October’s Obamacare Scandal & ‘The President’s Nun’

Listen my children and you shall hear a tale so shocking and enraging, we would expect yelling from windows.

Like the legendary spider, Shelob, a nun, yes a Roman Catholic nun, who is also an extraordinarily coercive D.C. lobbyist, patrols a steely web of propaganda and intimidation for Obamacare.  Her spinning and her grip have reportedly effectuated the now legendary turning of Rep. Bart Stupak, required to pass that unnatural act.  As revealed this month, it also includes a cover-up of Obamacare’s deleterious financial effect in the sell-offs of pro-life Catholic hospitals.

She is described as a “social justice” power player, in keeping with the neo-Marxism of the Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime, in fact being honored as such by Obama, to be one of the twenty-one witnesses present at his signing of said “Big F’ing Deal.”

Reportedly, in the last few days, she has also been called in to play a central role in attempts to purge from the news media, Obamacare being “absolutely” cited as a reason for the sell-offs of three Catholic hospitals of the Scranton, PA area.  That is a zone in which pro-Obamacare U.S. Representatives, Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney face strong anti-Obamacare GOP challengers, Lou Barletta and Tom Marino, respectively.  Pennsylvania is also the state where Obamacare Rep. Joe Sestak now trails pro-repeal candidate Pat Toomey.

But this shows the financial side of the health care scandal, nationwide. Pennsylvania is only a harbinger.  Clearly, damage control was deemed necessary on the scene and from this report, Sister Carol Keehan was once again called in, to wield her mysterious powers.

We can only excerpt the article here, please read the entire story for yourself.  Are you going to stand silently by and take this anymore?

Sr Carol Keehan a nun with a penchant for mixing church with state

Read “The President’s Nun: Obamacare Scranton Scandal Explodes,” in the American Spectator:

by Jeffrey Lord

Almost immediately — it didn’t take two months much less six — the White House is confronted with a rapidly accelerating set of unintended consequences spreading across the country. As listed by the Wall Street Journal, those unintended consequences included 2011 premium increases shooting up as high as 9%; “multibillion-dollar corporate writedowns by Verizon, AT&T, Caterpillar and others”; the disruption of insurance markets, a show-down with McDonald’s, the imposition of price controls on premiums, insurers withdrawing from Medicare Advantage.

“I heard one of the Republican leaders say this was going to be Armageddon. Well, two months from now, six months from now, you can check it out. We’ll look around and we’ll see.”

 

Can you say “October Surprise”?

A mushrooming political battle over ObamaCare involving the White House, two incumbent Pennsylvania congressmen, three Catholic hospitals and a nun has just exploded in, of all places, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Charges from the Scranton medical community of intimidation by the Obama White House and its allies are filling the air.

All of this just as Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Scranton today to raise money for one of the participants.

There are two issues at the core of the controversy.

1. ObamaCare and the sale of three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals.

2. The re-election prospects of the two House members, Democrats Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney, both of whom cast key votes to pass ObamaCare.

Here’s the list of players — major and minor — so far.
• The President of the United States.
• The Vice President of the United States.
• Three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals suddenly for sale.
• The CEO of the three Scranton-area Catholic hospitals for sale.
• ObamaCare, otherwise known as “health care reform” or the “Affordable Care Act.”
• A Catholic nun.
• Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak.
• A pen.
• Victoria Reggie Kennedy, widow of the late Senator Ted Kennedy.
• Time magazine.
• The Scranton Times
• The two Scranton-area House members Kanjorski and Carney, both losing in the polls.
• U.S. Senator Bob Casey, Jr., a native and resident of Scranton.
• Congressman Joe Sestak, the Democrats’ nominee for the Pennsylvania U.S. Senate seat.

Where to start? That would be….

March 22, 2010: President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act (aka “ObamaCare”) into law in front of live television cameras and a packed East Room of the White House. According to news accounts, the President uses 21 different pens to sign his name, the highly prized souvenirs of the historic moment given to Vice President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Victoria Reggie Kennedy, the wife of the late Senator Ted Kennedy along with a very select handful of others.

The President, after being introduced by an exuberant Vice President Biden (who whispers “this is a big f…g deal” into the President’s ear and is picked up by a live microphone) says:

Healthcare providers assessed the ramifications of losing more Medicare/Medicade payments (i.e. present levels repay a doctor for only $.40 for every dollar of costs) and they realized that they can no longer continue to provide such services.  So they did what they were required to do, they submitted their predicted losses.

The corporate writedowns — done in compliance with federal law — resulted in angry phone calls from then-Obama White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and colleague Valerie Jarrett to corporate CEO’s and the heads of the Washington corporate offices of those involved. Congressman Henry Waxman threatened a congressional investigation into those companies whose obedience to the law put them at odds with the actual results of ObamaCare. Notification by insurers that rates were being forced up by ObamaCare resulted in a threatening letter from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to insurers warning that such candor would not be tolerated — at risk of not being allowed to participate in a future government-run health care exchange for insurers.

Then, suddenly, on October 6 — five days ago — the fuse to what is becoming a huge political explosion was lit.

In the unlikely location of Scranton, Pennsylvania.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THESE two hotly contested re-election races for a pair of Pennsylvania Democratic congressmen, the controversy first erupted over the suddenly announced sale of three Catholic Hospitals spread out between Paul Kanjorski’s and Chris Carney’s two adjoining congressional districts.

The CEO made his official announcement:

The initial announcement was made by Mercy Health Partners CEO Kevin Cook.

WNEP TV (Channel 16) reporter Jon Meyer filed a story about the sale at 4:40 pm. that afternoon. WNEP TV anchor Paula Giangiacomo led the story on the air by saying that “one big” reason for the sale “is the health care reform bill signed into law this year.” Mercy Health Partners CEO Cook was interviewed on camera along with Sister Marie Parker. When Meyer asked Cook if ObamaCare had anything at all to do with the sale, the CEO replied:

“Health care reform is absolutely playing a role. Was it the precipitating factor in this decision? No, but was it a factor in our planning over the next five years? Absolutely.”

Notice the use — twice — of the word “absolutely” by Cook, leaving no doubt with viewers that while ObamaCare wasn’t the “precipitating factor” it was “absolutely playing a role…Absolutely” in the decision by Mercy Health Care Partners to put the three hospitals up for sale.

Then, on Friday October 8, only 48 hours after the story hit the local news on WNEP, the executive changed his story. Sort of. A second statement came out over Mr. Cook’s name as CEO. Headlined on the PR Newswire-US Newswire services, the statement was headed: “Mercy Reiterates Rationale for Sale Exploration.”

The plot thickened:

Mysteriously, the very same day, came this statement, also released on the PR Newswire services. Out of the blue, suddenly released by Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), the headline was sharp and pointed. The headline?

Alarmist News Reports About Catholic Hospitals Are False; CHA Supports Difficult Decision by Mercy Health Partners.

In a fury that fairly leaps from the page, Sister Carol says immediately that “false motives” have been assigned to the proposed sale of the three Mercy hospitals. Says the good Sister: “Reports that health reform is the primary motive behind the sale are completely false, misleading and politically motivated. Deliberations to sell the facilities began well before the Affordable Care Act became law and did not hinge on enactment of the legislation.”

Evidently responding to pressure Mr. Cook  spoke again:

By Sunday, there was a third Cook statement, this one posted on the website of Mercy Health Partners. Cook statement # 3 was no longer as benign as statement # 2. The third Cook statement used some of the original language from statement #2, but its lead paragraph was now saying something else entirely. I have marked the change in bold print:

Mercy Health Partners recently announced our intention to explore the sale of our facilities in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The rationale for our initiative has been mischaracterized by certain politicized media outlets and severely distorted by some special interest groups.

In other words, Cook statement #3 has picked up a flavor of the statement from Sister Carol. Now saying without saying it that Cook’s original WNEP answer about the role ObamaCare “absolutely…absolutely” played in the decision to sell the hospitals has been “severely distorted.”

Who is Sister Carol Keehan and why is she so involved in passing and supporting Obamacare?  Why does she have so much power over the CEO of a group of Catholic hospitals that her statement caused the issuance of two restatements of planned hospital policy?  One doctor who has spent a lifetime in service in Scranton spoke to WNEP TV on camera at the risk of his career and gave a statement linking the decrease in medicare payments to ever deepening and untenable  hospital debt.

Alarmingly, the doctor, with a lifetime of practice in hand, says that “hospitals close in clusters where there is decreased income in terms of relatively low Medicare reimbursement…because they are the most vulnerable.” He adds that what is happening in Scranton, Nanticoke, and Tunkhannock with the Mercy hospitals “is just the beginning. It will happen everywhere because reimbursements will be reduced” under ObamaCare. Particularly, he adds, in areas where you have a high elderly population.

The official stand of the Catholic Church is pro-life, abortions are not performed at Catholic Hospitals.

The explosion, all recent with its implications of White House pressure and lost Catholic hospitals, is about to bring in media ads from CatholicVote.org. Says Communications Director Joshua Mercer: “Paul Kanjorski and Chris Carney are Catholic and they both voted for ObamaCare.” Citing the sale of the three Mercy hospitals, Mercer says that the pro-ObamaCare votes of the two “has had a real impact on the community.” Mercer added a sentiment voiced as well by the Scranton doctor: “There are a lot of Kevin Cooks across the country…the CEO’s of small Catholic hospitals are all facing the same realities of more [ObamaCare] mandates and regulations.”

Read the full report in its sequence and detail at AS.

We have come to understand that our governmental institutions are now functioning less like a structured balance-of-power system based upon Constitutional law and more like Mob rule in Chicago or Stalinist rule in the Kremlin, but it is still startling to see the stark reality of the out-workings of this domination. Obamacare is the template, your life is the ultimate object of regulation.

The perpetration of this scandalous intrusion on personal financial and health choices, the penetration into campaigns, and plots of political protectionism, the unholy mixture of church and state and social justice doctrine passing for government policy.  All of these belong in a third world slum, not the “shining city on the hill,” the most respected and envied  nation on earth, where everyone wanted to live because of the opportunity and liberty exercised by it’s citizens.

From the Lord of the Rings

America, We the People… this is just the beginning.  We can clearly seem their modus operandi, they have been victorious because they have been operating in the dark, but the lights are shining now.  What will you do to prevent further incursions by those who would manipulate every aspect of life, including water, food, housing, transportation, medical care, and ultimately be the arbiters of death?  Time is short ~ obfuscation is rampant, don’t be distracted.  Vote and then hold the winners’ feet to the fire until they do America’s bidding rather than that of string pullers, puppet masters, and web weavers.

by Janet Smiles & Arlen Williams