AquaLatus

I gaze at the picture of the young boy.  His smile stretches from ear to ear, a happy boy holding his cherished stuffed animal.  A mischievous twinkle in his eyes that foretell the future, the future behavior from this boy as he moves through the years, as he grows from boy to man, his body accelerating faster than his good sense and good judgement.

I wonder, as do many parents, where the years went.  So many of those years have come and gone, so many chances to make a difference or to teach something, so many chance to share an experience; gone, gone, gone as the water that flows down a stream, some moments the water is smooth and tranquil, other moments the water is roiled like a tempest because of the conflict between the flowing, rushing water and the pushing, shaping, and disrupting force of the rocks in the stream bed.

As with the water in the stream that is roiled and then once again calm and smooth; such is the boy.  I, being the stone, may not have made a lasting change in the water.

But, given the force of the water, it has changed me, it has moved the stone, it has smoothed off some of the rough edges of the stones in the stream over which the water flows.

It may never be apparent that the water was changed by the stone.  But, by observing the stones it is apparent that the water had an effect on the stones.

I’ve been stuck.  I haven’t been able to get started.  I have the desire to write something.  But, I’m stuck on the nagging thought that I can’t come up with something good to write.  So, I’m trying to get unstuck and get started.

I came across this blog post with the title Make More Bad Stuff by Johnathan Fields.  Wow!  I realized that he best way for me to get unstuck is to write and not to think about writing.

This same pattern applies to anything that I want to do.  Instead of thinking about it I should do it.  One can only think about it for so long.

So, what about the problem of not knowing what to write about.  Well, you can solve that problem by writing.  I think that writing will bring up thoughts that bring other thoughts to the surface.

That’s what I’m going to try.

It is clear that health care costs will continue to take a significant part of the US GDP.  But, what isn’t clear is how to reduce the cost of health care.  There isn’t one thing that will reduce the cost to an acceptable level; it will take changes in many areas.  Health care cost reduction will not be popular because some people aren’t going to get as much money as they had before.

It’s simple.  People get money from the delivery of health care.  It could be a fee for service, a salary, or money from selling something.

If less money goes into the system then someone is going to get less than they get now.

But, that might not be the case.  Hospitals and doctors will use cost shifting to try to maintain their profits.  This will reduce the Medicare spend but not the total spend in the whole system.  Cutting costs in Medicare shouldn’t trigger more cost shifting to the private sector.

Well, it’s not going well so far. I’ve tried to reduce the amount of digital information that I consume. But, I’m finding it hard to get started.

I think I’ve found one reason why.  A recent study by Intersperience showed that 53% of Brits have developed a “Digital Dependency”.

That’s what I have; a “Digital Dependency”.

I am an information addict.  I crave viewing all of my favorite sources of information.  I jump from e-mail to google news to rss feeds to whatever the next familiar source is that pops into my head.

I am learning something from the information.  But, I’m also skimming the surface of a lot of subjects.

The internet is a great place for people with short attention spans.  We can jump from place to place and satiate our craving for that new piece of information.

I’m going to try to wean myself off of so much information.  My goal is to be more selective about what I read and how often I read it.

After all, how many times during the day do I really need to check my Twitter feed, read the news, or check e-mail.  I don’t need to check nearly as often as I already do.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve just scratched the surface of all the Spotify features. At first glance it is apparent to me that I’ll still need to use iTunes because the library in Spotify doesn’t include the same music that is available in iTunes.

Anyone that reads the news about health care costs soon gets drenched by the fire hose of information.  It is easy to forget why the debate is important and why cutting health care costs is important.

I found this quote from Paul Keckley.  I think it sums up why the debate is important and why it is important to reduce health care costs.

“So this is not about Blue vs. Red, Left vs. Right, insured vs. uninsured, plans vs. providers, for profit vs. not-for-profit, or the other notable pairings we frequently use to frame debate in this industry. It’s about the future for our country and the role the health care industry will play. It’s about all of us.”  – Paul Keckley, Ph.D., Executive Director, Deloitte Center for Health Solutions

There are four separate trust funds for Social Security and Medicare.

• Old-age and Survivors Insurance — Pays for retirement and survivors benefits
• Disability Insurance — Pays for disability benefits
• Hospital Insurance — Pays for inpatient hospital and related care
• Supplementary Medical Insurance — Pays for physician, outpatient services, and prescription drug benefits

The current debt ceiling debate is absurd. It is shifting focus from the discussion about the long term solution to the deficit.

Would there be so much discussion about the debt ceiling if the deadline didn’t fall withing an election cycle.

The debate teams are trying to propose the solutions that will give them an advantage in the 2012 elections.

Come on! Decide! And then move on to the important discussion and development of a plan to fix the deficit.

I’ve become a Twitter link router.  I’ve found that most of my tweets are either re-tweets or they are tweets that contain a link.

It also appears that most of the people that I follow are tweeting links to either their blog or to other content.  Twitter has become a source of potentially interesting information.  But, it is found somewhere else; not in the tweet itself.

So, I’m going to change my tweet pattern.  Rather than just tweet links I’m going to start tweeting original content.  It will be interesting to see if I can fit it into 140 characters.