The hospice scam

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Hospices began in England as small, non- profit, community- based organisations, meant to provide compassionate palliative care to the terminally ill.  When I ran my company my fellow director’s wife, a dedicated nurse, worked (and died of cancer)  in the very first hospice.

Because hospice care is funded in America, quite generously, by Medicare, this civilised approach to imminent death has been traduced by commercial, profit- making companies, some of them large corporations, which may put profit ahead of compassion, the so-called “industrialised” model of hospices.

Evidence continues to accumulate that modern industrialized hospices, especially those owned and run by large for-profit corporations and private equity firms may enroll patients who are not terminally ill to increase revenue , and often expose patients to the morepowerful pain- killers that are routinely used in hospitals.  The regulatory response to such behavior continues to be spotty, and seems focused on enrollment of non-terminal patients as a form of fraud, not as a danger to patients.   So far in 2015 two commercial hospice chains settled charges that they enrolled patients who were not terminally ill, thus defrauding the taxpayer. Patients are given inappropriate psychoactive drugs and narcotics, and forego the medical care that could help cure their illnesses.  Hospices and profit do not mix.

Allowing vulnerable people, close to death, to be exploited and treated as if they were profit centers suggests a society with serious ethical problems. Liberty ( to start an enterprise and make money) should not equate to license.  In an Epicurean world such behaviour would be banned.  But then health care, along with end of life care, would not be run for private profit.

Should American political advertising be reined in?

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The Strasbourg Court that hears cases under the European Convention on Human Rights has recently upheld the Britain’s ban on political advertising as a democratically approved and permissable national practice (Article 10 of the convention on freedom of expression allows such advertising).

Culture Secretary Maria Miller said: “We welcome the fact the European Court has upheld the UK’s blanket ban on political advertising.  “Political adverts are – and have always been – banned on British TV and radio. That ban has wide support and has helped sustain the balance of views which is at the heart of British broadcasting – and ensures the political views broadcast into our homes are not determined by those with the deepest pockets.”

Very sensible.  Expensively-bought political advertising on TV  is undemocratic unless those opposing the ideas put forward are in a financial position to reply in kind.  Citizens United, a Orwellian name if there ever was one, guarantees in America that the richest have the loudest voices and has produced an arms race that is very undemocratic.  The American media waxes rich on political advertising, a fact that, 14 months before the American general election, is already taxing the patience.  At least there ought to be a set time limit on campaigning and no advertising prior (six weeks?)  before an election. Maybe then politicians would not have to raise so much money and the rest of us wouldn’t be so thoroughly fed up with the whole business.

 

 

 

Russian church: The fight in Syria is a ‘holy war’

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Russia’s Orthodox Church has voiced support for Moscow’s air strikes in Syria against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, thus:

“The fight with terrorism is a “holy battle” and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world fighting it,” said the head of the Church’s public affairs department, Vsevolod Chaplin. Russian military action “corresponds with international law, the mentality of our people and the special role that our country has always played in the Middle East.”  The  Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said “Russia took a responsible decision to use military forces to protect the Syrian people from the woes brought on by the tyranny of terrorists.”  Armed  intervention is necessary because “the political process has not led to any noticeable improvement in the lives of innocent people, and they need military protection” He cited the suffering of Christians in the region, the kidnapping of clerics and the destruction of churches, adding that Muslims “are suffering no less.”

The Patriach was supported by Talgat Tadzhuddin, head of the Central Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Russia. Another example for the history books of religion in support of the ruler.

It’s difficult to know where to start! Have they not heard of the Crusades? Don’t they realise that this reaction is precisely what ISIS was hoping for: a huge, pitched battle against the unbelievers.   If America couldn’t “win” Iraq and Afghanistan, why do they suppose Russia can in Syria?  “The “special role our country has always (my italics) played in the Middle East” – really?  This could be a disaster for a distant country in a bad economic mess.  And where does Christianity come in?

 

 

 

 

The solution to the American gun problem

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The following has been circulating all over the internet.  Apologies if you have already seen it, but one of tasks of Epicureans is to unmask hypocrisy, preferably with humour:

“How about we treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion — a mandatory 48-hr waiting period, parental permission, a note from his doctor proving he understands what he’s about to do, a video he has to watch about the effects of gun violence.  Let’s close down all but one gun shop in every state and make him travel hundreds of miles, take time off work, and stay overnight in a strange town to get a gun. Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were shot to death, people who call him a murderer and beg him not to buy a gun.

“It makes more sense to do this with young men and guns than with women and health care, right? I mean, no woman getting an abortion has killed a room full of people in seconds, right?”  (origin unknown)

 

The rapid decline of Christianity

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The United States is rapidly becoming less Christian. New data shows that “white Christians are the minority in 19 states. Nationwide, Americans who identify as Protestant are now in the minority for the first time ever.” Some of this is owing to growing racial diversity, but another big factor is the general decline in religious belief. “One in five Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated. In 13 states, the ‘nones’ are the largest religious group.” And their numbers are growing.

The Christian Right is fast losing influence – and it knows it. It explains the attempt to de-fund Planned Parenthood and the fact that in 2011 alone, states passed nearly three times as many abortion restrictions as they had in any previous year. This legal onslaught isn’t a reaction to changes in sexual behaviour – the abortion rate was already in decline; it’s just a desperate effort to wield waning influence. The irony is that this “panic-based overreach” is alienating young people and thus only speeding the decline of the Christian Right.   (Amanda Marcotte, alter.net)

Pope Francis might well stem the tide, although for how long we don’t know.  If  he re- orientates the emphasis of some Americans  towards care for the poor and action on the environment it will be to the good. Epicurus would approve of the decline in belief in supernaturalism, but would leave in its place  moral education of the young; put simply, how to get along with others in a civilised manner.