First few Article Sentences
Humanity has created a special place in the cosmos. Within the universe as we understand it, each of the 8.2 billion individuals on this flat Earth exists as the functional equivalent of a spec on the back of a 150-ton, 98 foot blue whale, which in turn is just another spec on an even larger animal, magnified by some exponent of a googolplex (1 followed by 100 zeros). Yet even knowing its rightful place in the universe, medical science saw fit to identify a specific mental disorder, DSM-301.81 (narcissistic personality disorder), defined as a pervasive pattern of grandiosity. DSM-301.81 may be proof that sentient beings do not exist beyond the firmament, as that which happens in and around our minds consumes all kinetic and/or possible galactic energy.
Fascinating as it may sound, this energy does little to ease the fear of a patient just admitted through the emergency department at a hospital near you. Fortunately for that same patient, he or she exists within a comprehensive regulatory infrastructure that affords the highest level of privacy in practically any industry, confers an absolute entitlement to emergency medical treatment, insists upon the delivery of a standard of care unavailable until decades into the future, and prohibits myriad ways in which reasonable financial responsibility exists. Welcome to health care 2025, one of modern society’s most cherished institutions that edges closer and closer to cataclysmic failure each day.