeing if, as we change some of the old approaches that we've been taking, we are seeing some movement on the Cuban government side," Obama told reporters last Friday in Washington when asked about Cuba. Source: An article by Marc Frank for Reuters

cuba cuban americans fidel castro obama administration havana ticker us interests section phil peters lexington institute
Guantanamo detention no day at the beach

09 Aug 2009 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Elijah despairs and is ready to die in the reading from 1 Kings this Sunday. Some of the detainees held indefinitely without trial at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay have felt the same way. The Obama administration has pledged to close the facility by year's end and move some detainees to U.S. prisons. New information suggests where they might be housed. The administration is considering a facility in the United States that would contain courtrooms to hold federal criminal trials and military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects. Planners have focused on the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and a state maximum-security prison in Standish, Michigan that is scheduled to be closed, sources said. An administration official stressed that the idea has not moved beyond the discussion stage. "This is one of the ideas that's been floated and come under discussion," the official said. The administration has signaled that some Guantanamo Bay detainees will be tried in federal court and some by military commissions. It also said there may be a third category of prisoners who are deemed too dangerous to release but who cannot be tried because of a lack of evidence or the need to protect intelligence material. Officials said any system of indefinite detention will include legal safeguards such as periodic reviews by judges and congressional oversight. But human rights and civil liberties groups like Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union oppose detention without trial. Source: An article by Peter Finn and Scott Wilson for the Washington Post

american civil liberties union obama administration human rights watch guantanamo bay prison detainees fort leavenworth standish michigan detention
Nation needs a healthy response to the HIV epidemic

18 Jul 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

One of the mysterious passersby enjoying Abraham’s hospitality in this Sunday’s first reading says, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will then have a son.” Transmission of HIV to newborns is but one example of many threats to public health posed by the virus. On Tuesday the Obama administration unveiled the first-ever coordinated national strategy to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic by reducing HIV infections and HIV-related health disparities, increasing care quality, and expanding access to services. Each year about 56,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV, a rate that has remained unchanged for about a decade. Nationwide about 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV. The new strategy aims to reduce new HIV infections by 25 percent over the next five years. The report tries to revive the sense of urgency that gripped the nation in the first years after discovery of the virus that causes AIDS. “Public attention to the HIV epidemic has waned,” the report said. “Because HIV is treatable, many people now think that it is no longer a public health emergency.” “We’ve been keeping pace when we should be gaining ground,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a White House event to announce the new plan. Among the other main points of the strategy: focusing HIV prevention efforts on the highest-risk populations, which include gay and bisexual men as well as African Americans; increasing access to care, with the goal of getting 85 percent of patients into treatment within three months of being diagnosed with HIV infection; and increasing public education about HIV, even in communities with low infection rates. “Countless Americans have devoted their lives to fighting the HIV epidemic, and thanks to their tireless work we’ve made real inroads,” President Obama stated in a letter accompanying the report. “Health care and other services providers have taught us how to provide quality services in diverse settings and develop medical homes for people with HIV. This moment represents an opportunity for the nation. Now is the time to build on and refocus our existing efforts to deliver better results for the American people.” Source: Articles by the Associated Press, the New York Times, Healthday.com, and Astrid Fiano for DOTmed.com

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Ruling on embryonic cell research highlights differences of opinion

29 Aug 2010 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The reading this Sunday from the Book of Sirach advises us on how to conduct ourselves in order to find favor with God. On the question of how to conduct stem cell research, a federal judge and the Obama administration differ sharply. Guidelines issued by the administration last year to expand the scope of stem cell research did not find favor with U.S. federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth, who struck them down Monday. Lamberth blocked President Obama’s 2009 executive order that expanded embryonic stem cell research, ruling all embryonic stem cell research by nature requires the destruction of embryos and therefore violates a Congressional ban on federal funding of such research. Administraiton officials are considering an appeal. Monday’s ruling involved a lawsuit against the National Health Institute filed by researchers opposed to the use of embryonic stem cells; a group that seeks adoptive parents for human embryos created through in-vitro fertilization; the non-profit Christian Medical Association; and other groups. From the other side, Dr. Irving L. Weissman, director of the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, said the ruling was “devastating to the hopes of researchers and patients who have been waiting so long for the promise of stem cell therapies.” Weissman said he hoped that the judge’s ruling would be overturned. In the gospel this Sunday, Jesus encourages us to embrace and serve those who suffer; we are instructed to invite “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” to our banquets. Some scientists believe embryonic stem cells could help treat many otherwise incurable diseases and disabilities because of their potential to develop into many different cell types in the body. But the field of embryonic stem cells has been highly controversial because the research process involves destroying the embryo, typically four or five days old, after removing stem cells. For those who believe that life begins at conception, as the Catholic Church teaches, such a procedure amounts to the taking of human life. As with many of the day’s most difficult moral and ethical questions, embryonic stem cell research brings into conflict two important values—protecting innocent life on the one hand, while on the other, doing all we can to alleviate the suffering of those around us. Source: Articles by Shelby Lin Erdman for CNN and Gardiner Harris for the New York Times

embryonic stem cells stem cell research obama administration irving l weissman royce c lamberth
Al-Awlaki assassinated by what authority?

16 Oct 2011 - Preaching the News for Sunday

The “Who’s Listening” section of this week’s issue of PrepareTheWord frames a key question found in the Sunday readings: “How well do we each recognize God's authority in our lives?” Reporters and civil libertarians have been asking by whose or what authority an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, was recently assassinated in Yemen by a U.S. drone strike. A secret Obama administration legal memorandum sheds light on the question. Written last year, the memo followed months of extensive interagency deliberations, anonymous sources who have seen it said. The secret document provided justification for killing al-Awlaki despite an executive order banning assassinations, federal law against murder, protections in the Bill of Rights, and various strictures of the international laws of war. The legal analysis concluded that al-Awlaki could be legally killed if it were not feasible to capture him, because intelligence agencies said he was taking part in the war between the United States and Al Qaeda and posed a significant threat to Americans, as well as because Yemeni authorities were unable or unwilling to stop him. The Obama administration has refused to acknowledge or discuss its role in the specific drone strike that killed al-Awlaki last month, which technically remains a covert operation. The government has also resisted growing calls that it provide a detailed public explanation of why officials deemed it lawful to kill an American citizen, setting a precedent that scholars, rights activists, and others say has raised concerns about the rule of law and civil liberties. Sources: Articles by Peter Finn for the Washington Post,Charlie Savagefor the New York Times, and Harvey Silvergate for Forbes.com

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President’s budget will lead to taxing debate

19 Feb 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

“Remember not the events of the past . . . see, I am doing something new!” says the prophet speaking of the Lord in this Sunday’s first reading. In an election year President Barack Obama put aside past efforts at bipartisanship and unveiled a new budget Monday that provides a sharp contrast between his priorities and those of Republicans. The president laid out his plans for new programs to boost growth and higher taxes on the rich, presenting a vision for the United States in a budget that drew heavy fire from Republicans for failing to curb huge deficits. Few elements of the budget are expected to win approval this year in a divided U.S. Congress as elections approach in November. The $3.8-trillion budget proposal is a “reflection of shared responsibilities,” the president said at a campaign-style event in Annandale, Virginia, referring to his call for a minimum 30-percent tax on millionaires. Obama would like to use revenue from the so-called “Buffet Rule,” named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, to replace the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is aimed at ensuring that the wealthy pay at least some tax but is now catching many middle-class taxpayers. Republicans cited Obama’s pledge in 2009 to halve the U.S. budget deficit by 2013, a target he has failed to meet. The White House argues that the depth of the recession Obama faced when he took office demanded emergency spending and that it was more important to protect growth than impose austerity measures to trim the deficit. “At a time when our economy is growing and creating jobs at a faster clip, we’ve got to do everything in our power to keep this recovery on track,” Obama said. The Standard & Poor’s ratings agency last year cut the U.S.’s top-notch AAA credit rating, pointing to concerns that Washington lacked the political will to tackle the rising debt levels. Sources: Articles by Kim Dixon, Rachelle Younglai, Alister Bull, and Laura MacInnisfor Reuters and Richard Rubin and Steven Sloan for Bloomberg

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Judging the health of the nation

01 Jul 2012 - Preaching the News for Sunday

In this Sunday’s gospel, a synagogue official named Jairus and a woman afflicted with hemorrhages were able to call on Jesus to help heal serious illnesses. Citizens today rely heavily on healthcare coverage when seriously ill, and the nation learned Thursday that the changes to that coverage enacted in the monumental healthcare bill of 2010 largely withstood a constitutional challenge that went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In a dramatic victory for President Barack Obama, the court upheld the healthcare law, preserving Obama’s landmark legislative achievement. The majority opinion was written by Chief Justice John Roberts, who held that the law was a valid exercise of the U.S. Congress’s power to tax. Roberts reframed the debate over healthcare as a debate over increasing taxes. Congress, he said, is “increasing taxes” on those who choose to go uninsured.But in a major victory for the states who challenged the law, the court said that the Obama administration cannot coerce states to go along with a major expansion of Medicaid insurance for low-income people. The financial pressure which the federal government puts on the states in the bill to expand Medicaid coverage or lose all Medicaid financing “is a gun to the head,” Roberts wrote.The Medicaid provision was projected to add nearly 16 million more people to the insurance program for low-income Americans but the court’s decision left states free to opt out of the expansion if they choose. Source: An article by Tom Curry for msnbc.com

taxes congress medicaid supreme court health care reform obama administration john roberts

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