Over my dead body!

I'm gonna get serious on your ass!

Just read this on the BBC site:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/5271032.stm

Its a interesting article as touches on something I have never managed to form a solid opinion on - what lengths should we go too in order to preserve human life. On a practical level, there are too many of us and certainly too many in Britain to sustain at the level we want to be, given the level of taxes and the amount of beurocratic waste that there is. How do you come to a conclusion over how much should be spent to prolong a life for one year? Can they still contribute to society to justify it or should it be done no matter what on the grounds that every life is as important as the next? Should children be given higher priority than the elderly?

Its impossible for anyone to reach a consensus on it I reckon. I would like to say that I think we are too concerned with prolonging life at any costs and given the over population of the world, we are not helping matters along. But at the same time I know if it was someone I cared about, I would be outraged and devestated if I found out they were going to be left for dead over money.

Perhaps its time we wised up to the fact that at the moment, the NHS is not sustainable. Firstly get rid of a few layers of managers, consultants and all the other invented positions that I am sure are not really able to justify their wages. Next, perhaps we need a two tier system, still have a free NHS but also make everyone take out an NHS health insurance that pays out for the cost of treatment if its going to cost over a certain level. I dunno if thats fair either, but it seems the current system aint working...on many levels.