The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as ObamaCare) became law on May 23, 2010. It strives to reform the health insurance and health care industries in an effort to cut health care costs and provide Americans with affordable health insurance. The ACA also strives to expand Medicare and Medicaid to assist those Americans who cannot currently afford health insurance. As a result of the reforms, there may be a significant influx of patients into the health care system. In addition, there will be a greater focus on integrating health care services, particularly for individuals with physical and mental health conditions. It is expected that under the ACA, social workers will take a more active role in the coordination of care for existing and new members of the health care system. Social workers will also provide additional direct, frontline services to patients.To prepare for this Discussion, review this week’s resources. Consider the debate over the ACA and explore the reputable sources on the Internet for additional resources on the balanced debates over the ACA. Consider how the ACA might expand meaningful services to all Americans including children, young adults, uninsured minorities, and spouses of employed individuals. Consider one population.Post a description of the findings of your research on the debate over ACA. Explain some of the misconceptions or misunderstandings the general population might have about the ACA. Explain how the ACA may or may not increase affordability, health insurance coverage, and access to health care services for the population you selected. Explain the potential or documented influence of the ACA on medical social work practice. Describe the medical social worker’s role in clarifying the ACA to patients and families.

Conduct some online research into when and how to terminate a Human Service case and Self-Care of the Human Service Professional.Develop a 1-2 page guide for Human Service Professionals that covers appropriate case termination. Include a pamphlet or brochure on Self-care Strategies for the Human Service Professional. You may use Smart Art or shapes in Word to develop your pamphlet.The guide on case termination should include at least two scholarly sources presented in APA format with in text citations to the articles.Combine the guide and pamphlet/brochure into one Word document.

DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #1: Does personal identity persist over time? If so, what persists? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address these questions and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Self-Identity, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Texts at least once each in your Original Post.    DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #2: What does personal identity consist of?  Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address this question and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Self-Identity, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Texts at least once each in your Original Post. DISCUSSION QUESTION CHOICE #3: What does it mean for personal identity to not exist? Compare how at least two (2) philosophers / texts in part 2 address this question and explain how they compare to your own understanding of the question. Use what you have learned in the Required Readings on Sel-Identity, the hermeneutic circle of meaning in the texts you've selected, your own judgments and reasoning to make your case. Remember the requirement to quote both from the Required Readings and the Philosophical Text at least once each in your Original Post. Reply to Post #1 “We now proceed to explain the nature of personal identity, which has become so great a question in philosophy, especially of late years in England, where all the abstruser sciences are studied with a peculiar ardour and application. And here it is evident, the same method of reasoning must be continued which has so successfully explained the identity of plants, and animals, and ships, and houses, and of all the compounded and changeable productions either of art or nature. The identity, which we ascribe to the mind of man, is only a fictitious one, and of a like kind with that which we ascribe to vegetables and animal bodies. It cannot, therefore, have a different origin, but must proceed from a like operation of the imagination upon like objects.” (Hume) In this text Hume is saying that humans are much closer to animals than most realize. This makes me think that Hume would consider the whole idea of a personal identity nonsense, that humans are nothing more than our desires and instincts. I feel the same way in a sense, if it is true that our minds are a separate, nonphysical, part of ourselves, than it would make sense to say that humans have advanced in terms of the way we think so fast that our bodies have not had time to catch up. In the end, I too believe we are closer to animals than we realize; personal identity, to me, has been one of the greatest advancements for us, as individuals who come together rather than staying in a pack for survival. “personal identity, i.e. the sameness of a rational being: and as far as this consciousness can be extended backwards to any past action or thought, so far reaches the identity of that person; it is the same self now it was then; and it is by the same self with this present one that now reflects on it, that that action was done.”(Locke) In this text, I see that Locke is making the point of our personal identity being; however far back we can think to an action or thought. To me, this supports the idea of the mind being separate from the body. The fact that humans can look back at past mistakes, or successes, and build upon them for throughout our lifetime, shows me that, while still akin to animals, we have advanced so much intellectually that we think of ourselves as more than animals. I believe we are smart animals, where a lion thinks of only what it needs in the immediate moment; we humans think of what we need months or even years from now. Personal identity can be thanked for this. References David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature (1739). Text is in the Public Domain. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding (1690) Text is in the Public Domain.