Good news and bad news.  My PET/CT scan and yesterday’s endoscopic ultrasound confirmed the cancer is gone.  Obviously, that makes me very happy.  But the bad news is, now that I will be around hopefully for several more years I will contribute to the increase in health care costs, worsen the deficit and become a burden on society.  I now have to live with the Republican guilt trip they have laid on us seniors for years and have really ratcheted it up during this election cycle.  You know the pitch, we seniors suck up too much government money with our expectations that we collect the Social Security we paid for, we like Medicare but we cost the government too much and we are screwing up our grandchildren’s future.  Since I have been personally and totally immersed in the health care system for most of this year I think I can speak with some authority.  First, Medicare is good and it works.  I know the Republicans will go ballistic on this point, but we would be far better off with a single-payer government-run health insurance system.  Before the right wing dings start screaming, universal health care does not equate to socialism.  Every democracy but ours has it.  Second, there are drastic flaws in Medicare which I have seen firsthand but they can all be fixed without turning it over the insurance industry.  I have lived in countries that have universal health care and the insurance companies still make tons of money. The Republicans say the richest country in the world can’t afford to provide health care for its citizens.  The truth is they don’t want to provide health care for all Americans (Mitt can tell you how many freeloaders we have).  I suppose it would make Paul Ryan happy if people like me just died and stopped wasting taxpayers’ money.