30 September—Yesterday, when a leaning pile of periodicals waiting patiently for my attention fell over, among the fallen journals I found a Connecticut Magazine with a May 2022 cover date. I had rescued that magazine and most of the others in the Pisa periodical tower from one of the Litchfield post orifice’s twin undersized recycling bins, probably before the pull date. (I hadn’t read, seen, nor even thought about Connecticut Magazine since Dan Lufkin sold it, before most people were born. Now Hearst owns it.)

Why do people bother subscribing to publications they don’t read? Connecticut Magazine isn’t the Catholic Transcript, after all, that you’re automatically signed up for with First Communion. Lots of those donated to recycling, by the way.

What drew my attention to the discarded Connecticut Magazine was the related cover stories: “The future of health care” and “Top docs, over 1500 physicians in 67 specialties, as chosen by their peers.”

The future of health care? Well, it’s very promising and especially lucrative if you’re a major player in the health-care business—hospital chain (profit or tax-exempt non-profit, which is a goddamn joke), drug manufacturer, insurance company, for instance. It’s also great if you’re a professional in medicine or a related field.

But the future of health care really sucks if you’re just a customer, a consumer of medical goods and services, low man on the totem pole, bottom of the food chain, what the medical business likes to call a patient. As an honest proctologist would put it, patient, my ass.

Profit is where it’s at—even for non-profits; and customers generate profits—even for non-profits. Patients, on the other hand, are supposed to be treated without regard for financial consideration—i.e., profit. Yeah, right.

“Patients” is nothing but a term of art in the healthcare industry these days. It’s supposed to make the customers feel better all around and justify the big bucks that flow through the system. More important, it makes the practitioners corporately and severally feel all warm and fuzzy as they tally up their obscene profits.

Then there’s the exposition of the top docs as chosen by their peers. Jesus Christ, MD! Why should anybody take it seriously? Why should anybody trust physicians rating peers, i.e., rating themselves? Professional ethics don’t allow them to dump on peers in the first place, even if they’d like to. But it’s okay the other way. So if one peer wants to bribe or blow another to get a good rating, who’s to know? And who cares anyway? Except the peers.

U.S. News recently rated the alleged top hospitals in the country using presumably objective criteria and methodology, i.e., statistics of one sort or another. Yale and Hartford Children’s were the only Connecticut facilities to make the top 30 in any categories at all, and they barely rated. So what?

One of the many problems created by the internet is the incessant craving for reviews and ratings. Virtually every business online and otherwise begs for reviews. Old farts and grown-ups remember the good old days when only plays, films, and restaurants got purely subjective reviews and Consumer Reports provided allegedly objective ones.

These days, though, virtually every business entity nags and nags until you’ve submitted reviews, even some local brick-and-mortar businesses. Off-putting, to say the least.

And that’s not all. The Republican-American runs its annual “Best” competition in professions and who knows (or cares) what else. There’s a lawyer in the area—I can’t and don’t want to remember his name—who actually runs tombstone ads begging people to vote for him for best lawyer. And I seem to recall that his ludicrous ads actually work.

Unbelievable or what?