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Mr. Obama . . Welcome To Chapel Hill . . !

As of 2015, there were actually a total of about 112 million people on either Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, or other public program (military/VA). Compare that to 178 million with either employer-sponsored or non-group insurance.

What's your point exactly? That the government shouldn't be in the business of providing health insurance? Okay. There's a solid argument for that position, but think about what you're proposing. You're talking about dumping Medicare and Medicaid recipients back into the commercial insurance risk pool. The elderly and the poor, who are two of the highest utilizers of healthcare and therefore costliest. Guess what that is going to do to your insurance premiums? The other option is for them to have no insurance at all, in which case hospitals, physicians, and other providers will end up providing care for which they won't be compensated. Guess what that is going to do to provider fees?

If you really want to tackle healthcare spending, consider this statistic. Five percent of the population accounts for almost half (49 percent) of total healthcare expenses. Go ahead and read that again. It's completely bonkers. These are typically the sickest of all patients with multiple chronic conditions.

What's more, 30% of all Medicare expenditures are attributed to the 5% of beneficiaries that die each year, with 1/3 of that cost occurring in the last month of life. We have a medical culture that is obsessed with extending life, despite all odds, because that's how physicians have been trained and what families and often patients themselves (think they) want. Having worked in hospice, I'm a huge proponent of palliative care. It's a drastically less expensive course of care, and patients and their families consistently report a much higher level of satisfaction with palliative care than with traditional curative treatments.

Anyway, I'm rambling now, but if you throw the old 80/20 rule at these two populations -- comorbid and dying patients -- then you could really start to see a bend in the cost curve. Believe it or not, the ACA actually does a lot to address the former. As I said earlier, it is ushering in significant changes in care delivery, but I understand why the average consumer is only focused on how it affects them personally.

There's some great info in that poast, thanks. And I learned a new term, "palliative care".

I'm of the opinion that if you can't afford the costs of your own care, and you can't personally get someone to cover the cost for you, then you don't deserve to get that care. Maybe that's too cutthroat, or survival of the fittest, for many to agree with. I think it rewards people who work(ed) for a living and manage their finances properly, or at least are an upstanding enough individual that someone they know will cover the cost for them.

I think that spending out the nose to prolong a sick patient's life an extra month is not wise either. That life is presumably troubled if they have a terminal illness anyways, prolonging it for not a long time at a very high cost doesn't make sense to me. Also, I think costs related to malpractice suits are too high as well, which if corrected could help lower the overall burden.
 
Also the same rag that glorified the Boston Marathon Bomber. Real winners at that magazine smdh :rolleyes:
Just like Time Magazine. Another rag that glorifies violent people.

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They're a business too. They have to sell magazines.
 
He still has me confused with his Time does not exist concept, so I feel ya there!
I think what him and others are trying to get at is that time is a human construct. A "second" doesn't exist in nature. A second is a second because we said it was. A minute is sixty seconds because we said it was. Things like grass do exist because it wasn't made by humans. You can see it, touch it, feel it. I actually find the concept intriguing.
 
I think what him and others are trying to get at is that time is a human construct. A "second" doesn't exist in nature. A second is a second because we said it was. A minute is sixty seconds because we said it was. Things like grass do exist because it wasn't made by humans. You can see it, touch it, feel it. I actually find the concept intriguing.
Oh believe me, he has explained it to me a few times and I get what you are saying. My confusion comes in with they process of aging in humans, animals and even things like food. I see things do evolve but how is "time" not part of that. It is a way to measure, yes, but I think even if we lived completely off the land and had absolutely no schedule to adhere to, time would still be part of our life. We sleep a certain number of minutes/hours each day. Oh Lord, I'm starting to confuse myself!!! LOL ;)
 
My confusion comes in with they process of aging in humans, animals and even things like food. I see things do evolve but how is "time" not part of that.
The human body is, at it's core, nothing but energy. Energy cannot be destroyed. It can only transfer into other forms of energy, so humans aren't really aging, they are just in the process of transforming to another form of energy.

We sleep a certain number of minutes/hours each day.
True, but we don't sleep because time exists. We sleep because or body tells us too.
 
Oh believe me, he has explained it to me a few times and I get what you are saying. My confusion comes in with they process of aging in humans, animals and even things like food. I see things do evolve but how is "time" not part of that. It is a way to measure, yes, but I think even if we lived completely off the land and had absolutely no schedule to adhere to, time would still be part of our life. We sleep a certain number of minutes/hours each day. Oh Lord, I'm starting to confuse myself!!! LOL ;)
But the @chick_bleeds_carolina_blue from last night when you were sleeping is no less real than you are. And to her, "then" is "now."
 
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