New Year…New Life!

For time immemorial, the arrival of a NEW YEAR has served as a catalyst for our renewed commitment to fulfill unfulfilled resolutions and to realize our unrealized hopes and dreams. This annual cycle of reflection and optimism is an engine of personal, family, and social history. 

The arrival of a NEW YEAR is like a balm, an oasis in the hustle and bustle of personal and social stories. It is an opportunity to pause and evaluate, reconsider, strategize, and redirect the path of one’s life with new fervor, insight, and motivation. 

Clearly, our view of history is not a fatalistic one predicated on a belief that human history is an inevitable succession of events that are recycled and repeated because nothing changes and everything -- as in a whirlwind, as in a whirlpool -- cyclically and spirally returns to the beginning. 

No. Our view of history -- heir to the philosophical conception of Heraclitus of Greece -- is one in which, as the philosopher himself said, "Nobody bathes twice in the same waters of the same river." In other words, we understand history as a succession of events that, linearly, reflect the unforeseeable decisions of human beings who, with their intelligence and freedom, shape and determine their personal history as well as that of their communities, organizations, institutions, and society at large. 

The fate of humanity, then, is not determined by hidden forces (the gods or the stars) that manipulate and control the course of events to an irremediable and immutable destiny – fatal and pre-determined. The story of every human being is constructed, freely and intelligently, in our daily decisions, in the anonymity and silence of our smallest tasks as well as in the grander narratives of our lives, be they noble or petty, generous or selfish, personal or civic. 

Our view of history is neither naively optimistic nor fatally pessimistic. It is true there are many reasons for confusion, sadness, and pessimism in the form of inequalities, inequities, and injustice, in the hunger and misery of so many in stark contrast to the abundance of the few. These shortcomings are evidence of a world in which human beings have not achieved solidarity, equality, trust, compassion, or even developed ways of relating to one other to envision the world as a great fraternal table in which each one of us has a seat. 

And yet, it is the hope of a better world that gives us strength, sustains us, and pushes us every day into our daily lives and being. We are men and women who live in the hope of a better tomorrow; it is this hope that marks our present. The belief in a better humanity refuses to die. 

Faced with reasons for pessimism and sadness, we need optimism to build a better world, a better society, better families, and better personal stories through our decisions both big and small, with our activities and daily tasks, starting with better values and better ways of interacting with each other. 

Inspired by a CELAM Document from the year 2000, For the Construction of the Civilization of Love, I propose that we start 2018 by saying NO to individualism, to consumerism, to the absolutizing of pleasure, to intolerance and injustice, to discrimination and marginalization, to corruption, and to all forms of violence. 

Instead, I invite you to say YES, with your words and in your deeds, with your attitudes and behaviors, to all forms of life, to love as a human vocation, to solidarity and to freedom, to truth and to dialogue, to participation and integration, to the permanent construction of peace and to respect for others, for differences, for cultures, and for the environment.

I invite you, at the beginning of this NEW YEAR, to prioritize human life over any other value or interest, to give primacy to the person over material things, to give priority to ethics over technique, to the testimony of life over discourses and doctrines, to service over power, to the worker over the job, the company or the capital, to the transcendent over all attempts to absolutize the here and now of the human being. 

I invite you to build a New Year that is NEW for the NOVELTY of our lives. There is much we have done, but much more we need to do to build hope in the midst of the despair that challenges us daily.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - NEW YEAR, NEW LIFE!

Those whose lives we cannot ignore...

There are men and women whose lives mark -- for the good of all -- the history of humanity. There are men and women whose lives set a standard for every person's life. Men and women who, through their words and in their deeds, leave a legacy of good, who improve the lives of everyone on Earth; among them are Gandhi, Francis of Assisi, Paul of Tarsus, Martin Luther King, Theresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela, Einstein, Da Vinci, Aristotle, Marie Curie, Diana of Wales, Einstein, Muhammad, Buddha, Gutenberg, Confucius, Qin Shi Huang, Tsai Lun. JESUS OF NAZARETH is counted among them.

In December, Christians around the world celebrate the CHRISTMAS feast, the Nativity or the Birth of Jesus of Nazareth. This celebration does not correspond with an exact historical and chronological date. Christians, for whom Jesus of Nazareth is acknowledged to be the Light of the World (Jn 8:12), sought to make the birth of Jesus of Nazareth coincide with the feast of the Sun God in the Roman Empire, which today corresponds with our Christmas holidays.

About 2,017 years ago, Jesus of Nazareth was born in Palestine, which was inhabited by the People of Israel of the Old Testament and a colony of the Roman Empire in the time of Emperor Augustus. Most certainly, Jesus was born in a small village called Bethlehem (Mt 2:1ff) in a manger, about two hours away on foot from the capital, Jerusalem. His parents were named Joseph and Mary. Jesus grew up in Nazareth as a person among his people, as a son, a carpenter, a neighbor.

When he was about 30 years old, Jesus took to the roads and immersed himself with the peoples of his land (Galilee, Judea ...) to preach (Mt 4:23) the Good News that all men and women are children of God, who is the Creator and FATHER in heaven, and who is good, compassionate, and merciful. He preached that we are all BROTHERS, CHILDREN of the same Father, called to live in LOVE, as the only form of relationship between people and as the only mandate for those who, henceforth, would be called his disciples. He preached a commandment of LOVE (Jn 13:34) among human beings that emanates from the recognition of God’s LOVE for us that is concretized, especially in truth, in forgiveness and in the service of one another. He preached life in LOVE that makes us better human beings and that makes the experience of living and coexisting in society and in the world better and more livable.

He joined together with some friends, fishermen like him. People -- especially the simple, the impoverished, the marginalized, the known sinners -- followed him because they admired his "authority" (Lk 4:36), that is, the consistency in the way he lived and what he preached, between his words and his deeds, in contrast to the hypocrisy of others. Living in the love of God, whom he confidently called "Abba," or "Father" (Lk 11:2), he consoled, healed, and liberated. Those who approached him found in him "a force," that of the love of God himself, which gave them "life in abundance" (Jn 10:10).

Jesus lived his life doing good (Ac 10:38), as a man faithful to the Father and faithful to the human condition. He was a free man who, in defiance of the laws of his time, preached mercy and justice; who, facing the ostensible worship of God that neglects the human being (Lk 10:35), opted for love and the worship of God in his brother, especially in the most needy. He was a man free from ambition and greed, (Lk 12:15) free from fear (Mt 10:28) and public opinion, free from hatred and resentment, free from attachment to riches (Mt 6:24) and free from adulation (Lk 13:32) to the powerful.

Accordingly, he was killed by hanging from a cross (Jn 5:18). After his death, his first disciples, beginning with a transformative experience through which they proclaimed themselves new men and women living the same life that the Master himself had lived and preached, confessed the Risen and Living Jesus (Mt 28:6) in the midst of the Christian community and Christian life, of every Christian.

For Christians, the life of Jesus -- through love -- reveals the face of God, for "he who has seen him has seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). For 20 centuries, the Son of God has been confessed. Indeed, not a day passes in which names, events, or acts are unrelated to the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. His impact is of such magnitude in the story of humanity that history is divided into years and centuries before and after Christ.

For all this, we Christians are preparing to celebrate, once again, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the one to whom we confess our "Way, Truth and Life" (Jn 14:6). This is a celebration that, despite an infinity of extraneous manifestations – decorations, lights, trees, cards, gifts -- must be lived, above all, within (Mt 6:6) every human being who recognizes God as Father, who recognizes himself as a child of God, who is capable of recognizing everyone as brothers, who seeks to live according to the plan that God has for every man and woman who comes into this world.

This is God's plan, a plan that Jesus of Nazareth designed and continues to design with his life and gospel: a new style of man and woman capable of living in the love of God given and provided to all in a life lived as a gift (Mt 10:39) and in service to others, especially those most in need of God's love in the world, so that it is always CHRISTMAS.

Receive, Give Thanks, Give…

Thanksgiving is a holiday that is celebrated around the world, in places as diverse as Canada, the Caribbean, and Liberia. As a national holiday in the United States, it is celebrated annually on the fourth Thursday of November.

The historical origins of this holiday involve "giving thanks" to the Divine for a bountiful harvest and the blessings of the year that is ending. The holiday’s origins also include English traditions dating back to the Protestant Reformation that emerged as a reaction to the large number of religious holidays in the Catholic calendar.

In the United States, the Thanksgiving tradition dates back to 1621, to Plymouth in today’s state of Massachusetts, where members of the Wampanoag tribe helped 102 pilgrim colonists by giving them seeds and teaching them how to fish. Over time, this celebration has become one of our most anticipated and joyous holidays.

Historical evidence suggests that, in other present-day American places like Texas, Virginia, and Florida, similar ceremonies of "thanksgiving" were celebrated, some by Spanish explorers, even before that first Thanksgiving in Plymouth in 1621.

The common thread, of course, is gratitude – the emotion that is aroused when we recognize and appreciate in everything that is, in everything we have, and in everything that surrounds us, the goodness of life. Gratitude is the recognition and appreciation of all that is given by and received from a loving and transcendent presence that we call God, or from those who are dearest and closest to us, or from so many who anonymously contribute to the greater good.

For this reason, we can say that gratitude is an essential, original, and spontaneous emotion, corresponding to the grace and benevolence of God and of life; it is gratitude that encourages and gives us strength to continue living, trusting, loving, and sharing.

Gratitude is an emotion inherent in human nature that produces in us the joy of living, waiting, and sharing "without cost, what we have received without cost" (Mt 10:7-15).

THANKSGIVING DAY is, therefore, a deeply human celebration that gives us the opportunity – together with those most beloved to us – to acknowledge how much we have to be thankful for and how much we can give on a personal, family, social, and national level.

The historical achievements of this Nation, earned through the labor and perseverance of its inhabitants, have made the United States the most prosperous country on earth. Today, we enjoy a very good quality of life compared to many other countries. This opportunity for prosperity has made the United States a safe haven, a beacon of light or land of promise to which so many men and women came and continue to arrive in search of a better life and who, with their cultural wealth and labor, enhance the present and future of this Nation.

The greatness of this Nation depends on, and will always depend on, our common purpose to care for and give thanks for the inheritance that we received from those who preceded us on this soil; while we must work to create the legacy we will leave to future generations, hoping that those who are born here and those who come here will continue to find reasons to give thanks, to love, to share, and to wait... Our greatness today compels us to care for our values, nature, institutions, and the current social infrastructure so that future generations may also experience gratitude.

Recognizing that we have so much to give thanks for, we are compelled - at the same time - to give, to share, to serve, to be supportive so that those most in need in our society and in the world have the opportunity to give thanks. Thus, gratitude becomes a permanent celebration and, above all, an everyday, common, and national attitude.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

How to fix Obamacare

HEALTHCARE advocates for the poor let out a collective sigh of relief when attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went down in flames. But the story is far from told. Legislators on both sides of the aisle agree that Obamacare, as the ACA is better known, needs significant re-engineering to become economically sustainable.

Criticism, particularly on the part of conservative legislators, is focused on the cost of the plan’s expanded Medicaid provisions. The critics have a point. The established administration of Medicaid-funded healthcare is inefficient. By some estimates, waste and corruption cost U.S. taxpayers close to $140 billion a year, some 12 percent of the program’s total budget.

Lawmakers eager for a solution need look no further than a revolutionary Medicaid reform program in New York State, designed by state Medicaid Director Jason Helgerson and championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who secured $7 billion for the five-year initiative. It’s called the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program. 

This jargon-laden moniker obscures a highly innovate formula for healthcare reform. Gone is the traditional fee-for-service Medicaid model that compensates the health care provider for tests, office visits, and procedures. In sharp contrast, DSRIP shifts to a value-based payment (VBP) model in which the doctor or healthcare system is paid according to the long(er) term health outcome for individual patients.

It makes sense! Health care providers are rewarded for keeping patients healthy. This means the provider—in keeping with the medical calling, it should be added—invests time and energy in comprehensive, holistic, preventive care – ensuring patients follow medical directives, take their medicines, keep their appointments. Suddenly, the patient is at the center of the equation.

At the end of its five-year run, in 2020, DSRIP is on target to reduce unnecessary hospitalizations by 25 percent, which will represent a savings to New York State taxpayers of $12 billion. Reducing avoidable emergency room visits and hospital stays is precisely the fruit of comprehensive, holistic care. Today, it is all too common for Medicaid patients to fall through the cracks and wind up in the ER at great cost to the system not to mention the patient. Let us not forget that we are talking about real people, human beings whose illness and suffering carries its own, often-overlooked cost.

At this writing, the DSRIP program—after 30 months of laying the foundation of a complex infrastructure of clinical care models and performance measuring tools—has entered the second half of its five-year mandate. Since April 1, all 25 so-called Performing Provider Systems (PPSs) are being measured by the state according to performance targets and clinical outcomes. Encouragingly, in the first two years of the program, PPSs earned 95.78% ($2.53 billion of a possible $2.64 billion) of all funds.

It is important to note that NYS Medicaid Director Helgerson’s vision goes beyond the strictly medical and behavioral health factors that determine the well-being of a Medicaid recipient. His goal for healthcare transformation is to also address the social determinants of health. He asserts that successful, long-term reform of the Medicaid system means that, as he put it, the “healthcare sector must embrace a broader role in the communities in which we serve.” 

Research has amply shown that non-medical factors have a significant impact on a person’s health. For the bulk of vulnerable and poor Medicaid recipients living in urban settings, social or environmental conditions have a huge effect on physical and mental health: poor living conditions, pollution, crime, unemployment, lack of access to healthy foods. The list goes on.

The U.S. lags significantly on this front—even though it is very clear that neglecting social determinants of health is costing the country billions of dollars a year. In Helgerson’s vision, the primary care physician, the neighborhood doctor of old, is at the center of a coalition of service providers with expertise to address the gamut of a patient’s needs, medical and otherwise.

One notable stumbling block is the relative shortage of primary care physicians, particularly in lower-income areas. Across the board, less than 30 percent of U.S. physicians provide primary care, compared to well beyond or close to 50 percent in Canada, France, and Germany. Millions of Americans lack access to a primary care doctor, the very person who could play a central, comprehensive role in their health and well-being.

On this score, Advocate Community Providers (ACP) stands out as the only physician-led PPS in New York State. ACP’s vast network of 3,500 providers includes 1,400 Primary Care Physicians and 1,700 specialists who practice in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. What’s more, many live and work in the same neighborhoods as their patients—patients with whom, in many cases, they share the same ethnic background. Cultural competence is strongly emphasized by the DSRIP protocol and strongly embraced by ACP.

These neighborhood doctors know their patients intimately and understand the social and environmental factors that impact the household. They are committed to the comprehensive well-being of their patients, their families, and the communities at large. This rehabilitation of the role of the family doctor is driven and encouraged by the Value-Based Payment model, as it promotes a holistic approach to healthcare reform.

Such could be the next chapter for America’s healthcare reform, with individual states or the federal government adopting a Value-Based Payment formula to improve the quality of Medicaid care, even as it reduces waste and fraud. Making the considerable investment in a nationwide DSRIP program has the potential of truly enormous savings down the road—savings that in turn could keep Obamacare premiums for non-Medicaid insureds in check. Such radical reform should be able to garner bipartisan support.

Finally, to dream even bigger, why couldn’t the for-profit insurance companies who are part of the Affordable Care Act work with their providers and also introduce—not to say enforce—a Pay-for-Performance formula? Monies spent in the best possible way and savings achieved will benefit all parties—patients, first and foremost, but also providers, insurance companies, and the government. For the business-minded party in charge of the Administration and Congress, truly smart reform of Obamacare at all levels should be a no-brainer.

Comprehensive, holistic care will keep Medicaid patients healthier

It is the story of summer 2017 and a nation’s differences are laid bare as Congress struggles to formulate an acceptable law to replace the Affordable Care Act. Are the proposed replacements “mean,” or do they not go far enough? How do leaders reconcile the practical drive to slash the nation’s public health care budget with the repugnant (and politically unattractive) prospect of leaving at least 22 million fewer Americans without health insurance coverage?

How do legislators come to terms with proposed Medicaid cuts that would jeopardize health care for more than 70 million people—among them children, the elderly, people with disabilities and pregnant women—by 2026?

There is no doubt that health care expenditures in the United States need to be curbed; compared with other industrialized nations, we spend the most per capita but deliver inferior care. Medicaid as we know it has been prone to waste and fraud. However, simply cutting the health care budget will only worsen the situation for those at the lower rungs of society. These are the men, women and children our government is dutybound to provide for, and to do it well.

True reform—a goal apparently lost in the partisan bickering—would be to get smarter about exactly how health care dollars are spent, so that costs can decrease even as the quality of care improves.

A revolutionary experiment underway in a handful of states is aiming to do just that. California, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Texas have authorized versions of the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program. At its heart is the value-based payment formula, which stipulates that health care providers are compensated based on their patients’ longer-term health outcomes rather than the volume of services provided (that is, transactions such as office visits and tests).

The D.S.R.I.P. model—executed in New York State by 25 performing provider systems (also known as P.P.S.’s)—incentivizes health care providers to keep a close eye on their patients’ progress, monitor adherence to medical directives, assess mental health factors and empower patients to self-manage chronic conditions. The objective is to prevent 25 percent of unnecessary hospitalizations, which, at the end of the program’s five-year mandate, is projected to save New York taxpayers $12 billion.

Imagine such a strategy implemented in all 50 states; the Affordable Care Act’s drive to cut Medicaid spending could be achieved even as the quality of care improves. This is truly the best of both worlds, satisfying both patient advocates and budget hawks.

The visionary behind D.S.R.I.P. is Jason Helgerson, the Medicaid director of New York’s Department of Health, who passionately argues that we must take into account the social determinants of health as well as a patient’s medical condition. On this score, the United States lags behind other developed nations that recognize the significance of these factors in providing health care to the poorest citizens.

Social determinants include patients’ housing situations as well as their economic, employment and educational status. In many cases, they are also affected by the criminal justice system. These nonclinical issues directly impact physical as well as mental health, and they should be taken into consideration as part comprehensive health care designed to produce lasting results.

Case in point: A recent briefing for P.P.S.’s by the New York State Department of Health on housing issues reported that indigent households often choose to pay rent over buying food; this is a practical decision but one with serious health implications, particularly for young children. Rent and housing instability is shown to put mothers at a 200 percent higher risk of depression. There is also the impact of mold, lead paint and pest infestations. As a recent study by New York University’s Furman Center showed, an increase in “poverty concentration—the extent to which poor New Yorkers are living in neighborhoods with other poor New Yorkers” compounds the impact of a troubled housing situation as a social determinant of health.

In the vision of Helgerson—who likens the D.S.R.I.P. model to a start-up driven by venture capital—the neighborhood-based primary care physician becomes a true community leader who engages local leaders and activists in the areas of housing, employment and education to form community action teams. Their mandate is to make comprehensive resources—both medical and nonmedical—readily available to the poorest Medicaid patients in order to ensure their long-term flourishing.

Comprehensive, holistic care is the solution to keeping Medicaid patients healthier, taking control of chronic illnesses and avoiding expensive emergency room visits and hospitalizations. Such comprehensive care is commensurate with respect for the human dignity of each and every human being. Our nation’s political leaders should commission research into the social determinants of health and refocus their attention on health care reform that provides states with incentives to being truly smart and innovative in how public health care funding is spent. Billions of dollars can be saved while millions of lives are lastingly improved.

Health of Latinos in New York City gets mixed scorecard

THE NEW YORK CITY Department of Health and Mental Hygiene just issued its first-ever report on the state of mental and physical health of the city’s Latino population. Some 2.4 million strong—and representing more than 20 countries of origin—Latinos account for almost one-third of the city’s population. Puerto Ricans account for 30 percent of the Latino population, with Dominicans and Mexicans forming the next two largest contingents. 

The report notes that a disproportionate number of Latino New Yorkers live in poverty — more than half compared to one-third of non-Latinos. Far fewer Latinos earn a high school diploma or go to college. More than 50 percent of Latinos in New York spend more than 30 percent of their monthly income on rent, leaving insufficient funds for food—particularly healthy foods, like fruits and vegetables—clothing, and health care.

As a result, many thousands of Latinos live in conditions and confront circumstances that are impediments to good health and access to quality healthcare.

One of the report’s most surprising findings is that Latinos as a whole have a lower premature mortality rate than non-Latinos. Specifically, when it comes to the leading causes of death—heart disease, cancer, and the flu—Latinos have lower death rates than New York City’s non-Latinos. The study also reveals that Latinos are less likely than non-Latinos to smoke and are more likely to have a mammogram and flu shot. This is where the good news ends.

Sad to say, some 22 percent of Latinos do not have health insurance, compared with 9 percent of non-Latinos and 13 percent of all New York City residents. Compared with their fellow New Yorkers, Latinos are more prone to suffer from chronic conditions such as obesity and diabetes.

Nearly one-third of Latinos are obese, compared to 20 percent of the rest of the city’s population, while 17 percent of Latinos struggle with diabetes—and many end up dying from the disease—as compared to just 10 percent of non-Latinos. As measured by Latinos’ reports of mice and cockroaches in the home—which, the report says, are “known asthma triggers”—more than 50 percent of Latinos are at risk of asthma compared to 31 percent of non-Latinos.

Illustrating cultural differences across the Latino communities, the study shows that Puerto Ricans are more likely to have negative health-related outcomes. Puerto Ricans are outliers in terms of smoking ¬ – 25 percent report smoking vs 12 percent for Latinos overall and 15 percent for non-Latinos – and are more likely to consume one or more sugary drinks per day, which is a key contributor to obesity. The prevalence of asthma among Puerto Ricans is nearly three times that among non-Latinos in New York City.

The study also found that Latino immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for more than 10 years are more likely to suffer from “adverse outcomes” in health when compared to Latinos who have immigrated more recently. What’s more, U.S.-born Latinos are more likely than Latinos born abroad to consume one or more sugary drinks per day. This finding too calls for further investigation to explain this striking and curious discrepancy.

Given the report’s findings, it is obvious that healthcare providers responsible for serving the Latino community of New York City must take into account a host of environmental, cultural, social, as well as mental and emotional factors, in addition to strictly medical considerations. It is clear that the bulk of Latinos are eligible for the provisions of Medicaid. Yet, that system as it has been functioning traditionally has been falling short.

A unique experiment underway in New York State is offering hope. Launched in 2015 with a five-year mandate, the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program is moving Medicaid-provided medical care away from a fee-for-service model and toward a Value-Based Payment (VBP) system. The DSRIP objective is to save New York State tax payers billions annually through a reduction by 25 percent of unnecessary hospitalizations.

That goal can be reached by keeping patients healthier in the long-run—and patients are kept healthier thanks to a closer relationship with, in particular, their primary care provider, a bond that is developed, nurtured, and encouraged by the VBP system. That system incentivizes doctors—aided by their staff and Community Health Workers—to keep closer track of their patients, to get to know them better, to take an interest in their family life, their living conditions, their job status, their economic condition; in short, to become familiar with the totality of their circumstances.

The new research indicates that fewer Latinos (76 percent) report access to a primary care provider than non-Latinos (87 percent), with only 57 percent of Latinos of Mexican decent reporting such access.

Cultural competence is a key requirement for the 25 so-called Performing Provider Systems (PPSs) in New York State operating under the DSRIP mandate. Among them, Advocate Community Providers (ACP), operating in New York City—and serving in particular Latino, African American and Asian communities—is the only physician-led network, in contrast with the other PPSs that are hospital system-based corporations. A majority of ACP doctors work in the very neighborhoods where their patients live; and they often share the same cultural background and speak the same language. Those factors make possible the establishment of an authentic, intimate patient-doctor relationship.

Through DSRIP, these neighborhood physicians are transforming their practices to deliver better quality, more efficient, more comprehensive care – which is essential to closing gaps in access to care in underserved communities. The vision is that primary care providers—a new, contemporary iteration of the old-fashioned family doctor who is easily accessible to all people in the neighborhood—have a chance to delve deeper into the lives of the people care for. They can discover, for example, what kind of cultural factors distinguish Puerto Ricans from other Latinos, cultural predispositions that make for certain behavioral patterns that can adversely affect people’s health. These predispositions, or cultural nuances—can be addressed, probed, even corrected, just as behavioral or cultural traits among recent Latino immigrants that are beneficial for health can be examined and held up as a model for other Latinos.

It is to be hoped that the Report — “Health of Latinos in New York City”—will encourage city and state officials to examine still more closely all the determinants—social, medical, and cultural—that affect the health of New York City Latinos and, in future, the factors that impact the state of health of other minority and population groups in the city.

Genuinely close attention paid to the health and wellbeing of people – rather than patients who by definition are ill in some way or another – is the hallmark of truly smart healthcare. The future of healthcare reform will be smart in the sense of data-driven intelligence fueled by carefully kept, comprehensive individual Electronic Health Records—as well as smart in the purely human sense, in the form of both a common-sense and more studied understanding of what make individuals behave the way they do, what circumstance they must cope with, and how their health benefits or suffers as a result.

Thanks to its visionary leadership and in collaboration with New York State Department of Health officials, ACP has begun laying the groundwork to continue to support this network of independent physicians even after the DSRIP program ends in March 2020 through a for-profit entity, called, appropriately enough, Somos, Spanish for “we are,” or rather: “we stand, as in ”we stand with the poor.”

For the sake of the common good, the unique, transformative, indeed revolutionary DSRIP formula—that turns doctors into community leaders—simply must find a way to continue in a sustainable, commercially viable way.

Click here to download a PDF of the report.

In Chile, the world’s first mobile shelter for the homeless makes its debut

A HIGH-RANKING Vatican official, known to be a conservative in doctrinal matters, recently confided to a visitor that—even as Pope Francis continues to come under fire for a perceived lack of clarity when it comes to Church teaching—what really is winning him over is the Pope’s steadfast love of the poor, his insistence that a Christian’s first duty is to love his or her neighbor who is suffering.

This duty to love the poor—the mentally or physically disabled, the outcast, the stranger, the homeless, the person at the margin of society—was the theme of Pope Francis’s first Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, the “Joy of the Gospel.”

“Works of love directed to one's neighbor,” the Pontiff wrote, “are the most perfect external manifestation of the interior grace of the Spirit… [and] there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.”

More and more, local Churches around the world are taking their cue from this papacy’s deeply pastoral emphasis, developing more programs that allow those who have much to share their bounty with those who are deprived.

On that front, Archbishop Fernando Chomali of Concepción, Chile has launched a unique initiative: a mobile shelter—called Alberguemóvil La Misericordia, the “Mercy Mobile Shelter.” The archdiocese raised money from local businesses, automotive designers,

 and trade unions to outfit a passenger bus with four beds, a couple of showers, and other amenities. The mobile shelter pulls up every evening at the city’s Independence square and opens its doors for the homeless.

Volunteers make sure the visitors are taken care of and graciously received into an atmosphere that treats them in accordance with their human dignity, offering them kindness and respect. “More than providing a service,” said Archbishop Chomali, “we deliver dignity.” He insists that the unique mobile shelter is not merely a “favor” to the city’s homeless, but that it represents “a labor of justice.”

He continued: “They say that we are a developed country, but there are people on the street,” and it is a Christian’s duty to make up for the gap that separates rich and poor. That perspective echoes Pope Francis’ insistence that, ultimately, the Church is called to help “eliminate the structural causes of poverty and to promote the integral development of the poor.”

 

That major effort, says the Pope, goes hand-in-hand with “small daily acts of solidarity in meeting the real needs which we encounter.” The Mercy Mobile Shelter does its part and does so remarkably effectively. One of the mobile shelter volunteers, Natalia del Pino, a university student, said that the shelter team welcomes the homeless “with simple warmth,” adding that “it’s not hard to enter.” Undoubtedly, the Mercy Mobile Shelter will be a particularly strong draw on cold nights.

Luz Clarita, who takes advantage of the shelter’s hospitality, reports: “Here, they tell us stories. And they listen to us.” Ana, another visitor, stresses: “we feel very fortunate and give thanks to the Archbishop.” A local news show reported that the Mercy Mobile Shelter “connects a great number of people who are ready to help” with homeless men and women, who are “seeking just a few hours of comfort, a hot shower and some sleep.”

The concept of a mobile homeless shelter may well catch on in major cities across Chile and beyond its borders. One can even imagine such an approach in major urban centers in the United States. The Mercy Mobile Shelter also has great symbolic value in impressing upon passers-by to do something personally to relieve the plight of the poor.

Again, as the Pope has written, “almost without being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own.”

The Pope makes the case that, as the poor “know the sufferings of Christ … [we] need to let ourselves be evangelized by them.” In Concepción, Chile, the Mercy Mobile Shelter is a modest flagship for the fundamental thrust of this papacy.

Archbishop Chomali’s groundbreaking initiative makes manifest the message of the Church’s first World Day of the Poor, scheduled for Nov. 19, 2017, with Pope Francis proclaiming: “We are called, then, to draw near to the poor, to encounter them, to meet their gaze, to embrace them and to let them feel the warmth of love that breaks through their solitude. Their outstretched hand is also an invitation to step out of our certainties and comforts, and to acknowledge the value of poverty in itself.”

The “Mercy Mobile Shelter” video is only available in Spanish.

Hispanicity and its Challenges

At this time each year and through an act of Congress, we celebrate HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH.

Hispanic Heritage Month is dedicated to recognizing the presence of Hispanics and "everything Hispanic" in the life of the United States of America. It is an annual opportunity to congratulate ourselves as Hispanics and to recall our historical and cultural origins. Above all, it is a magnificent opportunity to reflect on the presence of the Hispanic community in the fabric of this great nation, a great opportunity for Hispanics to remember our past and review our present as we plan our future in the United States.

Hispanics now number 58 million in the United States, which makes us 20% of the voting population. Politically speaking, we are a community that should wield decisive power and influence in the course and destiny of this American society.

However, these figures do not correspond with an evaluation of our achievements of Hispanics in the United States. Despite our numerical strength, we still do not have laws that protect Hispanics in this nation. We have achieved neither laws nor institutional and state frameworks that advocate for the virtues and values ​​proper to Hispanics, amid an increasingly materialist, consumerist, hedonistic, utilitarian, pragmatic, and individualistic culture.

It is, then, during HISPANIC HERITAGE MONTH that we ask ourselves, dispassionately and honestly, about the cause of our shortcomings, the reasons why our numerical presence does not correspond to our relative importance, influence, and power in the broader framework of American society.

The causes of our low productivity, too-few accomplishments, and negative perceptions as an Hispanic community in America are not to be sought outside ourselves. Within our Hispanic community, we find disorganization, lack of political formation, a pronounced absence of leadership, divisions, and ignorance of ourselves and of the cultures of the countries from which we came – all of us who here are called, generically and globally, Hispanics. We find a lack of interest in the common good; a lack of identity or loss of identity; lack of a global Hispanic agenda; lack of knowledge of our essence, identity, or homogeneity and, in addition, a lack of knowledge of the cultural essence of those who are distinct from us, that is, of the American society.

These shortcomings aggravate the challenges we face as Hispanics in the United States. Add to these difficulties a new external challenge: the rethinking of immigration in general, and for Hispanics in particular, that comes from what we can call the "Trump Phenomenon." This rethinking is a genuine threat to our presence in this nation. And, because we are not properly prepared, we do not respond in solidarity, with one voice, or even correctly; instead we skate, babble, whine, or, as we say in our lands, we respond with “patadas de ahogado,” or the kicks of a drowning man.

It is important that we address and resolve these challenges. It is very important that, living in and integrating ourselves into this society - without assimilating ourselves - we succeed in offering, here and now, the best of our origins and our past, the best of our history and our cultures as Hispanic nations. It is very important that - in an American society increasingly postmodern and increasingly exhibiting the characteristics described above - Hispanics rescue, for example, the value we place on family life and health care.

As Hispanics, against the ‘absolutization’ of pleasure, against  discrimination and intolerance, marginalization, indifference, silence, and all forms of malaise that generate violence, we must offer and privilege love as the first human vocation; democratic forms of participation in societal construction; permanent efforts to build solidarity and peaceful justice; respect for the richness of those different from us; respect for human life over any other value and interest; the importance and primacy of people over things, of being over having, of ethics over technique, of the human being and his work in business and capital, of service over power; of the transcendent over the temporary, transitory, and transient.

Family and health are, here and now, potentially at risk of being subdued and devoured by the postmodernist principles of the dominant culture and against the principles of our Hispanic cultures. In the field of health, a utilitarian and mercantilist interest is evident rather than an interest in solidarity and human service.

This present moment in humanity and, in particular in this nation, challenges the Hispanic community in the United States to marshal the strength of our numbers and, above all, acknowledge the magnitude of the issues within the Hispanic community itself.

Congratulations on this month celebrating Hispanicity. We wish you much encouragement and thoughtful, coordinated efforts in the task of effecting change in the United States, not only by our sheer numbers, but also in the beneficial effectiveness of our presence in North America. Onward!

Easter, for Abundant Life

Lack of life purpose. Vices and escapism. Family separations, abortion. Economic, food and housing instability. Unemployment. Lack of economic resources, education, or training to get ahead. Social stratification, inequality, and social injustice. Epidemics and pandemics, inability to access social health systems. Old age unprotected by social security systems. Administrative, political, and governmental corruption. Poor quality of public services. War, violence, crime. Migration movements, displaced persons. Natural disasters. Just a few elements in a wide range of personal, family, and social evils and conflicts that represent, in short, a thousand forms of death or what has come to be called a CULTURE OF DEATH.

At this time of year, the Catholic Church celebrates the founding event of Christianity: The profession of faith by which the Crucified Savior transformed life for the first witnesses, men and women; a transformation through which these so-called first Christians proclaimed Him RESURRECTED and LIVING in their midst, and which started their personal and communal experience as children of God and brothers and sisters of one another.

For two thousand years, from those first witnesses of the public ministry of Jesus, from the conflicts that this ministry caused him, from his judicial and passionate trial and death on the cross, until today, Christians profess their faith in the Crucified Jesus of Nazareth living in every Christian and in every Christian community that lives the same life that Jesus himself lived and taught.

This profession of faith in the Resurrected Savior implies, at the same time, a belief that the definitive and ultimate message that God, the Father, delivered on the life of Jesus of Nazareth, acknowledged as His Son by the Christians, was one not of death and failure, but instead one of LIFE – indeed, ABUNDANT LIFE, (cf. Jn 10:10) eternal life, full life, happy life.

Christianity, in general, and every believer in Christ, in particular, has – as the foundation and main profession of faith – religious certainty and commitment that favors life over death in the thousand forms in which death is manifested. The entire life of Jesus of Nazareth, His Gospel, and His way of relating us to God (as children) and to others (as brothers and sisters), His life and His teachings are testament to Christianity as a proposal-protest in favor of life, abundant Life and, therefore, we could say, the programmatic-doctrinal foundation and lifestyle (personal and communal) that encourages what we can call a CULTURE OF LIFE (as opposed to the aforementioned "Culture of Death").

Our personal, family, and social lives pass by, it has already been said, in the midst of a thousand forms of death. Each one of us (personally and socially) suffers from shortcomings, longs for better living conditions, hopes for better days of greater justice and equity, days of abundant access to social opportunities, times of greater solidarity, freedom, and brotherhood. We all long for "the new heaven on the new earth." We would say that this is the hope that defines our present and that motivates our existence and our daily life.

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST encourages this hope because it encourages the need for better education, housing, and health systems; greater levels of equity and justice, a greater search for the common good in the administration of justice and public funds. The Resurrection of Christ, also called, CHRISTIAN EASTER urges us all to commit ourselves to a better, kinder world, more humane, more fraternal, more solidary, more livable.

This CULTURE OF LIFE, based on the experience and profession of faith in a Creator God and in the abundant Life in the Resurrection of Christ, and by Him, with Him, and in Him, in our own resurrection must be demonstrated especially in the societies in which we mostly call ourselves "Christians," although our public experience of faith is celebrated in religious congregations with different denominations.

In other words, the manifestations of the Culture of Death are contradictory and scandalous in societies where – as in our case – we predominantly profess ourselves publicly to be "Christians," because these manifestations clash and contradict God's fundamental mission in Christ, His Resurrection, which is an abundance of life, against the abundance of death.

If we live our profession of faith as "Christians" in the midst of situations where life is precarious for some relative to the abundance of a few; if while millions live poorly or subsist while minorities swim in extravagance; if government decisions do not seek good for all and – with them – we are building persecution, inequality, disunity, divisions, discrimination, and intolerance; if – in the end – we still fail to build a more humane world for the fraternal and just, then our religious experience is false because it is hypocritical, because we construct personal and social environments that contradict the beliefs, principles, and values of the Gospel of the Life of Jesus Christ.

Christian Easter, for the Resurrection of Christ, is a time for us to examine our personal and family commitments and our fruits as an American society. Time for us to ask ourselves if the fruits and values with which we are designing the construction of our society - populated mostly by "Christians" – correspond coherently and authentically to the mission and culture of the ABUNDANT LIFE for all that emanates from the Gospel.

I conclude here with an invitation: That our professions of "Christian" faith and our "Christian" worship finally manifest themselves in "Christian" social institutions, structures, and relationships in favor of LIFE (in all its expressions) and against Death (in its many forms). HAPPY EASTER!

Health Care Reform Must Become a Strictly Non-partisan Objective

The American public has been treated to a sad spectacle in recent weeks. With the fate of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) hanging in the balance, the country’s political leadership—from the President on down—engaged in an off-putting war of words and partisan sniping. All the players clung to unbending ideological positions, exhibiting a stubborn determination to seek political advantage.

Utterly lost in this first chapter of the battle for healthcare reform under the new Administration—the first of many political skirmishes, undoubtedly—was the fate of millions of poor or relatively poor Americans. Their access to quality healthcare depends on what their representatives in the nation’s capital manage to come up with. Their well-being, not politics, should take center-stage. The duty and high calling to serve the common good—as inscribed in the country’s founding documents—should guide legislators on both sides of the aisle.

Sadly, things are off to a very poor start; and with the battle for tax reform looming large as the next showdown in Washington, D.C., it is to be feared that genuine healthcare reform may get lost in the shuffle. As a result, the ACA, for better and for worse, will hobble onward for the foreseeable future—continuing to protect some, while raising the financial burden for many others as premiums rise and the pool of insurers shrinks, not to mention a host of other unresolved, compounding difficulties dogging the program.

On a practical note, it must be remembered that the ACA was not solely the invention of the Obama Administration. The pursuit of providing healthcare to the legions of uninsured Americans dates back some 30 years, to the efforts, however imperfect, of the First Lady during the first Clinton Administration. The simplistic, jingoistic slogan “repeal and replace” badly fails to do justice to the complexities involved. Still more seriously, such an approach overlooks the urgent needs of the ultimate beneficiary of any reform: vulnerable and needy Americans of all backgrounds.

It is clear that the ACA bears improvement. All stakeholders—legislators, insurers, drug companies, medical device makers, health care providers., as well as the American people at large—are in agreement that there is a need for a certain repair and degree of transformation. However, common sense and a focus on the common good should guide the necessary process—not self-serving partisan politics that play fast and loose with the physical, emotional, and mental well-being of untold numbers of ordinary Americans.

Medical Mission in Dominican Republic

The Dominican Medical-Dental Society once again organized a medical mission in Dominican Republic. This year, 120 doctors assisted, including 30 dentists, 40 surgeons, 20 optometrists, 30 pediatricians.  The medical mission took place on the outskirts of the city in a neighborhood called “La Nueva Barquita”, recently inaugurated with new homes for low income families. More than 4000 surgeries took place during this mission. Over 6000 people approached the mission to request medical assistance.

Click here to view photos.

The Bible in America—reasons for hope, cause for concern

Recently, Pope Francis—speaking both figuratively and literally—suggested that people keep a Bible on hand to consult with the same alacrity with which they turn to their smartphones for entertainment, news, or keeping up with the goings on of friends and family.

For sure, there are plenty of Bible smartphone apps that make this a reasonable and practical idea for just about everyone. In terms of outreach to millennials and teens, such tools are golden. At the same time, the Pontiff put his finger on a troublesome issue that is, or ought to be, a concern for Christian Churches of all stripes: Engagement with and appreciation of the Bible as the objective embodiment of the Word of God is declining across the West and across all age groups.

This trend is true in particular among those who rarely attend worship services or have stopped going to church altogether. It is especially the case, of course, for those—young and old—who regard the Scriptures as simply man-made storytelling or, still worse, as a source of oppression in terms of homophobia and other forms of alleged denials of human liberty.

The Barna Group—in partnership with the American Bible Society — has performed an extraordinary service with its publication of “The Bible in America: The Changing Landscape of Bible Perceptions and Engagement,” a compilation of comprehensive research that is the fruit of 14,000 interviews with American adults and teenagers over the past six years. The study features extensive demographic segmentation, from teens to baby boomers and seniors, recording the views of both believers and non-believers, churchgoers and “de-Churched” believers, with respondents belonging to the Catholic tradition as well as to both the mainline and non-mainline Protestant Churches.

These findings, derived from an extensive and highly nuanced probe of attitudes and perspectives regarding the Bible and its role in private and communal life, should prove to be a power tool for American Church leaders in their urgent task of stemming a definite and alarming decline in Bible engagement in the United States.

Let’s be clear: love and use of the Bible has remained steady among Church-goers and committed believers. In fact, thanks in part to a revival of the ancient practice of Lectio Divina among both Catholics and Protestants—a method, ultimately, of reading the Scriptures as a gateway to contemplative prayer and mysticism—the Bible has become still more rooted in countless people’s lives.

Much credit and deep gratitude go to the American Bible Society  for giving me the opportunity to produce a multi-lingual series of Lectio Divina manuals during my extremely fruitful years heading the ABS Catholic Ministries department. Though Catholics continue to trail Protestants in Bible engagement, the Catholic Church has made huge strides since Vatican II.

Yet, the Barna research sounds a dire warning: in 2016, the number of American “Bible skeptics” has grown to 22 percent, with the percentage of “Bible engaged” Americans standing at 17 percent. Back in 2011, just 1 in 10 Americans was skeptical of the Bible and 45 percent of respondents confirmed that “God regularly speaks to them through the Bible.” That is a huge shift, although one tempered by the finding that, in 2015, 61 percent indicated that they “wish they read the Bible more.” In 2016, 53 percent of Americans believed politicians could do a better job “if they read the Bible more often.”

Nonetheless, the Barna research finds there is a decline in Bible engagement in the U.S. that is most dramatic among the young, millennials and teens in particular, especially the un-Churched. In his preface to the study, Jason Malec, managing director of ABS’s Mission U.S., does not mince words. Confirming that the Bible “has had a more profound impact on our culture than any other book,” he warns that “if the current trends continue, the Bible will certainly lose its place as our leading culture-shaping factor.”

Barna Group President David Kinnamon attributes the decline in use of the Bible and an attendant drop in Bible literacy to increased skepticism about the “origins, relevance and authority of the Scriptures” and, according to what he calls “a new moral code,” more people (even including Christians) who “embrace self-fulfillment as the highest good.” This orientation makes the culture more resistant to Bible-based faith that espouses “God’s moral order leads to human and societal flourishing” rather than an all-consuming pursuit of self-determination and self-improvement.

On the bright side, Kinnamon notes that “digital access” is a boon in the form of “new tools and technologies that are making the Bible… more accessible than ever before.” Of course, access without accompanying education and guidance is no guarantee of a deepening of Biblical faith and engagement.

“If these trends hold steady,” the report warns, “there will be continuing downward pressure on the number of people (especially young people) who see the Bible as sacred” and the source of the deepest wisdom about life and the nature of ultimate reality. The heart of the problem is that, “increasingly, Americans are rejecting external sources of moral authority, both spiritual and civic.” Still, “2 out of 32 millennials and 7 out of 10 teens hold an orthodox view of the Bible,” the report finds. Yet, lack of time prevents one-third of millennials who practice their faith from reading the Bible.

The study presents a checkered landscape. Again and again, problematic findings are punctuated by hopeful signs. For example, 68 percent of U.S. adults “strongly or somewhat agree”—whether they regularly read the Bible or not—that the Scriptures are a “comprehensive guide to a meaningful life.” Notably, this conviction is strongest among African Americans, stronger among women than men, and strongest—not surprisingly—in the South, and weakest on both the East and West Coasts.

Despite the contradictory findings, the report notes that “many Americans seem to experience little cognitive dissonance between their acceptance of the new moral code [endorsing the pursuit of self-fulfillment] and their view of the Bible as a guide for life.” One could argue, of course, that these particular respondents’ actual grasp of Scripture—beyond a broad, if vague sense of appreciation for the Bible as a patrimony of Judeo-Christian civilization to be valued and respected—is rather superficial.

What can compel people, regardless of age, to seek greater engagement with the Bible? When asked, the number one response is coming to an understanding that reading and studying the Bible is “an important part of my faith journey,” followed by a “difficult experience in my life” and a “significant” event in life, such as marriage or the birth of a child.

For ministers, pastors, and lay catechists, these are teachable moments that must be seized proactively, windows of opportunity to demonstrate the power of Scripture that often quickly close again. Church leadership must be more vigilant than ever before. Above all, writes ABS President Roy Peterson, the teachers of the flock “must be actively engaging” the Bible themselves, “creating daily opportunities to be shaped and guided by God’s word of life.” Only then will they “become living witnesses to the power of Christ to transform the human heart.” Meanwhile, the Barna Group and American Bible Society have given Church leaders a formidable arsenal of actionable research.

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