Sure, and I will say the ugly truth: She might have been better off in hospice (end of life care can be rather grim and there is a reason many older Americans

Sure, and I will say the ugly truth: She might have been better off in hospice (end of life care can be rather grim and there is a reason many older Americans are terrified of the process and results) and society in general would have been better off if she died sooner in hospice care. The European system is much better because it does not hide reality from people who seem to have difficulty grasping the concept that they, and the people they cherish, are eventually going to die. Instead of giving one old lady and additional 18 months of end of life care the Euro system has the ability to make sure that basic health needs of the entire population are actually taken care of, something at which the American system fails completely. An approach based on cost effective treatment is easy to attack using cherry-picked sob stories, but overall it is a far superior system to the 'you only get what you can pay for' American approach.