Yes, everything you say there is true. But in the context of the article, and the parent post, we are not talking about preventative healthcare, or first lines

Yes, everything you say there is true. But in the context of the article, and the parent post, we are not talking about preventative healthcare, or first lines of treatment, or stuff that can generally fall under the umbrella of "treating people right". The context of the article is about extraordinary actions at the end of life. This is not about keeping people healthy, it is about making very ill people live a bit longer. We clearly have a responsibility to keep people healthy. There is no excuse for allowing malnutrition to just happen (though there is an 'excuse' for it to continue while we try to rid it). Those are failures. We are responsible for those. Those responsibilities are very different from the situations being discussed by the article, and what I thought that mistercow was talking about (which would be death in general).