All life is sacred; there is no question about that. However, the reality of the impact and cost to society of spending 40 percent of all Medicare expenditures on the last two years of life seem clear to me (“As China thrives, U.S. debt grows with age,” Opinion, George Will, Feb. 5).
I fully understand the pain of losing a loved one, but, as the saying goes, “death and taxes” are inevitable. We as a society and individuals need to accept those two facts — the sooner the better.
In the vast majority of cases it is not appropriate to use extraordinary measures and spend exorbitant dollars to extend an individual’s life for a matter of months; especially when, in many cases, that time is spent in an intensive care unit bed and the quality of life is very poor.
The dollars spent on a brief extension of life could be of much better use if applied to research and solutions into critical issues (medical research, education, renewable energy, defense, to name just a few) that will have a real and lasting impact on our entire nation, not just a small group of people. As a nation we can no longer afford to squander our collective resources in this way. The sooner we realize this and make meaningful changes, the better.
Maj. Greg ErtelCamp Arifjan, Kuwait