Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Letter to Cigna Health Care

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So, I got a letter from my health insurance company—Cigna Health Care—with a questionnaire about one of Melissa’s health insurance claims. Apparently, the company was concerned that the pathologist from Melissa’s surgery in January might have been dealing with a ‘pre-existing condition’ (though, apparently, the surgeon, anesthesiologist, and hospital room that all filed claims for the same surgery passed without inquiry).

Let me know if you think my cover letter on the questionnaire response gets my point across . . .

Dear Sir or Madam:

In response to your inquiry of 4/29/2010 regarding the above referenced claim number, please find our response to your Pre-Existing Condition Questionnaire enclosed.

Please note that Melissa has been a Cigna customer for several years without interruption. The only change in that time has been a one-time switch from her employer’s Cigna plan to my employer’s Cigna plan. This change occurred with no interruption; in fact, there was an about 1-month overlap of coverage between the two plans.

I would respectfully suggest that any further inquiries regarding Melissa’s medical history, or inquiries relating to her ‘prior creditable coverage,’ be referred to your own company records and not to us.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Scott Bradford

For the record, just because I opposed the particular health care reform plan passed by Congress doesn’t mean I think the system doesn’t need fixing. . . .

Presidents Are Entitled to Their Appointments

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In writing my brief report about President Barack Obama’s (D) appointment of Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court, I discovered that she had been appointed to the federal judiciary once before by President Bill Clinton (D). The appointment, toward the end of Clinton’s presidency, was not acted on by the Republican-controlled Congress. After the end of Clinton’s term, President George W. Bush (R) made is own appointment for the still-vacant appeals court position that Kagan had been appointed to.

This is a long-standing point of contention of mine with both of our political parties: the Constitution requires that the U.S. Senate give its ‘advice and consent’ to the president when he makes political appointments (Article II, Section 2). When the Senate filibusters the president’s nominations or otherwise delays or interrupts or stops the appointment process, it is skirting its Constitutional responsibilities. Every presidential appointee, Republican or Democrat, is entitled to a plain, prompt up-or-down vote in the Senate. Period.

There are plenty of valid reasons for the Senate to not give its consent to a particular appointee: if an appointee is legitimately unqualified for their intended position, for example, or if they have shown poor professional judgment or a lack of respect for the Constitution. But in all cases, they should be permitted to make their case before the Senate and all Senators must vote yes or no for whatever reasons they might have. The objections and ‘no’ votes, however, are then public record.

Luckily, appointees to the Supreme Court rarely get hung up for too long . . . but I would advise the Republicans in the Senate not to harp too much on Kagan’s lack of judicial experience, since the only apparent reason she doesn’t have judicial experience is because the Republicans running the Senate in the 1990’s failed to perform their Constitutionally-mandated ‘advice and consent’ duty.

Obama Appoints Kagan to Supreme Court

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President Barack Obama (D) has nominated Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court to fill the vacancy being left by Justice John Paul Stevens when he retires later this year. She will be Obama’s second appointment to the Court, following his 2009 appointment of Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan is the first Supreme Court appointee with no experience as a judge since William Rehnquist was appointed as an Associate Justice by President Richard Nixon (R) in 1971. Rehnquist was later elevated to Chief Justice by President Ronald Reagan (R).

Kagan had been nominated to the U.S Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by President Bill Clinton (D) in 1999, however the Republican Congress skirted its Constitutional duty to act on her nomination before the end of Clinton’s presidency. President George W. Bush (R) later nominated John Roberts to that position, and then later appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

Currently serving under Obama as Solicitor General of the United States, Kagan is charged with representing the U.S. government before the Supreme Court. Previously, she had served as Dean of the Harvard Law School and was an Associate White House Counsel under Clinton. Her ideological position is generally being characterized as ‘liberal,’ although with no judicial record to her name it is very difficult to determine with any certainty.

Assuming her nomination is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Kagan is expected to join the court when it begins its next session in the fall.

Catholicism and the Book of Acts

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Msgr. Charles Pope writes on the Archdiocese of Washington blog about the Council of Jerusalem (as recorded in the Book of Acts) and how important an influence it was on the early formation of the Church—and how the Catholic Church, at least, still functions today.

When my non-Catholic Christian friends ask why I became Catholic, my shortest and pithiest response is, “Because I finally actually read the Scripture.”

Years ago I sat down and read the entire Bible, beginning to end, Old Testament and New. It took about six months. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was in the wrong religious community, and hoped that reading the Scripture would help lead me where God really wanted me to go. It worked; though the path it led me down was one I’d have never expected before-hand. The church history recorded in the Book of Acts, more so than anything else in the Scripture, led me to the Catholic Church.

In the Methodist tradition I was part of at the time, denominational decisions are made by democratic conferences of lay and clergy. Some of the faith communities I’d been looking at with interest were ‘congregational’ in structure, where individual churches are essentially autonomous and there is no hierarchical authority of any kind (the Baptist churches are among the most prominent in this tradition). Acts, however, painted a very different picture of how God’s church is supposed to be structured.

At the Council of Jerusalem, recorded in Acts, the elders (Priests) and Apostles (Bishops) gathered in Jerusalem under the leadership of St. Peter (Pope) to figure out how to handle one of the earliest controversies in the church: Was Christianity a sub-set of Judaism, requiring adherence to both traditions, or was it something new that did not require adherence to Jewish practices like circumcision and the dietary laws?

The Council decided, under the guidance of the Holy Sprit, that Gentiles (non-Jews) would not be expected to follow the Jewish traditions to become Christians. The Council then informed all Christian churches that existed at the time of their decision via letters and personal visits, and all churches and all Christians in the world were expected to abide by the Council’s decision. A hierarchical Church as a spiritual authority to which all Christians must be obedient is not some mythical fiction made up by Catholics; it’s all recorded right there in the book of Acts!

I recommend reading Msgr. Pope’s blog entry, as it goes into much more detail than what I’ve covered here (complete with copious references back to the Book of Acts). God bless!

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.