Friday, December 6, 2024
D+31
1273 Thomas Aquinas, thought to have had a mystical experience in Naples, refused to continue his work "I cannot, because all that I have written seems like straw to me"
1950 Pope Pius XII published encyclical Mirabile illud
2013 Pope Francis gave his assent to a proposal to create a permanent post on the Pontifical Commission on cases of sin and sexual abuse of minors
2017 US President Donald Trump officially recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, announcing plans to move the US embassy there
In bed at 9:10, awake and up at 5:30.
Prednisone, day 206, 7.6 mg., day 21. Prednisone at 6:10 with Irish soda bread. Trulicity injection and morning meds at 8:10.
Life without Lilly will take some getting used to. As I sit in my chair looking toward the TV and the fireplace, I notice how empty the space is where her mattress used to be. Geri put it in the back of her car when we took Lilly to Blue Pearl and I think it's still there, but in any case, it's not in the middle of the TV room floor. Every time I walk by the space in the kitchen where her food and water bowls used to be and I see empty space, the bare floor. In the early mornings when I am up and alone, I hear 'things that go bump in the night' and think it's Lilly coming out. I haven't teared up today as I did 4 or more times yesterday. I'm in the "last things" phase of life: last house, last car, last this, last that and now last Lilly, last dog, last pet. I started out with Freckles 70-some years ago when we were still living in the basement at 7303 S. Emerald and I was an altar boy, 11 or 12 years old. I cried when he was hit by a car chasing after me on my way to serve a benediction at St. Leo. I still feel the guilt of waving at him as Kitty was taking him home after walking me to 74th Street. He bolted away from Kitty and ran toward me, running in front of a car. How much time should I get in Purgatory for that, or am I in it now, remembering my part in Freckles's death? Then there was Cookie, our cocker spaniel with her pseudocyesis and piddling on the kitchen floor whenever she got too excited, which was when my mother came home. Ralph, Bear, Ruby, Alley, Moosie, Blanche, and Lilly. Last night I said to Geri, "I can't get used to Blanche's food and water bowls being gone," meaning Lily's. We were blessed with Blanche for 17 years and with Lilly for 15.
The assassination of United Healthcare's CEO brings out truth about the American health care system. In this morning's NYTimes there is an article headlined "Torrent of Anger for Health Insurance Industry Follows C.E.O.’s Killing" with a subheadline of "The shooting death of a UnitedHealthcare executive in Manhattan has unleashed Americans’ frustrations with an industry that often denies coverage and reimbursement for medical claims." Excerpts:“Thoughts and deductibles to the family,” read one comment underneath a video of the shooting posted online by CNN. “Unfortunately my condolences are out-of-network.”
On TikTok, one user wrote, “I’m an ER nurse and the things I’ve seen dying patients get denied for by insurance makes me physically sick. I just can’t feel sympathy for him because of all of those patients and their families.”
The dark commentary after the death of Mr. Thompson, a 50-year-old insurance executive from Maple Grove, Minn., highlighted the anger and frustration over the state of health care in America, where those with private insurance often find themselves in Kafka-esque tangles while seeking reimbursement for medical treatment and are often denied.
United Healthcare is a "publicly-traded" company, which is to say, it is a corporation whose primary purpose is to make money for its shareholders, not to provide assistance for its insureds.
Mr. Thompson was chief executive of his company’s insurance division, which reported $281 billion in revenue last year, providing coverage to millions of Americans through the health plans it sold to individuals, employers and people under government programs like Medicare. The division employs roughly 140,000 people.
Mr. Thompson received a $10.2 million compensation package last year, a combination of $1 million in base pay and cash and stock grants. He was shot to death as he was walking toward the annual investor day for UnitedHealth Group, UnitedHealthcare’s parent company.
In the hours after the shooting early Wednesday morning, social media exploded with anger toward the insurance industry and Mr. Thompson.
“I pay $1,300 a month for health insurance with an $8,000 deductible. ($23,000 yearly) When I finally reached that deductible, they denied my claims. He was making a million dollars a month,” read one comment on TikTok.
“The ambulance ride to the hospital probably won’t be covered,” wrote a commenter on a TikTok video in which another user featured an audio clip from the Netflix show “Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story.” In it, the queen makes a dramatic show of faux sorrow over a death.
The shooting prompted a wrenching outpouring of patients and family members who also posted horror stories of insurance claim reimbursement stagnation and denials.
From Heather Cox Richardson's letter on 12/5/24:
Thompson’s murder seems to be a cultural moment in which popular fury over the power big business has over ordinary Americans’ lives exploded. Maureen Tkacik of The American Prospect noted, “Only about 50 million customers of America’s reigning medical monopoly might have a motive to exact revenge upon the UnitedHealthcare CEO.” The shooter, whose actual motive remains unknown, is fast becoming a folk hero.
The American healthcare system is the WORST in the developed, industrialized world, and in large measure though not exclusively it is because of health insurance companies like United Healthcare. They make their profits by maximizing premiums and minimizing claims. In private practice, I spent about 6 months serving as general counsel for the Wisconsin Education Association Insurance Trust, a nonprofit insurance company created by the Wisconsin Education Association, the state teacher's union. Even though it had no shareholders, and was created to serve its insured teachers and public school employees, it denied many claims, some of which I reviewed. Its management, like managers of commercial insurance companies, was interested in "the bottom line" and in having an excess of premium revenues over claims payments and administrative expenses. Insurance claims managers get mightly legalistic when deciding claims, naturally wanting to please the CEO whose eyes are on "the bottom line." The same is true of American hospitals and their management. Though it undoubtedly would have many problems and even inequities, a single-payer system like that promoted by Bernie Sanders is preferable to the corporate, profit-driven system we have now. The Republicans cry "Socialism! Socialism!" and do everything in their power to maintain the present system despite its manifest flaws. They also want to 'privatize' the VA health care system because, after all, it reeks of "Socialism! Socialism!" Alas, with Trump in power and the Republicans in control of the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, perhaps they will succeed in the next couple of years. Can there be any doubt but that VA benefits will be on the chopping block of Musk and Ramaswamy, neither of whom of course is a veteran of military service.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow, and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address
Sentimental Journey. I took two boxes of clothing down to Repairers of the Breach at 14th and Vleit Street this morning and then dropped off a bag of clothing at the House of Peace at 17th and Walnut. I asked whether Linda Barnes was in and was told she was in a meeting, which disappointed me. I enjoyed chatting with the staff member who accepted the donated clothing and found out from him at Al Veik still lives there. I then took a long, leisurely, nostalgic, and melancholy trip around my old neighborhood(s), past Cross Lutheran Church across from the HOP where Pastor Joe Elwanger and his wife Joyce served their communities, and down to 25th and Vine Street where my college roommates and I lived in our senior year at Marquette How well I remember walking several miles from our apartment in that neighborhood to the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel garage at 6th and Galena to pick up my truck for my job stuffing Sentinel bus stop boxes in the middle of the night, Sundays through Saturdays, in the often bitter cold Milwaukee winter of 1962-1963. The neighborhood looks old and shabby now, as it did back then, but much of the inner city neighborhoods I drove through look great, with new or newish-looking homes, nothing slummy or dilapidated about them. Nonetheless, I could see signs that these are not upscale wealthy neighborhoods like Bayside. The pickets on top of the metal fencing surrounding some lots were sharply spiked on top to make it more difficult to climb over them. There were "Habitat for Humanity" signs on some of the houses. These neighborhoods are still high crime, high gun ownership areas. I drove down 25th Street to where Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment building was located. It was razed shortly after Dahmer's notorious crimes were discovered and the lot is still vacant, surrounded by one of those sharply spiked metal fences. I drove past the historic Deaconess Hospital building at 22nd and Kilbourn, It shut down as a hospital in 1995 and now is apartments. I drove down Highland Boulevard between 27th Street and 35th Street, where Marquette had some women's dormitories including Lissette Lodge where Anne lived during her last 2 or 3 years at Marquette. It's not home of the Hmong American Women's Association and appears to house a childcare facility. I was pleased that a number of the grand old mansions on Highland Boulevard are still standing, like relics. There was a tie when Highland Boulevard was home to the wealthiest families in Milwaukee, including the John family who owned Miller Brewery. The neighborhood south of Highland is known as the Concordia neighborhood, named after the Lutheran college that used to be located there before moving to Mequon. I believe I once had a date with a girl from Concordia but I remember none of the specifics of the date. I once dated a girl from the St. Mary's Hospital Nursing School but again I have no memories of any specifics, too long ago. Heading home, I drove past Mount Sinai Hospital on 12th Street which triggered a memory of driving past it one day many years ago and seeing my friend Vicki Conte walking out of it. I stopped and offered her a ride and saw that she was crying. She had just come from visiting one of the many elderly Marquette neighborhood residents whom she served. She was a warm and saintly person and I kick myself for letting our friendship drift away. A big loss for me. I drove past the Milwaukee Rescue Mission at 19th and Wells, down the street from my part-time employer, J. J. Wells' Drug Store during my junior year at Marquette. I was a clerk and a 'soda jerk' at the drug store. I did Mr. Gates wrong when I took his part-time job when the representation that I would be able to work during the summer, knowing I had to serve 6 weeks at Marine training at Quantico. It was wrong and I'm ashamed of myself for doing it. My shameful conduct showed up in my FBI background investigation for my Top Secret security clearance in Vietnam in 1965. I was advised of it by my friend, Capt. Bill "Moon" Mullen, the 1st Marine Air Wing Intelligence Officer, who was shot down over Laos in 1966. I wrote about him and his family in my memoir. I received the Top Secret clearance despite my perfidy with Mr. Gates, but I remain shamed by it. I drove past the former St. Anthony's Hospital, opened by the Capuchin Franciscans at 10th and State in 1931, as a hospital where Black doctors had admitting privileges and could practice their profession since other Milwaukee hospitals denied them such privileges. It is next door to the Capuchins' St. Benedict the Moor Church and across the street from the County Courthouse and the state's Secure Detention Facility, a euphemism for a jail/prison for parole violators. A thousand thoughts and memories triggered by today's drive.
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