"Consider two beloved Americans: Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
Since he was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, Sen. Kennedy has had excellent care, including surgery and chemotherapy, which have kept him alive and, until very recently, active.
For a decade, President Reagan, because of round-the-clock care, lived with an Alzheimer's that had robbed him of his memory and left him unable to recognize his own family and close friends.
In the future, will a man of Kennedy's age, with brain cancer but without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept alive, operated on, given chemotherapy -- by a government obsessed with cutting health care costs?
Will a bureaucracy desperate to cut costs keep alive for years the tens of thousands of destitute 80- and 90-year-old patients with Alzheimer's, as was done with Ronald Reagan?
What if, in 2050, Palin and her husband are not here. And 42-year-old Trig, with Down syndrome, has been in an institution for years, and the cost of his care and that of hundreds of thousands like him with Down syndrome is draining the resources of the health care system?
Will there not be voices softly suggesting a quiet and merciful end?"
Since he was diagnosed with brain cancer more than a year ago, Sen. Kennedy has had excellent care, including surgery and chemotherapy, which have kept him alive and, until very recently, active.
For a decade, President Reagan, because of round-the-clock care, lived with an Alzheimer's that had robbed him of his memory and left him unable to recognize his own family and close friends.
In the future, will a man of Kennedy's age, with brain cancer but without the means of offsetting his own health care costs, be kept alive, operated on, given chemotherapy -- by a government obsessed with cutting health care costs?
Will a bureaucracy desperate to cut costs keep alive for years the tens of thousands of destitute 80- and 90-year-old patients with Alzheimer's, as was done with Ronald Reagan?
What if, in 2050, Palin and her husband are not here. And 42-year-old Trig, with Down syndrome, has been in an institution for years, and the cost of his care and that of hundreds of thousands like him with Down syndrome is draining the resources of the health care system?
Will there not be voices softly suggesting a quiet and merciful end?"
I've never been much for the whole "Camelot" mystique however it seems like JFK was the last democrat president that seemed to want to reduce taxes rather than raise them so I admire the guy for it. Ted never lived up to that level and yet the mindless lemmings people of Massachusetts kept putting him in office time and time again. I first heard of Mitt Romney through his senate campaign in which he almost unseated the perennial favorite. No special words of wisdom here. I'm sure that the professional talking heads will have something more profound or intelligent than you can find here. I just hope they paint an accurate picture of the guy and don't overly glorify someone who was every bit as human as any of us and who had his faults as well as good points.
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