We didn't do everything we could, but this goes beyond palliative care. We underinvested in research. We aren't as far along as we could be, and we're moving s

We didn't do everything we could, but this goes beyond palliative care. We underinvested in research. We aren't as far along as we could be, and we're moving slower than we can. We, the voting public, are responsible for this tragedy. The US allocated just 2% of its budget to scientific research, and we elected officials who want to push it lower still. There shouldn't have been a tradeoff between quantity and quality of life. The real tradeoff was made years earlier, between research and slightly more material comfort. We chose material comfort, and she paid the price for it.