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Does anyone really have a desire to live in their 90's? I sure don't/
Hell yes. I want my tombstone to read "Here Lies the Oldest Man to Ever Live". Generally people who live into their 90's were pretty healthy well into their 80's. It's like like the typical 94 year old has been in failing health and miserable for 15 years.
I agree with all that you say - except for the diabetes although studies do show there can be reversal of "pre-diabetes" and *some* diabetics can manage their condition to achieve low hbA1Cs without medication through diet and exercise.
To stay on point ... there probably won't be universal health care ... our cultural norms won't except it. BUT, the same personal dynamism that led folks to reach these shores to create the economic viability that led to personal success and to the world's most successful economy also leads to the migration patterns not to mention sometimes uniquely American work structures that leave many families spread far apart and impacts the ability to provide the kind of support that existed in the past - even in America.
THAT'S the crisis. That and will Medicaid survive and in what form?
But ... actually your comments on diabetes are quite on point ... for they are based on what searching for information can DO. My mom was diabetic and so a few years back I - like you - took the time to plow through the studies. My endo (I see one for a thyroid nodule) said that among his patients I (again like you) was virtually unique. Not many non-diabetics track post-meal blood sugar.
What I learned is that we are having a diabetic crises of sorts in the United States not just because of our American food/exercise patterns, but because the information provided to patients is, again, mainly crap. Diabetes is identified in the United State primarily by the quick and cheap glucose fasting tests that are part of an annual exam. By the time, an individual fails that test he/she may well have been diabetic for YEARS, and never known it.
So, yes, you are correct - postprandial measurements that a patient can themselves do relatively cheaply using the Relion monitors (Walmart) ??? is the best prevention measure. But do the health articles found on the web provide that information. No. Same thing as for the financial media porn.
Yes, see? You're right. Personal responsibility takes some work.
You don't need "studies". You see every single person who follow the documentary I cited Simply Raw, or very single person who follows Fuhrman gets THOSE reversals.
Losing weight and controlling Blood Glucose is EASY. Fixing your brain is hard.
You can read Dr. Joel Fuhrman, the doctor I follow religiously - "Eat To Live". Also Drs Cousens (Simply Raw) and McDougall. Dr Furhman has written MANY MANY books and his PBS special has been replaying all the time AND he was on Dr. Oz. His goal is to educate America. See: "Fast Food Genocide". Those Docs. reverse D in DAYS. The definition of reverse for purposes of this discussion is that your pancreas can manage your food without medical interventions. So ridiculous of me, taking YEARS to check my fasting BG and when it was 95 I was "WHAT"? He has The Fuhrman Center in NJ because he's an actual working doctor and sadly I moved out of his very neighborhood to Florida ten years ago! Or I'd be going there.
So I got a meter, Bayer Breeze2 because it has 10 strips preloaded, started testing and then re-arranged my food choices and it dropped immediately to 85. NOW it's 75 with PP never going over 100 or so. Following Eat To Live food guidelines. A miracle, actually. I took it upon myself to read Diabetes message boards. I learned that you can dramatically lower your BG if you walk 30 min after meals. At least the main meal. And that if you walk after an EARLY dinner, your Fasting is lower, too, the next morning. I learned about Dawn Phenomenon. I learned how to test Pre Meal, and PP 1 hr and 2 hrs. etc.
BUT every person in the WORLD knows loading up your cart with soda and CRAP is UN-HEALTHY.There are no excuses, IMO. But I'm sort of a black and white ideologue on these issues LOL. The only time I will vacillate is on the topic of Keto diet. While I believe Eat to Live is the ONLY way to actual perfect health, KETO has it's place. Quick weight loss and immediate lower BG. And KETO seems to be the thing for cancer, so that's good. But you get bad lipid panels and NOBODY knows the long term truth about the "fluffy particle" thing. YET. And it's totally illogical to me to cut out most of the entire greens and vegetables food group.
Yes Medicaid will survive. But there needs to be REFORM. And that includes importing people from other countries who MUST GO ON IT and can't contribute to a robust growing economy. My neighbor's sister just went on Medicaid. She had a total of 40K to her name. Ordinarily an nursing home would be thrilled to take her, contributing 40K to her care, THEN going on Medicaid.
What the the daughter do?
She had a crooked lawyer write up a fake document that SHE was her "Caregiver" retroactively to "protect" that 40K. She never did a bit of actual care-giving for that mom. She's been wheelchair bound for years living in her condo after a stroke but just got unable to be independent the past year.
DISGRACEFUL!
The government thought it was doing a "GOOD THING" allowing payments for family. What a joke. The fraud is through the roof.
There will always be criminals, right in our OWN FAMILIES.
Last edited by runswithscissors; 02-27-2018 at 07:04 AM..
Perhaps you are unaware that the USA has been socialist since 1933. That's when people embraced the idea it was a "good thing" for government to TAKE from one to GIVE to another.
Not only did glorious socialism jack up taxes, it triggered inflation, and drove up the cost for hiring labor - since you had to pay all that socialist overhead. [TANSTAAFL]
It also has an effect on employers who seek to hire "undocumented aliens" under the table (absent socialist tax overhead).
And prior to glorious socialism, privately endowed hospitals and clinics staffed by religious renunciants offered free / low cost health care. No more. They were forced to comply with the dead weight of socialism and now we have wonderful secular health care [/sarcasm].
Frankly, if we got government entirely out of healthcare, we would see a dramatic drop in cost, as well as availability.
Remember, before government criminalized the unlicensed trade in medicine, America had four times as many medical schools, and far more practitioners.
IMHO, government is no solution when it is the source of the problem.
I daresay - the people I know on Tri-care - military health care - would disagree.
As for those who hire undocumented? Look to your glorious president for that answer.
Again - you do not know what you are talking about. And if you hate the "socialism" here - I suspect you're looking to move out?
...
Yes Medicaid will survive. But there needs to be REFORM. And that includes importing people from other countries who MUST GO ON IT and can't contribute to a robust growing economy. My neighbor's sister just went on Medicaid. She had a total of 40K to her name. Ordinarily an nursing home would be thrilled to take her, contributing 40K to her care, THEN going on Medicaid.
What the the daughter do?
She had a crooked lawyer write up a fake document that SHE was her "Caregiver" retroactively to "protect" that 40K. She never did a bit of actual care-giving for that mom. She's been wheelchair bound for years living in her condo after a stroke but just got unable to be independent the past year.
DISGRACEFUL!
The government thought it was doing a "GOOD THING" allowing payments for family. What a joke. The fraud is through the roof.
There will always be criminals, right in our OWN FAMILIES.
Certainly it is outright fraud if the daughter did not do actual caregiving. There's a slippery slope, though. Cruise some websites (a substantial portion is put up by attorneys). You will be bombarded with the idea that not "medicaid planning" is irresponsible and you are foolish for not taking that route. The statutes in place are not, of course, intended for that purpose.
There's one financial group that I occasionally lurk on where the actual participants tend to have a fairly high net worth. The subject came up and sure enough led to a wide range of opinions with most active posters opposing sheltering money to qualify for Medicaid. A poll was conducted - to my surprise once responses were private only about 45 percent were in the negative, saying that individuals should spend money saved for their care. Presumably the remainder felt differently.
We are influenced by many factors - certainly in our family there was always a high premium placed on personal responsibility and simple living. When I was 18 and about to start at our local college, there was a small state stipend in place that was automatically given to every student - you just had to apply. My parents (who were not in the least wealthy nor even particularly well off) refused to sign the paperwork, saying we did not need the money and that it should be reserved for those in need. My tuition to the college was waived; I could (although I did not) live at home. Although a tad irritated at the time (for I sure could have used it for dorms and books), I've never forgotten that lesson.
Potentially interested in downstream asset protection (from lawsuits, divorce) for my daughter, I did - as I mentioned way back in this thread - wade through various options but discarded the idea finding it too burdensome. It's meant for those who have substantial assets who can apportion some for future generations. Sure, I'll be seeing an attorney (want to explore a more complicated Durable Power of Attorney) but preferred not to go in blind and so all the reading.
Still, I've been amazed at how differently folks fare - LTCi options, how Medicaid is implemented (should that ever be necessary) - depending on what state they are in. It even led me to use the word "fair." I know "centralization" is not a popular word to many but it's hard not to conclude that our patchwork system is ... a mess.
I think you misunderstand me. Not every disease is amenable to self-treatment. Even if it is, theoretically, people may not have the will to take the steps. We can all argue how we virtuously would do whatever it takes but realistically we might succeed in the short term but not long term or not even be able to at all.
It is human nature to believe that if you can do something personally then by golly everyone else should too! Of course we have imperfect knowledge of whether someone else's condition is different or worse than our own which could impact their success. And if WE fail, then it must have required a Heruculean effort that NO ONE could achieve.
That's why it is best to just do what you can, "keep your eyes on your own plate" and keep quiet. You can deride yourself all you want and make your own decisions on how much you're willing to sacrifice so you can brag about not taking a pill. Free will...with the realization that there is much we can control and much that we cannot.
Amen. I'd like to see OA controlled by diet or exercise; the latter cannot even be done except feebly.
Mostly genetics, IMO.
Generally people who live into their 90's were pretty healthy well into their 80's.
This is a statistical concept.
Said another way... even people who have been pretty healthy well into their 80's
are just as susceptible to an injury or illness as a 30 year old would be.
The issue is their ability to fight it and/or recover from it. Few can be expected to.
My folks both passed at 90. At 80 you would have thought they would go to 100
Then things started happening to each.
Said another way... even people who have been pretty healthy well into their 80's
are just as susceptible to an injury or illness as a 30 year old would be.
The issue is their ability to fight it and/or recover from it. Few can be expected to.
My folks both passed at 90. At 80 you would have thought they would go to 100
Then things started happening to each.
There was a very popular book a few years back - Younger Next Year: A Guide to Living Like 50 Until You're 80 and Beyond. Even though the title includes "and Beyond", from what I recall it too echoed the basic biology that even the best health practices tend to work less well after age 80.
And then there's all the research on telomeres (chromosome ends) and the impact of single inherited genes on aging. After age 80, it does seem like all bets are off, although for some longer-lived families the age impact can be delayed for several years.
My grandfather's family was interesting ...
A short-lived male (died of stroke in early 50s) married a long-lived female (healthy into her 90s)
They had 5 children:
Three long-lived kids (again, healthy and mentally active into their 90s)
1 short-lived child (died of stroke in his early 50s)
1 less healthy child (again, an early stroke in his 50s although he did not die until his 80s unhealthy for years due to atherosclerotic progress and eventual vascular dementia).
A big chunk of that increase in life expectancy is a result of a decrease in infant mortality. If you instead look at conditional life expectancy -- life expectancy given that you've already made to age 5, the gap shrinks; life expectancy given that you've already survived to age 30 it shrinks a lot.
And if you make it to age 60, life expectancy hasn't changed all that much. From pre-WW II when Social Security was adopted to now. For men, it's bumped 6 years from 15 years to 21.3 years.
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