Health ... care? Is sanity possible?

'most any plan can provide for the health care needs of most folks.

But the 'gotchas' come in the closing acts of one's life - 80% of lifelong medical costs may be incurred in the last few years. Much of these are 'uh-oh' costs - the big, unexpected, heroic procedures that add only incrementally to one's life.

No plan can provide for everyone's uh-oh costs. They ain't that much money.

By capping each person however, the general level of uh-oh can be fairly generous as there are no $4 mil oh-my-GAWD bills lurking in the woodpile.

Oregon has done this - they rated every medical contingency, ranked, multiplied by frequency, totted up and arrived at a logical, realistic cut off point as to services that can be delivered: anyone qualifies for a broken arm repair, younger people with a longer viable life qualify for procedures (heart-lung transplant) that make no sense in an 84-year old Jewish soul in failing health.

Yeah, now let's hear it for all the poor old folks who gonna die in the de col' an' de dark. Well, for every old fart rescued from the cold and the dark, you sacrifice a dozen or twenty infants or young children with curable failings that will never be cured for a lack of funds - funds siphoned off to puff wind into whizened lungs for an additional six months.

Sure, if it's my lungs, I'll argue like hell for the operation. But I'd be incorect.

For once.