I Don’t Know If That’s…
It was not quite fifty years ago – a fact established by the number of folks who complained that I did not celebrate Mass “in Latin, the way it’s supposed to be.”
Ordained maybe five years, I lost it!
In my car. Crying, almost to convulsions. For parents whom I deeply prized. And for their hours-old daughter born with a hole in her heart. Summoned to the neonatal ICU at two or three in the morning, it was too early to call the cloistered Maryknoll Sisters and beg them (a really dumb phrase to use because I realized “of course” they would) to pray for that baby and her family.
And I had another intention for their prayers – the “young” doctor attending an infant who might easily have been cradled “in the palm of his hand.” (Isaiah 49:15)
Despite her size, this child had at least four spaghetti-thin “lines” running medications into and fluids out of her and the same number of monitors attached to her tiny body. That young doctor thought out loud – “This medication does this; it can interact with that one; I have to watch this… that medication is still necessary because…; we have to monitor this; and that; and this; and that.”
(Pardon my not-French but…) Part of me wanted to beeitchslap him for being years younger than me and soooo smart.
To this day, I wonder if he ever slept.
Months later I baptized her before a rejoicing congregation that broke into sustained applause. While the family and I lost contact long ago, I’ve never forgotten that doctor and my call to the Cloister.
Or…
The absolutely smartest person I’ve ever met, entered my priesthood a few years later. (I keep the circumstances “under the seal” and confidential.) Generally, I’d visit the neurosurgical resident - just to “check in” - sometime between midnight and sunrise, when, in theory, things were “quiet.” It was pre-cellphone days and he’d appear in his scrubs – with brick-sized “pagers” practically pulling his pants down.
He referred to himself as a “kamikaze brain surgeon.”
Especially when the patient was young (and to give the patient and his/her family more time together), he’d dare to plead the case and operate – even when the ultimate result seemed inevitable. Please God, through the rest of my priesthood I will continue to pray in thanksgiving for him and for his kindness in calling me to visit an early-twenty young man paralyzed from the neck down. I will always admire my kamikaze friend and the patient, whose life today, despite seemingly insurmountable challenges, is one of courage, compassion and service that Mother Teresa would envy.
Those young healers of forty-plus years ago and today’s new physicians should not - must not - be the center of one of the most unhealing and dangerous debates in American history.
At graduation, they swore – one of several optional – oaths.
It might have been The Hippocratic Oath:
“I swear by Apollo Healer, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea, and by all the gods and goddesses,… that I will carry out, according to my ability and judgment, this oath and this indenture.
“To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer's oath, but to nobody else….
“Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrong-doing and harm, especially from abusing the bodies of man or woman, bond or free. And whatsoever I shall see or hear in the course of my profession, as well as outside my profession in my intercourse with men, if it be what should not be published abroad, I will never divulge, holding such things to be holy secrets.
“Now if I carry out this oath, and break it not, may I gain for ever reputation among all men for my life and for my art; but if I break it and forswear myself, may the opposite befall me. “
Perhaps it was The Physicians Pledge, first adopted by the 3nd General Assembly of the World Medical Association’s (WMA) and revised six times through 2017. In part, it promises:
“I solemnly pledge myself to consecrate my life to the service of humanity… I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity; the health of my patients will be my first consideration; I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honor and the noble traditions of the medical profession… I will not permit considerations of religion, nationality, race, party politics or social standing to intervene between my duty and my patient; I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honor.”
If they were graduating from medical school today, they and their classmates might imitate their peers at Harvard. Building on the principles of the Hippocratic Oath and The Physician’s Oath, a committee of the entering classes of the Harvard Medical and Dental Schools write their Class Oaths, emphasizing critical principles including patient-centered care, social justice, lifelong learning and self-care, community collaboration, and personal responsibility. Part of the Oath of the Class of 2028 reads:
“We pledge to our patients to devote ourselves to compassion, respect and empathy, listening to each story with open minds, to uphold ethical and moral standards, ensuring the work we produce and care we provide are worthy of trust and… and to advocate for healthcare justice and equity for all….”
Not one oath – from Hippocrates’ written between the fifth and third centuries BC to the Oath of Harvard students in August – includes any mention of countries of origin, documented or undocumented, “legal” or “illegal.” Not one word about “immigrant” or “status.”
When Karoline Leavitt, the public face of the White House was asked on October 2 whether emergency room staff should be forced to determine the immigration status of people needing treatment, she responded, “That’s probably not a question for me to answer. I think that’s a question for health care professionals and legal experts.”
What a dodge!
On Tuesday, October 1, self-reportedly Roman Catholic Vice President JD Vance abandoned almost every principle of Christian Justice by prevaricating:
“If you’re an American citizen, and you’ve been to a hospital in the last few years, you probably noticed that wait times are especially large and very often somebody who’s there in the emergency room waiting is an illegal alien. Very often, a person who can’t even speak English. Why do those people get health care benefits at hospitals paid for by American citizens?”
[EDITORS’ QUESTION: How does one “notice” that someone else is “an illegal alien”? In Mr. Vance’s world do they wear signs or buttons? Many of the abuelitas (grandmothers) of South Florida “can’t even speak English.”]
For Mr. Vance and anyone who repeats that question, we suggest they open the Judeo-Christian Scriptures to the very first page. Y’all know the one. It quotes God, the Creator:
“"Then God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…”
(Genesis 1:26)
According to the good Sisters who taught me at Epiphany School in South Miami, according to Catholic teachings on Justice, “those people” get healthcare because they are created “in the image and likeness of God.”
To find another answer to Mr. Vance’s question about “those people,” it’s important to dig a thousand plus pages deeper into those Scriptures – all the way to the warning of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46. Not just to Mr. Vance and the members of Congress but to all of us, it is a warning.
“Then he [the Lord of History] will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
“‘Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.’”
In response to hospitals nationwide “dumping” low-income patients without health insurance, in 1986 Congress passed and Republican President Ronal Regan signed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requiring all hospitals that accept Medicare – the vast majority – to screen patients and treat anyone with an “emergency medical condition,” regardless of their ability to pay, insurance or legal status. Included under this legislation are women in active labor.
Vance either misled or straight-out lied when he said “We turned off that money spigot to health care funding to illegal aliens. The Democrats want to turn it back on.” The law Regan signed remains in effect.
People living in or entering the United States illegally are not allowed to enroll in federally funded Medicaid programs; the federal government does provide funding to hospitals to reimburse them for emergency care provided to those who cannot afford it.
In addition, according to research from the non-partisan, non-profit tax policy organization Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy July 30, 2024 report (https://itep.org/undocumented-immigrants-taxes-2024/):
Undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022. Most of that amount, $59.4 billion, was paid to the federal government while the remaining $37.3 billion was paid to state and local governments.
Undocumented immigrants paid federal, state, and local taxes of $8,889 per person in 2022. In other words, for every 1 million undocumented immigrants who reside in the country, public services receive $8.9 billion in additional tax revenue.
More than a third of the tax dollars paid by undocumented immigrants go toward payroll taxes dedicated to funding programs that these workers are barred from accessing. Undocumented immigrants paid $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes, and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance taxes in 2022.
Six states raised more than $1 billion each in tax revenue from undocumented immigrants living within their borders. Those states are California ($8.5 billion), Texas ($4.9 billion), New York ($3.1 billion), Florida ($1.8 billion), Illinois ($1.5 billion), and New Jersey ($1.3 billion).
In a large majority of states (40), undocumented immigrants pay higher state and local tax rates than the top 1 percent of households living within their borders.
Income tax payments by undocumented immigrants are affected by laws that require them to pay more than otherwise similarly situated U.S. citizens. Undocumented immigrants are often barred from receiving meaningful tax credits and sometimes do not claim refunds they are owed due to lack of awareness, concern about their immigration status, or insufficient access to tax preparation assistance.
[EDITORS’ NOTE: The above bullet points are taken directly from the ITEP web site.]
Trump’s tax-cut legislation earlier this year reduced the level of funding for states that had been receiving a higher rate of federal reimbursement from a program known as Emergency Medicaid, which pays hospitals back for providing care to immigrants who would qualify for Medicaid if not for their immigration status, whether they’re fully unauthorized or have a parole status.
Denial of emergency medical care can result in death.
Amber Thurman and Candi Miller died after Georgia Republicans passed laws resulting in physicians’ confusions about what medical care was legal under the state’s new six-week ban. Thurman waited 20 hours in a hospital bed for doctors to perform a simple – medically urgent - dilation and curettage (D&C). Her heart stopped during surgery after she’d been diagnosed at the hospital with acute sepsis and went into organ failure. She was survived by a six-year old son. After taking medication abortion pills, Miller began to experience acute distress. Her husband said she “did not go to an ob/gyn due to the current legislations on pregnancies and abortions.”
In Texas, Josseli Barnica and Nevaeh Crain died after doctors – confused by or afraid of the state’s new anti-abortion legislation – refused or delayed medically necessary miscarriage care. An NBC News report (“A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban,” September 20, 2024) found:
“The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds.
“From 2019 to 2022, the rate of maternal mortality cases in Texas rose by 56%, compared with just 11% nationwide during the same time period, according to an analysis by the Gender Equity Policy Institute. The nonprofit research group scoured publicly available reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and shared the analysis exclusively with NBC News.
“‘There’s only one explanation for this staggering difference in maternal mortality,’ said Nancy L. Cohen, president of the GEPI. ‘All the research points to Texas’ abortion ban as the primary driver of this alarming increase.’
“‘Texas, I fear, is a harbinger of what’s to come in other states,’ she said.”
On September 30, while speaking from Rome, where he is currently serving as Bishop and Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, American clergyman and Chicago White Sox fan Robert Prevost (also known as Pope Leo XIV) noted:
“Someone who says ‘I’m against abortion’ but says ‘I’m in favor of the death penalty’ is not really pro-life. So someone who says that ‘I’m against abortion, but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants who are in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.”
Mr. Vance, Mr. President, Members of Congress – both House and Senate et al, those documented and undocumented immigrants are paying taxes that support your free medical care at Walter Reed Medical Center.
Please, in the name of Justice, the next time you rail against them, say “Thank You.”