>>Another area we need to think about is when one gets to the end of their natural life.  We've now got the means in many cases to keep a person alive much longer than ever, usually at great expense.  How far do we take our ability to sustain life<<

You're absolutely correct. These questions are central to any debate on health care policy. Our technologies have advanced far more quickly than our ability to ethically administer them. And we don't deal with death very well at all. I've seen little old men with cancer nuked with radiation and poisoned with chemo until it, and not the cancer, killed them. They did it because they wanted to live and their specialists wanted to save them- at any cost. In the process of course they lost any chance for quality of life they might have had with good palliative care and support. Hospice care, by the way is the cheapest, most efficient way to provide high quality care to a dying person and can normally be provided in home.

These are huge questions and our inability, thus far, to address them has hindered our ability to formulatea cohesive national health care policy.