Post Obamacare Hospital takeovers, including Catholic ones, are popping like popcorn

The "prolife" abortion contract signing Cardinal, Sean O'Malley, was johnny on the spot selling Caritas employees and patients into the bondage of sin


Not to worry though, they're reportedly "keeping the Catholic identity":

"If [Cerberus’] money is green, and the deal that was negotiated between management and Cerberus is as was represented, I think it’s a very square, fair deal," he said.

Right up Cardinal Sean O'Malley's Alley. You can be sure it will all be as Catholic as the Pope. No doubt they're rounding up the National Catholic Bioethics Center for another dog and pony show as we speak.

By the way, for those of you for whom Greek Mythology is a faint memory, Cerberus is a multi-headed dog that guards the gates of Hades to be sure nobody escapes. He's the centurion of hell. His mother was a half-woman/half serpent.

I am not making this up.

As a last ditch effort to wake up the wizards in the Chancery, Christ has ceased being subtle.

I was going to post on this story early this morning but I couldn't do it without swimming in the river of the multitude of sins.

Martha Coakley, of "Catholics shouldn't be working in emergency rooms" fame is going to bless the deal.

"We have several criteria we look at, including whether this will be in the best interest of the public," Coakley said. "I anticipate it will take several months. It's fairly complicated. There are a lot of individuals involved, even within the Caritas chain, and a lot of money involved.

Cerebus who previously acquired Chrysler and GMAC is positioning themselves, they say, to start buying up hospitals but Boston will remain the hub, no matter how many other hospitals they purchase.

Caritas is inching closer to buying Landmark as we speak.

In fact, post Obamacare, several other hospital takeovers, including Catholic Hospitals, have started popping like popcorn.

It certainly does look like a trend now. In fact, today a Wall Street Journal blogger suggested that this trend may be an immediate, although perhaps unintended result of the health care (insurance) reform legislation that just passed in the US Congress:

Cerberus is planning to turn the Caritas Christi Health Care chain into a for-profit corporation in what it is likely the first sizable M&A bet on the newly minted Obama health-care overhaul law. [seemingly ignoring the Detroit Medical Center/ Vanguard Health/ Blackstone deal - ed]

Hospitals that serve the poor and previously uninsured are expected to benefit from Obama’s plan, which is expected to extend insurance to 32 million previously uninsured Americans. That means such hospitals are likely to have more patients who can actually pay their bills. It is hard not to see how that new cash-flow stream wouldn’t have private equity licking its chops.

That’s funny, I did not think that a major reason to pass the bill was to benefit private equity. Also, somehow the image of private equity honchos licking their chops over cash flow does not seem to fit with the breathless pronouncements above about improving quality, serving poor patients, etc

The gobbling up of hospitals wouldn't come before the big "ta da" of government controlled socialized medicine, would it?

The Catholic Bishops handing the country over to communism makes me all warm and fuzzy.

And, just when you think the Bishops couldn't possibly get any stupider or craven, they prove you wrong.

"We are apprehensive as we look to the future, even as we applaud much of the increased care that will be available," Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago told Catholic News Service March 23, shortly after U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

"So we will watch basically and try to continue to enter into conversations as a moral voice -- never as a political voice; we've been very careful to insist upon the moral principles that everybody should be cared for and no one should be deliberately killed," he added.

Cardinal George acknowledged in the interview that "the unity of the church has been wounded" in various political actions and conversations surrounding the health reform debate. The USCCB opposed the Senate bill that passed the House March 21, while some Catholic groups and members of Congress supported it.

"We are certainly concerned about division in the church, because bishops have to be the people who are concerned about its unity, about keeping people together around Christ," he said.

"The bishops know that they don't speak for every one of the 61 million Catholics in the country, but what we do is we speak for the Catholic faith itself," he said. "And those who share the faith will gather around."

With the numerous threats to life, liberty and the sovereignty of our nation, Cardinal George is clapping and hoping nobody gets deliberately killed.

Shoot for the stars dude.

You know what I think????

I think the Light is Going to be On for Me next Wednesday.

See you there.