The Politics of Death

I found this piece while looking through the Economist online. This article suggests that, with regard to the current health care debate, Americans are actually concerned about the nature and timing of their own deaths. I think that this is a very interesting take on the the current political circus going on in this country. Furthermore, this article provides a fairly balanced synopsis of the issue of health care reform and its potential impacts; I appreciated this because frankly I think political rhetoric has severely muddled the whole issue at this point. While reading this piece, I found myself considering some of this questions the article poses, such as what doctors' goals should be in their practice. More importantly, I have begun thinking more about how our society approaches age in regard to death. In other words, are people truly less "worth saving" if they are statistically closer to death? On the other hand, should people be kept from death through purely artificial means? These are huge questions that this country faces, and they certainly cannot be answered simply.