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Comment by snehk | Hacker News Reader

Not sure how it is in the US but in Germany there are many faith-based entities providing regular health services. Malteser would be one of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malteser_Hilfsdienst_e.V.

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These church-owned entities in Germany are almost 100% government fincanced [1], while abusing a loophole in the German constitution to discriminate their employees for religious reasons. For example, the Catholic ones are notorious for firing employees that get divorced. This system is an absolute disgrace, but the churches are still too powerful in German society and have so far been able to block any attempt at fixing the constitution.

[1] https://www.malteser-international.org/en/about-us/how-we-wo...

It’s not uncommon in the U.S. either. Providence Health is a Catholic nonprofit that owns 51 hospitals, including several of the big ones in Seattle. It was a big deal when they bought Swedish and people were afraid they would stop offering abortions even in cases of medical necessity.

Parent edited their comment. It used to just say “In Germany.” as if to dismiss the comment for not being about the United States.

I was not intending to say that Catholic healthcare providers in the U.S. are notorious for firing employees who get divorced. In fact, Providence got caught in controversy for firing an employee who refused to provide contraceptives on personal religious grounds.

My point was that they don't get funding to pray and instead provide real medical services.

> the Catholic ones are notorious for firing employees that get divorced

Wow.

catholics> divorce is bad mmkay?

also catholics> refuse to openly discuss the 2 biggest causes of divorce, sex and money

(I once got a dating profile banned... twice... on EHarmony... simply for expressing a sexual preference!)

What makes you think that Catholics don’t discuss money?

And yes, leading with sexual preferences on mainstream dating platforms is creep behavior.

I am ENTIRELY fine with faith providing moral support or justification to tangible human benefits. One of my favorite (and possibly world-famous) hospitals is St. Francis Heart Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Francis_Hospital_(Flower_H...

I am not fine with government funds being used to support "prayer" as a means to a more healthy end. In fact I think this arguably violates the 1st Amendment to the Constitution.

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