The religious Left's chickens come home to roost

The United Methodist Church's General Board of Pension and Health Benefits can't seem to understand why Obamacare is going to mow down the way the denomination provides health insurance for its clergy.

Glenview, IL—Key features of the Affordable Care Act begin in a few months, but unless Congress acts soon, clergy and lay employees of churches may soon lose their health care coverage. In the confusion and political drama accompanying the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA or “Obamacare”), Congress overlooked the clergy and lay employees of churches.

Don't you love how that's phrased: "In the confusion and political drama accompanying" Obamacare's passage. And of course the UMC added mightily to both the confusion and the drama.

“It’s the official position of the United Methodist Church that health care is a human right,” announced United Methodist lobbyist Jim Winkler at a rally outside the court this week. He was surrounded by placards declaring: “People of Faith for Health Care.” Over his shoulder stood the Rev. Bob Edgar, former Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania, former chief of the National Council of Churches, ordained United Methodist minister, and now head of the liberal advocacy group Common Cause. “It is a governmental responsibility to provide citizens with health care,” Winkler further intoned. Obamacare is “desperately needed by ordinary Americans,” he insisted. “We believe the Supreme Court and the decision it makes is a reflection of the moral and ethical character of our people.”

For the Religious Left over the last 40 years, it has become standard fare to mystically enshroud every proposed enlargement of the state with divine imperative. 

The hypocrisy of the UMC's leadership on this issue is breathtaking. The UMC supported and lobbied for passage of Obamacare hammer and tongs, so much that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi specifically thanked the UMC for its work in getting the legislation through Congress.

But now, as Obama's own minister once said, the chickens are coming home to roost. Unless amended, Obamacare will make health insurance unaffordable for Conferences to fund. Wow, who could have seen that coming!?!? (Conferences are to the UMC what dioceses are to the Catholic Church, a geographic area under the administration of a bishop. Conferences of the UMC are the basic organizational level of the denomination. Conferences pay the health-insurance premiums of active ministers, some also pay all or part for family members or retired ministers.)

We helped make the bed, now we are crying that we will have to lie in it. We have become just another special-interest group pleading for a carve-out.

We are getting exactly what we asked for but want an escape hatch put in just for us. Well, what about the rest of the country? Tough toenails for them, I guess.

It's no good for our bishops or agency directors to say they didn't know this would happen. After all, even Pelosi famously said they'd have to pass the law to find out what's in it. No, the UMC just collectively swooned over the promise of universal health care for everyone, apparently free or nearly so for "the poor," and that was enough. No one looked at the details, of course, because why bother when you are on the side of the angels?

Well, the devil is in the details, as they say, and that being so, Obamacare is a satanic horde of screaming demons. Just watch as more details of the law unfold. You an't seen nuthin' yet.

For the record, I oppose efforts by the UMC to be granted any kind of special treatment or "fix" to the law as it presently stands. The UMC helped blend the poison. We need to drink it and pretend to like it.