“Are you saying that the majority of people will, in fact, be hooked up to a dialysis machine when they have perfectly functioning kidneys?”

“[... Y]our comment has as much relevance as my dog's healthcare choices.”

You'd be the surprised person. Not only with information or learning, but with any claim to logical facility.

There are _plenty_ of young and middle-aged people on dialysis and the population of these people as well as the elderly (senescence, diabetes, hypertension) is growing exponentially.

[sigh]

Oh yeah – pretty much everything has been said at one time or another. Who has mentioned it in passing regard to the ongoing healthcare debates? Was there a serious discussion on capital hill recently that I missed? No, I didn't think so. And since the discussion was all about the ongoing health care debate…your comment has as much relevance as my dog's healthcare choices.

I'd be careful about tossing that “ignorant” word around. It can get stuck in unexpected places.

You are ignorant about dialysis, but the general idea you're presenting is easily and widely understood…

“There is a time when the only reasonable thing left to do is die. … No one wants to be the first to say this out loud, of course.”

It's been said out loud for ages, and even put into practice already, such as by a hospital ethics committee or a similar structure that aids the doctors (family members are excluded) in deciding on refusal to treat (and allow someone to die) due to “futility” (the key condition, more broad than but primarily involving end of life by the elderly).

Surprise. The typical onset of disability doesn't happen until after age seventy, which has long been what should be the new retirement age (including for government retirement programs; even if earlier retirement is permitted, “full” retirement should be age seventy). Some have advocated indexing the retirement age for longevity and health status, which is sensible.

* * *

“What’s lacking is a truly coherent, universal, well funded effort by the federal government working through states, schools and employers to do what’s needed.”

Normal adults don't want a totalitarian system that requires “lifestyle improvements,” controls one's diet, exercise, mandates these things, and so on, i.e., constant effective parental (maternalistic or paternalistic) control by government. And if all things originated from Washington, that really is spooky.

For too many, these represent needless costs. There is a time when the only reasonable thing left to do is die. As a person of faith, I don't fear this point (but I'm not rushing towards it, either). Given the fact that most of us don't know enough about medicine to determine when we, or a loved one, has reached this point, medical personnel have to have the ability to pull the plug, so to speak.

No one wants to be the first to say this out loud, of course. There's no point on the political scale that is perfectly comfortable with using political power to determine when life should end.

I was reading an article about health care reform when my train pulled into the station. The platform was crowded. I looked around. It took just one quick….