The Little Sisters of Limousine Liberalism

from The American Spectator

By George Neumayr on 2.16.12 @ 6:09AM


How much is Sr. Carol Keehan worth to the pro-Obamacare Catholic Health Association? Answer: $962,467.


I called up the Catholic Health Association (CHA) yesterday. I wanted to nail down the exact compensation figures for some of its executives, including the salary and benefits of Sister Obamacare, also known as Daughter of Charity nun Carol Keehan, who last week helped Barack Obama engineer his latest con job -- the bogus conscience "compromise" designed to hoodwink Catholics into voting for his reelection.



As it has been widely reported, Obama conferred with Sister Keehan before his announcement last Friday. Then, lo and behold, she praised his revision as an inspiring resolution to the thorny issue of "religious freedom" soon after the sham event concluded.



So let's get down to brass tacks. How much is Sister Keehan worth for such political interventions? The checkered Catholic hospitals Keehan represents as chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association stand to receive gobs and gobs of cash from the federal government if Obamacare holds up past 2012. Consequently, the members of the association are more than happy to pony up huge salaries to executives skilled at manipulating the Catholic electorate for Obama.



Keehan is worth $962,467 to them in total salary and benefits, according to the Schedule J (Form 990) 2010 document sent to me by CHA. Theoretically, this is paid to the nun's order, though CHA adds an intriguing caveat to its compensation figures:



The descriptions below provide an overview of the composition of the five compensation figure columns (B, C, D, E and F). Note that for Sisters Carol Keehan and Patricia Talone and for Father Tom Nairn, all amounts in column B, except for certain fringe benefits included in column (B)(iii), were paid to their respective orders.



In other words, not all the money goes to their religious orders. What are these "certain fringe benefits" to which the caveat refers? I didn't get a comprehensible answer from CHA. But its spokesman assured me that these "certain fringe benefits" weren't large. Maybe the Wall Street Journal should drill down into the numbers.

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