10/2/23

 Monday, October 2, 2023

In bed at 9:10, up from brr w/ back pain, left side at 3:10, up from bed at 3:38.  63°, high of 78°, sunny morning ahead, then partly cloudy.  AQI=45, wind SSW at 5 mph, 3-10/16, DPs 57-63.  Sunrise at 6:49, 94°E, sunset at 6:31, 266°W, 11+41, 2.5 minute daily decrease.

Awaiting rosy-fingered Aurora.  At 3:38, the sun was 34° below the horizon, at 58°ENE heading south.  Solar noon will be at 12:41 p.m. CDT with the sun at 180°S and only 43° above the horizon, less than half its meridian altitude on the Summer Solstice but way above its 24° meridian altitude on the Winter Solstice.    I'm thinking already of logs in the fireplace in the early mornings, but probably not till November.  As I looked out my bedroom window this morning, the ground seemed white, as if covered by snow, perhaps a result of the patio door nightlight.  In any event, it reminded me of what is to come, our dreaded winter precipitation.😰

The Synod on Synodality begins in 2 days.  It may be a big something; it may be a big nothing.  It is already groundbreaking in that it includes what the Church bigwigs call "lay people," i.e., men and especially women who are not members of the clergy.  Not cardinals, not bishops, not priests or even deacons.   By itself, this is a really big deal but whether it has any longterm significance or is rather just a one-off institutional eccentricity attibutable to the often controversial current occupant of the papal robes is anybody's guess.  There is something like an open rebellion going one for the last 10 years against the Argentinian Jesuit and his radical thoughts like "Who am I to judge".  The popes, cardinals, and bishops have been calling the shots for Catholics at least since the time of Emperor Constantine and most of them want to keep the power they have exercised for centuries.  For most of them the jobs they have are lucrative.  Bishops basically own their dioceses and the substantial revenue they produce.  Most of them live in opulent surroundings, tended to by servants.  Many Catholics still bow to them, kiss their rings, and call the cardinals "Your Eminence" and the bishops "Your Excellency."  The Church's organizational and hierarchical structures are quite feudal with the Pope (and his 'curia' or court) at the top, the bishops their vassals, and the lay Catholics just the lay Catholics.  As Pope Pius X put it in  his 1906 encyclical Vehemter Nos:

It follows that the church is by essence an unequal society, that is, a society comprising two categories of persons, the pastors and the flock, those who occupy a rank in the different degrees of the hierarchy and the multitude of the faithful.  So distinct are these categories that with the pastoral body only rests the necessary right and authority for promoting the end  of the society and directing all its members toward that end; the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the pastors.

The flock is not as docile as it was when I was child growing up under the stern rule of Pope Pius XII, Chicago's racist Samel Cardinal Strictch, and St. Leo Parish pastor, Patrick J. Malloy.  Cardinal Stritch, like his predecessors and successors, lived in splendor in an elegant Victorian mansion at 1555 North State Parkway on the “Gold Coast” of Chicago.  The three story, 19 chimneyed mansion occupies a city block on the southern border of Lincoln Park and is probably the most valuable and desirable living quarters in the City of Chicago.  It is a dwelling fit for a feudal lord, which is what the Archbishop of Chicago was and is.  It is no accident that the State of Illinois each year since 1930 has assigned to the archbishop’s limousine the license plate bearing the legend “Illinois 1.”  

    The issues under discussion at the Synod will include priestly celibacy, married priests, the blessing of gay couples, the extension of sacraments to the divorced and the ordination of female deacons.  I suspect that the most liberal participants in the discussions will be the lay people and the most conservative the hierarchs, especially the American hierarchs.  Stay tuned.

Another dystopian dimension of  life in America.  Today's WaPo has a featured story entitled "U.S. to Rein in Technology that Limits Medicare Advantage Care."  It is a horror story, one that is repeated daily across the country.  In sum, it reveals (surprise, surprise) the Medicare Advantage Plans, which are basically HMOs owned and operated by private health insurance companies and not by the government and which enroll more than half of all Medicare beneficiaries, increase their profits by denying needed health care to their members.  This has always been the problem with HMOs, the inherent conflict of interest between the companies'  profit-making raison d'etre and providing care to their patients.  According to the story, the problem is especially acute with respect to nursing home care, where the companies' use of 'predictive technology' often results in patients losing coverage that traditional, government-provided, Medicare would cover.  It used to be the case and perhaps still is that the primary care docs who could authorize high-cost medical services for members were financially incentivized to increase the insurers' profits by denying needed care to patients.  Now the companies are using 'predictive technology' to terminate care even when the patients' doctors say that continued care is required.  The examples given in the WaPo story are terrible.  My brother-in-law Jim Reck was enrolled in a Medicare Advantage Plan for some time, found it was unsatisfactory, and had to jump through all kinds of hoops to disenroll and get back into regular Medicare Parts A & B.  The problem is exacerbated by the false and misleading advertising by the health insurance companies and brokers suggesting to seniors that they are "missing out on benefits they are entitled to", or on lower premium costs, or on higher social security checks" by not enrolling in the private Medicare Advantage Plans.  Christine Huberty, supervising attorney at the Greater Wisconsin Agency on Aging Resources Elder Law & Advocacy Center in Madison, Wisconsin, said “Advantage plans routinely cut patients’ stays short in nursing homes,” she said, including Humana, Aetna, Security Health Plan, and UnitedHealthcare. “In all cases, we see their treating medical providers disagree with the denials.”  This is a form of nationwide corporate elder-abuse perpetrated by the very companies who lie to the public about what they are about, i.e., maximizing company profits rather than providing needed care to elderly members.  Big hospital organizations, like Ascension Healthcare, a 'nonprofit' Catholic hospital network, are guilty of the same kind of inherent fraud on the public, focused on reducing costs (like nurse staffing levels) and increasing revenues.  Even some life insurance and auto insurance companies are sleazy.  Consider the ubiquitous Colonial Penn television ads for 'guaranteed coverage $9.95 per month whole life [as opposed to term] insurance regardless of age and health' without mentioning what the customer gets for that $9.95.  Or the Progressive auto insurance commercial with the lovable Flo, Jamie, Alan, and Mara or the Liberty Mutual ads with the lovable LiMu (get it?) the Emu, ads digitally created by CGI technology.  These ads all focus on low cost premiums, (like the Colonial Penn ads) and never about claims experience.  They are all expert at collecting premiums, not all so good at paying claims.  Premiums = revenue, claims = expenses.  This is life in a consumerist, capitalist economy: huge companies, often parts of even huger conglomerates, employing experts at mass marketing persuasion to get us to buy their goods or services.  I'm reminded of  Lenny Dubin, our local counsel in the Waste Management - Occidental Petroleum case in Los Angeles who told us: "Out here, everybody's got a scam or is looking for one."