and the concept of comparative effectiveness, here's the
neo-progressive viewpoint on health care - which, by the way is
actually part of the Obama Administration Health Care Bill.

Professor Stuart Altman of Brandeis University, tells the Senate
Finance Committee that resources get wasted in the American
health-care system, especially for one segment of the population.
Professor Altman says he’s reluctant to mention it, but why waste
money on in-depth treatment for people who won’t live long anyway?
Better to warehouse them and save the resources for the young.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsx_QILgzjc

Progressives who back this plan get offended that people with more
resources can get better care, just as they can get better housing,
better food, and better entertainment, among many other things. Like
in all other arenas, their prescription for equality of result will
mean that everyone gets treated equally poorly, and that we will
eventually start culling out the weak in favor of the strong - which
is antithetical to our society and it's foundations.

We’ve essentially returned to the eugenics arguments of the early 20th
century, a dark period of human history we should be avoiding rather
than embracing on the floor of the Senate.