Did Obamacare kill the Catholic hospital Joe Biden was born in?

That’s been a matter of battling press releases, news reports, and even a radio ad in Pennsylvania in recent days, as the vice president went back to Scranton — home of Mercy Hospital, where he was delivered — to campaign for Rep. Chris Carney.

The controversy got fired up when Kevin Cook, the CEO of Mercy Partners — a health-care system run by the Sisters of Mercy, with three hospitals in Pennsylvania — commented about those three locations’ being put up for sale: “Health-care reform is absolutely playing a role. Was it the precipitating factor in this decision? No, but was it a factor in our planning over the next five years? Absolutely.”

Cook’s “absolutely” set off a firestorm.

The hospitals in question serve the congressional districts of two supposed pro-life Democrats — Carney and Paul Kanjorski — who voted for the Obamacare legislation this spring and have been targets of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List’s “Votes Have Consequences” campaign because of it. (Mercy Tyler Hospital is in Tunkhannock, in Carney’s district; Mercy Hospital is in Scranton and Mercy Special Care Hospital is in Nanticoke, both in Kanjorski’s district.) Both Carney and Kanjorski voted for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act even though the legislation does not prohibit abortion funding, as we have seen in a number of states, including Pennsylvania.

The issue has been picked up by Republican Tom Marino, running against Carney. But the most dynamic response has come in a radio ad from CatholicVote.org, a national grassroots lobbying group. The ad declares: “Three Catholic hospitals right here in northeast Pennsylvania are calling it quits and are now up for sale. The reason? Obamacare.”

Joshua Mercer, CatholicVote’s co-founder, tells me: “I think this story really resonates with people for the same reason that the entire health-care debate became so intense. Health care is very personal. There are a lot of pressures in today’s health-care market for Catholic health care. Some Catholic hospitals have to close down. Some are merging with corporations — and that involves a difficult discussion on what exactly Catholic health care is all about.”

But the question remains: Did Obamacare actually put the hospital where Joe Biden was born, along with the other two, in this predicament: an uncertain future, one likely to involve a dramatic change in identity and mission?

In the wake of a firestorm about Kevin Cook’s comments — including adamant denials from Sr. Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association (CHA), in Washington, D.C. — Cook returned to local media and emphasized that Obamacare was one among many factors leading to the decision to sell. He also emphasized that the hospitals are not closing, as the CatholicVote ad suggests. He added, “I actually find it disappointing that a decision that we made that was in the best interest of the community has been politicized the way it has.”

CatholicVote’s Mercer doesn’t see himself in a battle with Cook. “I think Mr. Cook gave that TV reporter last week an honest assessment of the financial outlook over the next few years, given all the new federal mandates and regulations that are coming. His decision to sell was certainly not done lightly, and I’m sure he would have preferred to keep the hospitals operating as they have been since 1917. He said that national health-care reform wasn’t the only reason, but he did admit it that the president’s health-care law ‘absolutely’ played a role in their decision to sell.”

Mercer stands by the ad: “If Mr. Cook was telling the truth last week, we think the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania deserve to know that the votes cast by Chris Carney and Paul Kanjorski in favor of Obamacare played a role in the decision by Mercy to sell.”