Why Catholics should oppose President Obama's Health Care Reform

I am a young man with a family that wants to place my children in a Catholic School, but I don't have the money to support the tuition. My parents and grandparents could all afford Catholic schools, their wives did not work, and they don't have a PhD like me. Why can't I afford to send my children?

Well, I am taxed to pay social security and medicare, entitlement programs that subsidize the elderly, which programs will not exist in the same form and give provide the same benefits for me when I retire. My property taxes go to pay for public schools, schools in which I have no say over how sexual morality is taught to my children. The Democratic plan wants to force insurance companies to subsidize preexisting conditions and promises them that they will force more Americans into the plan to help defray the cost. So, a young person already subsidizing the medical and retirement cost of the elderly now has to subsidize the preexisting conditions of those who are seriously ill? Am I acting selfishly for wanting to keep more of my money to place my children in a Catholic school? Or for wishing those more fortunate than I who have money and can donate to Catholic schools not to be excessively taxed?

Then there is this problem of deficits. The Democratic plan wants to subsidize all those who cannot afford insurance currently, and to pay for this they will cut Medicare payments to doctors. Really? My mother cannot find a doctor to help her with her arthritis in Alaska because she cannot get covered by her employer since she is eligible for Medicare, and in Alaska, she cannot find a doctor who will take new Medicare patients because they are so underpaid by Medicare. So the trick is not to include this in the bill to keep down cost, and add it in later after the health care bill passes, because who wants to see doctor's refusing more patients.

What are the consequences of these trillion dollar deficits? If the State of California is any indication, they borrowed money every year and ignored their deficits until they became so great that they had to cut services and pass the biggest percentage tax hike in American history. I lost my per child credit in California, and because I had five children, my taxes increased by $1500 a year, $200 for each child, plus the increase in income and sales tax and vehicle license fees that applied to everyone else. That's $1500 less that I could use to send my children to Catholic schools. And California also made draconian cuts to their public schools to help pay for their irresponsible deficits. Many economists are already predicting that the federal government will have to raise taxes across the board in a few years because of the huge deficits they are running now.

Admittedly, the deficits are the fault of both parties attempts to transform America into a socialistic society. The Republicans passed the expansion of Medicare prescription drug bill. Both parties are responsible for the trillion dollar financial institution bailout, which began with the "good" intention that every American should be able to own their own homes regardless of whether or not they could afford it, and later exploded into a booming housing market in which mortgage companies, financial institutions and saavy investors made huge short term profits and if lucky got out before the peak, if unlucky defaulted or received government bailouts. Then there is the stimulus, government money to extend unemployment benefits and health care to those who lost their jobs, free government money to encourage people to buy homes or cars (Cash for Clunkers) and create "green" jobs. All these government interventions need to be paid for at some time, and we have chosen to pay for them in the future. And our entitlement system is already on a collision course for insolvency. Like California, the federal government will have to raise taxes across the board and cut services.

We simply cannot to continue to ask American families to subsidize the healthcare of more Americans.
Already, our money is or will be taken away from us completely by the government to subsidize the poor, the elderly, the unemployed, the public schools, those who can't afford to own a home themselves, financial institutions, automobile companies, and those who take the governments free money to buy homes or cars to stimulate the economy and create green jobs. And young American families will be left to pay for all these underfunded socialistic goals. Is this a selfish attitude? Am I selfish for wanting to take care of my own children before paying the government to supply the needs of others? My own and many other young families I know simply do not have the resources to send our children to Catholic schools, nor to tithe our income and give to the Church or any other charity. Further, it is sad for me to acknowledge that after spending more than ten years teaching in Catholic education, I could no longer afford to continue because Catholic schools simply do not have the money to pay their employees a living wage. As America is transformed more and more into a socialistic society, Catholic education is going to be put out of business, if not the whole Catholic Church and its social services, just like it has in Europe. In the not to distant past, it was the Church that provided both education and health care to millions of Americans, and not just Catholics. Today, it looks like the Catholic Church in America may be going out of business.