Sir;...Health care is rationed now, and it will be rationed after...It was always rationed, and always will be rationed...The question is not whether it is rationed, or if it should be, but whether it will be rationed fairly...Medicine for the poor, paid for by public dollars also affords a lot of health care for the middle and rich that would not otherwise be affordable to them, or to any... Since health care for the poor is now loaded onto the working class, it is also the working class carrying the rich in this same fashion... We should marvel at the good health of our rich people, and not only wonder at the life span of politicians like Dick Cheney -who most certainly has a different heart from the flawed ticker he started with, but wonder at the poor who submit to the indignity of illness, and to the impunity with which they are treated... You consider that our future health care will involve some euthenasia... I consider that the euthenasia has already begun... Women have abortions because they cannot bear to share their misery with some innocent child...This is not a user friendly society, but is one determined to kill the spirit of all those it cannot warp with its poison.... Look at how the terminal are turned out of hospitals, and into hospice, and put in the hands of their families when no positive outcome presents... Is not a death on drugs, denied food and fluids with unconsciousness a good death??? I can afford a good death for my family members... I am retired... But what of all those who must work while their people die??? How good is the death of theirs, and how sweet with resentment??? Look at how the poor eliminate each other while they neutralize themselves for a good life, euphoria...We have survival of the fittest for the poor, if the fittest can be those conceived as the most brutal and unloving...Is it any wonder that they calculate the value of life and peace in terms of some few dollars??? What else do our leaders, our politicians, our ministers, and our wealthy do than put a price on health, security, peace, and life??? The lesson we must all learn is simple enough... This land must support us all, and if health care is a necessity of life we shall have it... The government should not ever condone the profit of one on the health of another, so at a minimum it should stop allowing the marketing of addictive poison here and abroad, and it should manage the inevitable rationing of health care so it is fair, and reasonable...This society does not need exotic medicine if its sole purpose is to keep politicians and magnates lording over us one day longer... Some diseases should not be treated by society... Genetic illnesses should be treated only by prevention...Stupidity should not be supported in any fashion out of the public purse...Heroic medicine should die....And, we must stop this interminable calculation of the worth of a person, and of their life, on the amount in their bank account... The poor we wish to die, and sooner so, are only cursed with less of ruthlessness and avarice than those who make their bread out of the grain they steal...This land must support its citizens and sojourners, just as the world must...Health care is an essential of life, though it need not be an exorbitant cost for any...

With the increase in obesity starting with children and moving towards 1/2 the population of adults falling into that condition the resulting health problems will for the first time lower longevity so we will have less of the end of life medical issues but more middle age health issues such as joint replacement,bypass surgery and diabetic care . The nation will be the first to go broke due to medical cost burdens most of which would be preventable. We already spend more on health care than other advanced nations and it is because we are not as healthy. We either change our habits or continue down the road to financial failure regardless of the health care insurance govt or private.

Mr. Buchanan's concern for human life is most commendable. It's a pity he fails to consider that for-profit hospitals and insurerers are at least as likely as the dadblasted gummamint to shave costs at the expense of lives.
My father was a veterinary surgeon, and I became a surgical assistant at an early age. A Siamese cat with a tumor the size of a golfball was brought in. The owners said they had hoped it would go away, but it got bigger instead. We performed exploratory surgery. The cancer had metastasized in at least six directions, and the cat was doomed. So the plunger on the syringe of Pentothal was pushed all the way in and that was the end. The owners were heartbroken and said they wished they hadn't tried to save money by taking a chance. What would have been the best procedure with a human in that situation? Playing God isn't nice, but neither is authorizing further pain and suffering and its sometimes catastrophic expense. Doctors and hospitals must make decisions like this every day, and they also have to consider legal consequences. Sometimes a happy ending cannot be had.
What if all of us could go in and get checked when symptoms first appear? It would save money overall, not to mention misery and death. The average life expectancy in Cuba and America are nearly the same. The per capita annual medical cost, single payer in Cuba is about $250. In the United States it's over $7,000, and millions have no coverage. I'm not standing up for Communism, but something is seriously wrong here.
For further information check www.creators.com/opinion/lenore-skenazy.html for a humanitarian view and
www.truthout.org/092209a for a soberingly concise logical one.

Patrick Buchanan (August 30, 2009 Miami Herald) thinks that rationing of health care is coming. Wake up. We have been rationing health care now for decades - only in the most irrational, ineffective, and inefficient manner possible. We have had universal health care for years - again, the most irrational, ineffective, and inefficient universal health care possible where we provide little or no health care to millions and then take them in through the emergency room near death and spend thousands on their end of life care when a fraction of that expense would have given them adequate care early in the course of their disease. Irrational rationing.
Mr. Buchanan continues to traffick in fantasy and misinformation. There are no 'death panels' in any legislation and there never have been. Buchanan and Palin have made death panels up as an illusion designed to scare the public. This attack on health care reform has never been an attempt to help the public understand and discuss the issues. Rather, Buchanan and Palin appear quite satisfied to falsely 'yell fire in a crowded theater.' They apparently are quite proud of themselves to have terrorized our senior citizens with nothing more than their politically-motivated illusions.
While I am a staunch defender of free speech, I am disappointed that an otherwise responsible news organization devotes valuable space to such destructive ranting.