Like everyone else, I've been following the health-care "debate" on CNN and Fox. And, like most everyone else, I'm not exactly excited about the prospects of having our health insurance run by the same government that gave us $20,000 hammers and the IRS. My personal stake in the debate isn't all that clear b/c most religious participate in some form of health-care trust fund that negotiate fees with doctors and super-pharmacies like Medco. Essentially, we have a "self-pay" system. What B.O.'s plan would do to/for us is beyond me. Shawn Tully of CNNFortune has an interesting article posted entitled, "5 Key Freedoms You'll Lose in Health Care Reform." One thing that bothers me about the rhetoric on this issue is the way the phrase "health care reform" is used almost exclusively by the MSM as an equivalent for B.O.'s plan. You will hear from B.O. supporters that opponents of B.O.'s reforms are opponents of all reform. This is simply false. I keep thinking to myself: "We are the country that invented the A-bomb, the personal computer, the internet, etc. . .surely we are smart enough to reform health insurance w/o socializing health care!" I say, "UNLEASH the Dogs of Invention!" (Hmmmm. . . think the caffeine just kicked in. . .)
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Quick insurance story. . .when I worked as the Team Leader of an adolescent psych hospital, I was frequently called "up front" to access teens for admission. When the admissions people handed me the paperwork, they stuck a sticky-note on the forms that indicated the family's insurance. This told me immediately what questions to ask. If the note indicated that the teen had private insurance provided by his/her parents' employer, the questions were fairly routine and the standards of admissions were very low. However, if the note indicated that the teen was covered under the public option provided by the state, admission was almost an impossibility. The potential patient had to be demonstrably suicidal and even then he/she would only be admitted for three day acute care. . .the very minimum sort of observation and med evaluation. Public option patients were prescribed older, less effective drugs b/c they were cheaper and rarely received more than one evaluation from the staff shrink. Even though we were all statist liberals on staff, we knew that public option insurance was not the way to go.
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A couple of generous Book Benefactors sent me Pierre-Marie Emonet's three volume set on Aquinas' philosophy of being. I highly recommend these books. They are at once poetic, philosophically astute, and accessible. Having recently taught large sections of my Dominican brother's (in)famous Summa, I am reminded (again) that his contribution to Catholic philosophy, theology, and spirituality is beyond measure. Most Catholics would find the Summa to be plodding and overly rigid in style. It is. But it was meant to be textbook for first year grad students and it most definitely reads like one. Aquinas' literary talents are better displayed in his biblical ccommentaries and hymns. He was a medieval multi-tasking machine!
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Other excellent books on Aquinas: Fr. Paul Philibert's English translation of Fr. M-D. Chenu's book, Aquinas and His Role in Theology; Fr. Robert Barron, Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master; Fr. Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (this is essential reading for seminarians); Fr. Tom O'Meara, Thomas Aquinas, Theologian; and Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrell's two volume set, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Timothy McDermott's Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation is worth it for those who want to read Aquinas himself but find the standard translation too much to bear.
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Down the rabbit-hole. . .several readers have written to ask me to comment on the controversy raging around B.O. birth certificate and the question of his nationality. Now, I love good conspiracy theories! They appeal to my literary love for the beauty of putting all the pieces together to form a coherent worldview. My distaste for B.O.'s policies is no secret. But the idea that he made it to the White House w/o someone uncovering his foreign nationality seems a bit too much to swallow. I find it almost impossible to believe that the Clintion Machine didn't find out about this and expose it. Of course, if B.O. wants to see an end to the speculation, all he has to do is disclose his birth certificate. You have to wonder why anyone would spend $900,000 in legal fees to keep a harmless birth certificate locked away!
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Well, time to re-read a few Flannery O'Connor stories for class. . .not to mention a chapter or two of John Clavin's The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Yes, I get to explain Calvin's theology of predestination this morning. Just what any good Dominican hopes to do as the sun rises on another day. . .
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Quick insurance story. . .when I worked as the Team Leader of an adolescent psych hospital, I was frequently called "up front" to access teens for admission. When the admissions people handed me the paperwork, they stuck a sticky-note on the forms that indicated the family's insurance. This told me immediately what questions to ask. If the note indicated that the teen had private insurance provided by his/her parents' employer, the questions were fairly routine and the standards of admissions were very low. However, if the note indicated that the teen was covered under the public option provided by the state, admission was almost an impossibility. The potential patient had to be demonstrably suicidal and even then he/she would only be admitted for three day acute care. . .the very minimum sort of observation and med evaluation. Public option patients were prescribed older, less effective drugs b/c they were cheaper and rarely received more than one evaluation from the staff shrink. Even though we were all statist liberals on staff, we knew that public option insurance was not the way to go.
+
A couple of generous Book Benefactors sent me Pierre-Marie Emonet's three volume set on Aquinas' philosophy of being. I highly recommend these books. They are at once poetic, philosophically astute, and accessible. Having recently taught large sections of my Dominican brother's (in)famous Summa, I am reminded (again) that his contribution to Catholic philosophy, theology, and spirituality is beyond measure. Most Catholics would find the Summa to be plodding and overly rigid in style. It is. But it was meant to be textbook for first year grad students and it most definitely reads like one. Aquinas' literary talents are better displayed in his biblical ccommentaries and hymns. He was a medieval multi-tasking machine!
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Other excellent books on Aquinas: Fr. Paul Philibert's English translation of Fr. M-D. Chenu's book, Aquinas and His Role in Theology; Fr. Robert Barron, Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Master; Fr. Brian Davies, The Thought of Thomas Aquinas (this is essential reading for seminarians); Fr. Tom O'Meara, Thomas Aquinas, Theologian; and Fr. Jean-Pierre Torrell's two volume set, Saint Thomas Aquinas. Timothy McDermott's Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation is worth it for those who want to read Aquinas himself but find the standard translation too much to bear.
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Down the rabbit-hole. . .several readers have written to ask me to comment on the controversy raging around B.O. birth certificate and the question of his nationality. Now, I love good conspiracy theories! They appeal to my literary love for the beauty of putting all the pieces together to form a coherent worldview. My distaste for B.O.'s policies is no secret. But the idea that he made it to the White House w/o someone uncovering his foreign nationality seems a bit too much to swallow. I find it almost impossible to believe that the Clintion Machine didn't find out about this and expose it. Of course, if B.O. wants to see an end to the speculation, all he has to do is disclose his birth certificate. You have to wonder why anyone would spend $900,000 in legal fees to keep a harmless birth certificate locked away!
+
Well, time to re-read a few Flannery O'Connor stories for class. . .not to mention a chapter or two of John Clavin's The Institutes of the Christian Religion. Yes, I get to explain Calvin's theology of predestination this morning. Just what any good Dominican hopes to do as the sun rises on another day. . .
It must be awful to have to pay for health care..particularly the very vulnerable psychiatric cases.
ReplyDeletePlease update to my new blog..thankyou.
ReplyDeletehubby has a theory that OB's camp are holding the birth cert back...to use at the most opportune time as a way of totally discrediting "the religious right" as fools who'll jump on any bandwagon by saying voila and pulling it out of their collective hineyhole.
ReplyDeleteoh and WHO'S paying that $900,000?? that's my question...if the pres in office is sued....who pays for the lawyers? I"m thinking it comes under a "perk" of the office to have "free" legal counsel.....but I might be wrong.
Apparently candidate Obama released the birth certificate back in June 2008. I only became aware this recently after reading about it on National Review Online...hardly a booster site for Obama. Snopes also observes that the ongoing "birther" controversy is bogus and our President is indeed a natural born citizen.
ReplyDeleteTomM, at the great risk of sounding like a birther...you don't spend $900,000 in legal fees keeping locked up a birth certificate you have allegedly released to the public. There's something in that BC BO doesn't want us to see...I doubt it shows he's foreign born...but $900,000!
ReplyDelete"You have to wonder why anyone would spend $900,000 in legal fees to keep a harmless birth certificate locked away!"
ReplyDeleteAs my better half (MightyMom) has already indicated, I believe this is just a way to distract a fair number of folk. The more they stay mum on the topic the more people start wondering about it. When it's finally shown this has been a red herring, all involved start throwing their hands up in disgust.
But it's interesting the lengths to which this is going. Recently a major in Army Reserve or National Guard (not sure which one)refused to deploy due to B.O. not being a lawfully elected President. He was deactivated and sent on his way. Thats pretty low key, especially when comparing a similar case under Bush where the officer in question was hauled before a court-martial. It makes you wonder what the heck is going on.
And maybe thats the whole point of it. Can you spell "distraction"? Sure you can!
Even though we were all statist liberals on staff, we knew that public option insurance was not the way to go.
ReplyDeleteFather, can you resolve something for me? My son recently spent 26 days in a psychiatric hospital (a court-ordered involuntary commitment). The social worker who recommended the commitment was overheard saying, "he has great insurance!" Needless to say, during his long stay he saw other admits, much more seriously ill, turned out in three days while he languished (he has a developmental disability, not mental illness).
He read your statement above as meaning that you believe public insurance should be done away with (a private only system); I read it to mean that you believe private insurance should not be done away with (not a public only system).
I hope you don't mind resolving this for us.
Thank you and God bless,
Mark
Mark,
ReplyDeleteI really wasn't advocating anything...my point is that patients on public insurance were not treated in the same way that the privately insured patients were. The idea seem to be that the threshold for admission to the hospital was lower for the privately insured and much, much (dangerously) higher for the publicly insured. Some treatment for the public folks was better than nothing, but the disparities were stark and bordered on the unethical.
My personal opinion is that public funds can be used for emergency treatment. I'm a fan of employer based insurance, but also believe that other forms should be available. Public insurance, however, drives us costs and the care is not as good. As a nation I don't think we ought to leave people dying on the street for lack of insurance, but neither should we be responsible for abortions, sex change operations, and other non-life threatening treatments.
Father,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification, I appreciate it.
perhaps the CMA can produce an alternative to the AMA...