I’ve had two lines of thought this week on The Long Way Home. The only thing that ties the two lines together is that they both focus on our country’s near-term future.
The first is the role of federal judges in tempering the current and future administrations’ excesses.
As a baby boomer, I learned about the US government in our Civics class. Remember those?
The Constitution created three co-equal branches of our federal government: legislative, executive, and judicial. After living under a regime where the King of England had absolute power through decrees (executive orders) that bypassed the will of his legislators and judiciary, the framers of the Constitution wanted to prevent any branch of the government from accumulating excess power.
Since ratified in June of 1788, there has been a constant struggle as one or more branches try to exert more power than the others.
My recollection of the introductory lesson in high school was that the three branches of government were independent but equal legs of a stool that had our society, you and me, perched on it. If all three were appropriately operated, our cushion at the top of the stool would be stable and predictable.
Each branch’s accumulation, use, and abuse of political power at different times have kept us on the stool in a precarious situation.
Today, the executive has been testing the limits of its power, ignoring court orders, denigrating judges, and asserting control over the legislature. When optimism breaks through the scars of experience, the judiciary will rise to the challenge.
The legislative branch has been neutered thanks to the overwhelming power of consultants and rich people’s money. I’m convinced that if you took the spine from the 535 current members of Congress, you might have a stiff enough spine for the average red squirrel.
But the judiciary is a different story. According to information from the Pew Research Center, as of January 7, 2025, 833 active judges served in the federal court system’s three main tiers: District Court judges, Circuit Court judges, and the Supreme Court. Everyone is appointed for a lifetime, and if you’ve ever had the chance to meet, converse with, or gasp, appear before one of them, you know they consider their leg of the stool slightly above the others. And they’re not bashful about it.
A famous saying about the press is, “Don’t pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel,” a similar saying is, “Don’t enter a battle of wits with a federal judge.”
We are heading into a titanic struggle between the executive and judiciary in the coming months. It won’t be pretty.
Second line of thought.
Last October, a TLWH column described my weekend bout with sepsis, a dangerous reaction of the body to an infection.
Et tu body? That thought will cross your mind if you are one of at least 1.7 million adults in the US who develop sepsis each year.
When sepsis degenerates to septic shock, there is a 30-40% chance of death, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Thanks to excellent care in the ER in Grand Marais, the ambulance that brought me to Duluth, and the people at Essentia/St Mary’s, septic shock was avoided. I got a column out of the deal.
A faithful reader emailed and asked me to write about the expense of it all. Now, five months later, all the billing is finally in and paid—although some of it was paid with a Capital One credit card–I can get the tally out there.
This tally doesn’t include expenses for the Bohunk to get to Duluth twice, once to make sure I was still alive and again to bring me home. It does include follow-up lab work.
Before I get to the numbers, I’ll tell you that a hospital collection call informed me that I was “underinsured.” This undeniable fact made me fear for the remainder of my days insured by Medicare.
The total cost of my care, including hospitals, doctors, ambulances, labs, and pharmacies, was $35,735, an amount that would have allowed me to buy a low-priced new car.
Medicare processed all the claims and paid $16,316, about 46%, leaving us to pay $4,879— about half what I take home each year hitting the keyboard. By the time the statements arrived, the hospitals had aged the balance to 90 days. Trying to get a payment plan was a pain; thus, the Capital One credit card came into play.
There are two problems: the battle of the branches of government and the insanity of how health care is paid for. The next few years will be challenging, but hopefully, a change will come.
