Catholic Health Care, RIP

I’m a bit behind in my Wanderer reading – just picked up the July 2, 2009 issue this morning and read Paul Likoudis’ article “Why Is the USCCB Selling Out Catholic Health Care Workers?”

Likoudis’ primary point is that Catholic health care institutions, such as Chicago’s Resurrection Health Care, are under intense pressure to accept unions that don’t represent authentic Catholic social teaching. The schizophrenic United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (an episcopal body with … um… highly circumscribed authority) recently issued a document, “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers: Guidance and Options for Catholic Health Care and Unions,” about the topic.

Likoudis call the document “a Faustian deal” – a bargain with the devil. For one thing, it was prepared with the “collaboration” of representatives from groups that vehemently oppose Catholic positions.

There's Paul Booth, for example, who is executive assistant to the AFSCME president. AFSCME is a powerful union that resolutely endorses “reproductive rights,” including “a woman’s right to choose a safe, legal abortion and contraception.” Significantly, Booth is also the founder of the Midwest Academy – a training institute for Alinskyian organizing.

Dennis Rivero, a student of the Midwest Academy and chair of SEIU health care is another “collaborator.” SEIU is a powerful union with an aggressive homosexual-rights agenda that is particularly targeting Catholic health care institutions.

These and the other “Respecting the Just Rights of Workers” collaborators are avid supporters of the current health care reform legislation, a 1000 page behemoth of proposed bureaucratic infrastructure and breath-taking – literally – control over Americans. John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO union and one of those engaged in the dialogue to assist the USCCB in producing its document, issued a July 15, 2009 press release that said, “Working Americans can breathe a sigh of relief over today's passage of health care reform by the Senate, Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) committee. This legislation is crucially important to working families. Health care reform cannot wait. We must not fail to fix our broken health care system.”

The other unions are right behind him. On July 24, AFSCME launched a television ad it called “the latest salvo in AFSCME’s aggressive, on-going effort to support President Obama’s vision of health care reform.” This was followed by a July 27 announcement of a “Highway to Health Care Reform campaign, a rock and roll theme RV tour that will crisscross the country during the August congressional recess. The Highway to Health Care Reform RV will travel through key states to mobilize the public to contact their members of Congress to demand real reform that guarantees quality, affordable health care for all.”

SEIU President Andy Stern agreed. “We stand with President Obama and those Senators and Representatives showing the political courage to do what is right and find solutions that deliver more for less and end the costly and immoral failure to provide quality, affordable care to every American.”

So do the representatives of the Catholic institutions that were included in the “dialogue.” Sr. Carol Keehan, DC, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, has been actively lobbying to be sure that undocumented workers are covered health care reform…but is wonderfully silent on the problems of “reproductive rights” and “end of life” issues, despite their presence in the health care bill.
Quite a situation, no?

The story gets even more interesting, though. Let’s go back to Chicago’s Resurrection Health Care, under pressure to unionize.

Resurrection Health Care is a member of Chicago’s United Power for Action and Justice (UPAJ), which is a local affiliate for the largest Alinskyian network in the country. One of UPAJ’s organizational issues is healthcare and it initiated the Gilead Campaign for the Uninsured a few years ago, to expand health coverage. It also created the Gilead Outreach and Referral center to connect uninsured people with health benefit programs. Catholic Resurrection Health Care was a Gilead Campaign Partner, along with the abortion providing Advocate Health Care Network and the AFSCME, which is also is a member of UPAJ.

The Gilead Campaign resulted in the creation of Illinois FamilyCare, one piece in a state “matrix” of comprehensive healthcare provision that include contraceptives and abortions.

The point is that Resurrection Health Care is in a tighter spot than might be obvious at first glance. This isn’t simply about unionizing – it’s about organized power to bring a Catholic body into conformity with immoral practices. Resurrection Health Care is part of an elaborate state and institutional “system” of relationships. Membership confers benefits. Dissension is punished.

So Resurrection is being punished. AFSCME is running TV ads against Resurrection Health Care, asking: “If you were injured, would you want the ambulance to take you to a hospital with low survey ratings from doctors, violations of state=E 2s [the visual adds “safety”] standards, no accreditation from the body that certifies quality for most hospitals [the visuals identify the body as “JCAHO”], and higher prices? Of course not. We deserve a community hospital that focus on patient care, not just the bottom line. Resurrection Health Care West Suburban Medical Health Center – a risky choice.” The audio, meanwhile has the sound of a heart monitor suddenly flatten, as if the patient has dies.

Then there is an anonymous website – that is, there are no individuals or groups admitting public responsibility for it – alleging that while Resurrection’s resources increase, spending on patient care staff and supplies fails to keep pace. Of course, the site is careful not to say patient care itself has declined.

Sooner of later, Resurrection will capitulate, stripped of its ability to offer uncompromised health care. The “power” it feeds – after all, membership in an Alinskyian community organization has dues – won’t tolerate anything less. Either comprehensive national health care will force Resurrection out of Catholic service for failure to provide “full services” or forced unionization by anti-Catholic unions will do the trick. If these fail, there’s always the Alinskyian relational network (supported by the USCCB) to hound Resurrection into bankruptcy.

Eternal rest grant unto them…