Beacon Health's takeover of Ascension Borgess in southwest Michigan restored reproductive health services that Catholic doctrine had blocked for years.
You want to talk about good news? THERE YOU GO. Kick the Catholics out and get doctors, nurses, and staff that can actually deliver health care WITHOUT THE CATHOLIC DOGMA.
Frankly, this action should be repeated nationwide. Religion does NOT belong in health care!
We need a fundamental change in how we look at healthcare in this Country. Religion does not improve healthcare. Fee-for-Service for-profit does not improve healthcare. And ownership by Private Equity does nothing for healthcare except make it dramatically more expensive. We could provide Americans high quality healthcare for about half what we currently pay and have outcomes like they do in other developed countries.
Maybe architecture…although even that doesn’t apply so much anymore, thanks to the rise of fundamentalist Christianity, a new variant of the religion that (among other things) promotes the “prosperity gospel” (a dubious pro-capitalist interpretation of Calvin) and often operates on a for-profit basis. As a result, it tends toward conspicuous consumption, leading to architectural choices that are tacky rather than beautiful.
If Catholic hospitals put barriers to full and proper health care (and we all know that THEY DO!), then they should NOT be involved in the health care industry in any way, shape, or form ... FULL STOP.
If only common sense principles (like, say, a “public option” for universal, reliable, secular / inclusive and evidence-based, patient-centered, and nondiscriminatory healthcare) could (at least 75 years belatedly) become the norm and not a pipe dream in this country, heck, we’d be well on our way to getting around to making America great in REALITY and not just cheap, empty slogans to gaslight credulous authoritarian followers.
Private insurance companies like United Healthcare, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, or various iterations of Blue Cross, may be very eager to cook up schemes to increase revenue and/or executive compensation and benefits. But shaking things up like that (especially the religion angle) has never been on their agenda.
In some states (South Dakota, for instance), insurance companies and religious hospitals have worked together to promote legislation to require hospitals to perform (and bill for — either by overbilling taxpayers (Medicaid) or over-billing private insurance (resulting in higher premiums for everyone)) the full portfolio of pregnancy delivery services, even when a pregnancy will inevitably result either in stillbirth or in a “baby” that only survives a few hours outside the uterus, and according to standard protocols adopted by the American College of OB / GYN, the better approach is a simple (and inexpensive) D&C. The whole subtext of the Tamesha Means controversy, was the *money* collected by a Catholic hospital, from (in effect) torturing both the fetus and the mother for days, and billing healthcare programs for multiple presentations at the Emergency Department. Would have been an awesome qui tam case under the False Claims Act, if the right relator had surfaced. Alas, it is professional suicide in a one-hospital, culturally theocratic, town, to volunteer to serve as a qui tam relator.
I live deep in the Bible Belt, Catholics are few and far between (mostly Latinos). The local health behemoth was started as a mission project by some nuns from Indiana during the yellow fever epidemic in the Mississippi Valley at the turn of the last century, Things were pretty much third world around here back then.
I had my own horror story with them when my wife passed. Even though she was DNR (do not resuscitate) her doctors convinced me to put her on the respirator, "Tomorrow, maybe the next day, she'll be back" they said.. Six hellish, agonizing days later I had to make the decision to pull the plug.
"Religion was our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing."
"What happens to the faith healer and the shaman when any poor citizen can see the full effect of drugs or surgeries, administered without ceremonies or mystifications?"
-- Christopher Hitchens, from "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."
This is the news I want to hear! Thank you. Many years ago I was rushed to a Catholic hospital (unknowingly) and I can’t begin to describe the horror of my experience there. It opened my eyes to how women are treated in healthcare as less than human.
Proud to say that today I am the very best advocate for myself when I see a doctor for any reason. No one should have to tediously put on defensive armor every time they step inside a doctor’s office. It’s exhausting and it’s unnecessary.
I would still choose the robber barons over the moral busybodies when it comes to my healthcare, but that shouldn’t be a choice anyone has to make. Ok end rant 😂
Yes, they are predatory institutions and many rural areas may have no choice. I'm so sorry they were able to do that to you. You are lucky to still be here, given their lack of care about women.
Thank you. I am very lucky. The doctor I met with after several hours in the ER slipped me a tiny piece of paper with a number on it of where I could go get care.
What is the reason for removing the whole fallopian tube with an ectopic pregnancy versus just the products of conception? The zygote isn’t viable no matter what. There isn’t a medical procedure to save it. The zygote is already dead, or it dies either way. Why do they have to make the procedure more invasive than it has to be to be in line with the religion?
You don’t really have to tell me, I already know, this is a question I have had for so many years now and I have been told over and over what their excuse is. The real reason is to hurt women. That’s it. That is all this is. Punish women for being the life bringers. For being the real builders of society and for making men feel like they’re unnecessary for all of creation. Men’s fragile egos can’t take women actually being equal.
Because that way they can pretend not to have given an abortion, which would offend their delicate feelings. They would rather pretend the woman's anatomy is at fault rather than the egg. Which they seem to feel is more important than the host.
At least part of it is due to the fact that here in the US, healthcare is seen as a for profit industry, instead of a public service. The hospital has to run in order to maximize profit and obey shareholders (in too many cases that is the RCC) instead of running so that good patient outcomes are the focus.
Even giving the Catholic hospitals the benefit of the doubt and saying they are actually nonprofit, they are still far more beholden to the church (the shareholders) than the patients. I don't think it would run afoul of the First Amendment if there were a federal law mandating all hospitals provide all legal and medically appropriate care, as determined by medical professionals and not religious leaders.
Honestly, if such a law 𝘥𝘪𝘥 violate the First Amendment- and it likely would, according to 𝘸𝘦-𝘢𝘭𝘭-𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸-𝘸𝘩𝘰- it would be the First Amendment needing to be changed to accommodate the law, rather than the other way around (and I've often said that the First in particular has too many clauses and not enough clarification). The Amendment isn't doing its job at all if it is "protecting" the right of a larger entity to encroach on the rights of the people.
No “right” is absolute. “Freedom of religion” doesn’t mean that human sacrifice must be allowed. This “I can do (or refuse to do) anything I want if I claim it’s part of my religion” thing is a real abuse. Freedom of religion does not allow you to violate others’ rights and freedoms.
In the 1970s, Southern Baptists tried to claim they should be allowed to segregate because it was an exercise of their religion. The government didn’t buy it, and “whites only” fortunately remained illegal, yet nowadays fundies and Catholic institutions are claiming the right to “straights only” and “cis only” and to require doctors at their hospitals to violate the standard of care for women who are endangered by a pregnancy miscarriage, and rather than being told that they do not have the freedom to violate others’ rights, they are being hailed as defenders of religious freedom.
The catholic church has a fundamentally irrational view of human sexuality. This is to be expected when all the rules get made by a collection of celibate men. The church’s stand on contraception does not elevate the status of life . . . It trivializes it. It completely ignores the realities of raising a family in the modern world. So glad I walked away from that monstrous organization over half a century ago.
From the beginning it has always been a cult that hates life in all its stages and actively works to make life worse, to ensure that everyone they can lay their hands on suffers as the Ghoul of Calcutta did for her entire evil life. The Ghoul of Calcutta is the entire rotting ideology writ small.
Did the previous owner disclose the reason why they sold their hospitals? Not profitable enough? The main shareholder wanted to cash-out? To pay off some debts? They got bored running hospitals? None of the above? All of the above?
When Ascension pulled out of my metropolitan area, it was because they were getting their asses stomped hard by two competing secular and superior health care/hospital networks.
They were the closest ER to my home, and I have horror stories from the few times one of my elderly patents had to go to an er via ambulance. Given the choice and an emergency, but not a going to die soon possibly emergency I would drive either one the thirty minutes to the better, secular hospital across town.
Because they cannot compete on their own, it seems like the last couple years they are selectively pulling out of some markets, to triple down where they are the only option.
Blatant hypocrisy? From a 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯? Say it ain't so!
...no, really. Just once, I'd very much like for it to not be so; I'm deathly tired of these creeps and their utterly predictable projection-based outrage-mongering.
You want to talk about good news? THERE YOU GO. Kick the Catholics out and get doctors, nurses, and staff that can actually deliver health care WITHOUT THE CATHOLIC DOGMA.
Frankly, this action should be repeated nationwide. Religion does NOT belong in health care!
Or anywhere else.
😁 Yeah ... there's still THAT, ain't there? 😁
We need a fundamental change in how we look at healthcare in this Country. Religion does not improve healthcare. Fee-for-Service for-profit does not improve healthcare. And ownership by Private Equity does nothing for healthcare except make it dramatically more expensive. We could provide Americans high quality healthcare for about half what we currently pay and have outcomes like they do in other developed countries.
"Religion does not improve healthcare."
Hell, religion doesn't improve ANYTHING!!!
Maybe architecture…although even that doesn’t apply so much anymore, thanks to the rise of fundamentalist Christianity, a new variant of the religion that (among other things) promotes the “prosperity gospel” (a dubious pro-capitalist interpretation of Calvin) and often operates on a for-profit basis. As a result, it tends toward conspicuous consumption, leading to architectural choices that are tacky rather than beautiful.
Schuller's Crystal cathedral comes to mind.
"Ascension health care system" Hopefully all Catholic affiliated health care will ascend out of the United States and never return. 😟🤔
Agreed, religion does not belong in health care or the U.S. government.
Again, "tax the fucken churches" Frank Zappa 1980 🤪
Several other dogmatic hospital chains could benefit from similar reform. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/23/catholic-hospitals-abortion-womens-health-care-miscarrying-mothers
If Catholic hospitals put barriers to full and proper health care (and we all know that THEY DO!), then they should NOT be involved in the health care industry in any way, shape, or form ... FULL STOP.
If only common sense principles (like, say, a “public option” for universal, reliable, secular / inclusive and evidence-based, patient-centered, and nondiscriminatory healthcare) could (at least 75 years belatedly) become the norm and not a pipe dream in this country, heck, we’d be well on our way to getting around to making America great in REALITY and not just cheap, empty slogans to gaslight credulous authoritarian followers.
Well, one way to do that is for insurance carriers to refuse to cover them on the grounds that they endanger patients and therefore increase costs.
Private insurance companies like United Healthcare, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, or various iterations of Blue Cross, may be very eager to cook up schemes to increase revenue and/or executive compensation and benefits. But shaking things up like that (especially the religion angle) has never been on their agenda.
In some states (South Dakota, for instance), insurance companies and religious hospitals have worked together to promote legislation to require hospitals to perform (and bill for — either by overbilling taxpayers (Medicaid) or over-billing private insurance (resulting in higher premiums for everyone)) the full portfolio of pregnancy delivery services, even when a pregnancy will inevitably result either in stillbirth or in a “baby” that only survives a few hours outside the uterus, and according to standard protocols adopted by the American College of OB / GYN, the better approach is a simple (and inexpensive) D&C. The whole subtext of the Tamesha Means controversy, was the *money* collected by a Catholic hospital, from (in effect) torturing both the fetus and the mother for days, and billing healthcare programs for multiple presentations at the Emergency Department. Would have been an awesome qui tam case under the False Claims Act, if the right relator had surfaced. Alas, it is professional suicide in a one-hospital, culturally theocratic, town, to volunteer to serve as a qui tam relator.
"Ascension." Like Trump, lies and absurd fables believed by gullible people rise to the top.
𝐼𝑡’𝑠 𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝐶ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑐ℎ 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛’𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒.
It's amazing what can happen when the Catholic Church doesn't dictate 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨.
A bunch of celibate old white men and a few pedophiles of little boys can do just about anything...as long as they BELIEVE!*
*and have unchecked power and access to trillions of dollars from delusional faithful worshippers and help from the government.
They can dictate the following memo:
“ PRIESTS ARE REMINDED NOT TO PUT THEIR HANDS DOWN THE COOKIE JARS’ PANTS.”
Sickening, but real.
"It's amazing what can happen when the Catholic Church doesn't dictate health care."
Almost miraculous, one might say. ;)
I live deep in the Bible Belt, Catholics are few and far between (mostly Latinos). The local health behemoth was started as a mission project by some nuns from Indiana during the yellow fever epidemic in the Mississippi Valley at the turn of the last century, Things were pretty much third world around here back then.
I had my own horror story with them when my wife passed. Even though she was DNR (do not resuscitate) her doctors convinced me to put her on the respirator, "Tomorrow, maybe the next day, she'll be back" they said.. Six hellish, agonizing days later I had to make the decision to pull the plug.
Fuck Catholic "theology".
Im sorry.
Oh, damn, that is so cruel to lie to you like that. I'm so sorry those rotten bastards did that to you both.
My condolences on your loss.
"Religion was our first attempt at health care, believing in faith healing."
"What happens to the faith healer and the shaman when any poor citizen can see the full effect of drugs or surgeries, administered without ceremonies or mystifications?"
-- Christopher Hitchens, from "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything."
This is the news I want to hear! Thank you. Many years ago I was rushed to a Catholic hospital (unknowingly) and I can’t begin to describe the horror of my experience there. It opened my eyes to how women are treated in healthcare as less than human.
Proud to say that today I am the very best advocate for myself when I see a doctor for any reason. No one should have to tediously put on defensive armor every time they step inside a doctor’s office. It’s exhausting and it’s unnecessary.
I would still choose the robber barons over the moral busybodies when it comes to my healthcare, but that shouldn’t be a choice anyone has to make. Ok end rant 😂
Yes, they are predatory institutions and many rural areas may have no choice. I'm so sorry they were able to do that to you. You are lucky to still be here, given their lack of care about women.
Thank you. I am very lucky. The doctor I met with after several hours in the ER slipped me a tiny piece of paper with a number on it of where I could go get care.
What is the reason for removing the whole fallopian tube with an ectopic pregnancy versus just the products of conception? The zygote isn’t viable no matter what. There isn’t a medical procedure to save it. The zygote is already dead, or it dies either way. Why do they have to make the procedure more invasive than it has to be to be in line with the religion?
You don’t really have to tell me, I already know, this is a question I have had for so many years now and I have been told over and over what their excuse is. The real reason is to hurt women. That’s it. That is all this is. Punish women for being the life bringers. For being the real builders of society and for making men feel like they’re unnecessary for all of creation. Men’s fragile egos can’t take women actually being equal.
Because that way they can pretend not to have given an abortion, which would offend their delicate feelings. They would rather pretend the woman's anatomy is at fault rather than the egg. Which they seem to feel is more important than the host.
They do it because that way they can punish the woman for not being successfully impregnated.
𝑊ℎ𝑦 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑛 ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑝𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑎𝑙, 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒?
At least part of it is due to the fact that here in the US, healthcare is seen as a for profit industry, instead of a public service. The hospital has to run in order to maximize profit and obey shareholders (in too many cases that is the RCC) instead of running so that good patient outcomes are the focus.
Even giving the Catholic hospitals the benefit of the doubt and saying they are actually nonprofit, they are still far more beholden to the church (the shareholders) than the patients. I don't think it would run afoul of the First Amendment if there were a federal law mandating all hospitals provide all legal and medically appropriate care, as determined by medical professionals and not religious leaders.
It would run afoul of the Supreme Catholics of the US.
The biggest problem is that they put dogma over Evidence Based Medicine.
Honestly, if such a law 𝘥𝘪𝘥 violate the First Amendment- and it likely would, according to 𝘸𝘦-𝘢𝘭𝘭-𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸-𝘸𝘩𝘰- it would be the First Amendment needing to be changed to accommodate the law, rather than the other way around (and I've often said that the First in particular has too many clauses and not enough clarification). The Amendment isn't doing its job at all if it is "protecting" the right of a larger entity to encroach on the rights of the people.
No “right” is absolute. “Freedom of religion” doesn’t mean that human sacrifice must be allowed. This “I can do (or refuse to do) anything I want if I claim it’s part of my religion” thing is a real abuse. Freedom of religion does not allow you to violate others’ rights and freedoms.
In the 1970s, Southern Baptists tried to claim they should be allowed to segregate because it was an exercise of their religion. The government didn’t buy it, and “whites only” fortunately remained illegal, yet nowadays fundies and Catholic institutions are claiming the right to “straights only” and “cis only” and to require doctors at their hospitals to violate the standard of care for women who are endangered by a pregnancy miscarriage, and rather than being told that they do not have the freedom to violate others’ rights, they are being hailed as defenders of religious freedom.
Exactly. It's a hospital, not a goddamn church.
Religion is a scourge and impediment to quality of life and progress of the human condition.
Hitch said it: "Religion POISONS Everything."
Well, waddaya know? Those evil secularists truly ARE pro-life.
The catholic church has a fundamentally irrational view of human sexuality. This is to be expected when all the rules get made by a collection of celibate men. The church’s stand on contraception does not elevate the status of life . . . It trivializes it. It completely ignores the realities of raising a family in the modern world. So glad I walked away from that monstrous organization over half a century ago.
From the beginning it has always been a cult that hates life in all its stages and actively works to make life worse, to ensure that everyone they can lay their hands on suffers as the Ghoul of Calcutta did for her entire evil life. The Ghoul of Calcutta is the entire rotting ideology writ small.
The choice is fairly obvious.
“I want to die for my religion.” I think it’s stupid, but sure, have at it. It’s your funeral. See you in heaven.
“ I want you to die for my religion.“ also stupid, but it’s the fundamental problem with religion.
I can pull that one out without having any coffee. I’m waiting at the blood lab for the Vampires of the Morning.
You used a crucial word, the crucial word - choice!
People like Savita Halappanavar did not have a choice.
Exactly the word: choice.
Just pierce my vein before you leave me, baby
You got the reference.
Lucky guess.
My coffee is sitting here, but I'm waiting for it to cool off a bit.
I'm waiting for my iced coffee to warm up a bit.
Coffee consumed almost 2 hours ago.
It's still early here. <looks at clock> Holy cow, it's almost 10. I've got shit to do.
We're getting close to gin o'clock ....
Get ta work, ya lazy bum. :)
An idea is not validated just because someone was stupid enough to die for it.
But it does validate one idea. That they were stupid enough to die for it. So there is that.
Did the previous owner disclose the reason why they sold their hospitals? Not profitable enough? The main shareholder wanted to cash-out? To pay off some debts? They got bored running hospitals? None of the above? All of the above?
They discovered Crypto and online porn are better investments.
I put all my deposits in online porn.
ISWYDT. Well-played ;-)
There's a question worth getting a proper answer to!
Answer: money. They were operating at a loss and wanted to reinvest fucking other communities elsewhere.
Good point :
1) Hedge funds were bottoming out.
2)Ran out of staffing.
3)Tax shell game/cover other loses.
4)Too many malpractices.
5) Better opportunities.
6)ect.
Thanks,respectfully ✨️
When Ascension pulled out of my metropolitan area, it was because they were getting their asses stomped hard by two competing secular and superior health care/hospital networks.
They were the closest ER to my home, and I have horror stories from the few times one of my elderly patents had to go to an er via ambulance. Given the choice and an emergency, but not a going to die soon possibly emergency I would drive either one the thirty minutes to the better, secular hospital across town.
Because they cannot compete on their own, it seems like the last couple years they are selectively pulling out of some markets, to triple down where they are the only option.
A part of a local theocracy has been defeated. ❤️
Puny religion.
https://ibb.co/fYKkP9jc
🎯🎯🎯
OT- More electoral fückéry, 𝘥𝘪𝘴courtesy of Kenny P: https://www.propublica.org/article/ken-paxton-voter-registration-election-law
Blatant hypocrisy? From a 𝘙𝘦𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯? Say it ain't so!
...no, really. Just once, I'd very much like for it to not be so; I'm deathly tired of these creeps and their utterly predictable projection-based outrage-mongering.