Incentives get very tangled when strangers are in charge of caring for frail people who may be experiencing cognitive decline. People around the world embrace the convenience and freedom of lives without a passel of needy relations who require lots of care.I'll bet a survey would find a majority would much rather die outright than spend any significant time in a nursing home. They are dreary, smelly places in which sad old hulks are warehoused to await the final breath.
But we ourselves are only here because someone put years of effort into keeping us alive ... and most of us will need someone else to do so at the other end of our lives. The state can do many things. But it cannot produce those people itself. It cannot really substitute for them, either.
Our treatment of elderly sick pets is more humane, by far. An injected overdose of anesthetic brings sleep, oblivion and an end to suffering.
These are matters of which none of us nearing the end of life much wants to be reminded. As Miss Scarlett was often heard to say in Gone With The Wind, "I'll think about that tomorrow."
