At least in the U.S., the patient is told they have cancer: in Japan, it is never mentioned, even after death.

This is a social, economic and political issue.

The social: death is not talked about in the U.S. Everyone is going to live forever, why talk about it, besides, it is an uncomfortable discussion and we certainly don't want to upset anyone's feelings.

The economic: It has been estimated the cost of caring for someone in a hospital during the last two weeks of their life is 10 times the cost of dying at home or in a hospice.

The politics: Death Panels, Death Panels, Death panels. we heard this over and over and over during the Health Care debate. This actually goes hand in hand with my social reason. If we are uncomfortable talking about death, let's politiciize death so we can stall/halt health care legislation.

There will need to be a re-write of how we deal with the end of life in the West. It is NOT okay to extend life at all costs, societies cost. I am not opposed to someone spending their money to stay alive, probably in a coma, for an extra two weeks. Don't spend mine.

It is more efficient, in terms of level of care and cost of care, to provide palliative care in the last stages of a cancer that can not be cured. Most people are afraid of the pain during the final stages, I am. We need to let our doctors manage the pain with the tools they have, and that should include morphine and, yes, heroin. Let's get the DEA out of our end of life health care.

This is not rationing health care. It is using our health care $$ wisely. If we can shift end of life $$ to curing early stage cancers agressively, then on the whole, everyone will be for the better.