Jim;

Are you cruel, vicious and unfeeling? I'm not, but I agree with you and I'm sure I'll be thought of as such.

I feel for the unfortunates I see around me but, exposure to the world's suffering, starving masses brings home the impossibility of saving everyone, no matter how well intentioned we are. Those who understand this are in the end more helpful than those who feel all must be saved.

The roots of today's health care cost crisis lie in the various state and federal indigent care mandates. Every body dragged into a hospital must be treated, no matter how medically trivial or hopeless, no matter how many times that body has been dragged in before, perhaps for exactly the same self-inflicted injury, no matter how unlikely that body will ever pay for treatment. That simply means the rest of us pay for said treatment. My insurance broker tells me prior to the Affordable Care Act 60% of the population of this state had no health insurance. My significant other tells me indigent patients made up more than 60% of her case load. She also said they were the most demanding, and most expensive patients to treat and the cause of almost all hospital security problems.

Decades ago the world's best health care was affordable to almost any American. My mother was treated for cancer at the Mayo Clinic, and my father, who made about twice minimum wage and supported a family of seven managed in less than a decade to pay off that bill.

If doctors and hospitals were only required to treat those who could pay for treatment the cost of said treatment would drop dramatically. Yes, some people would go untreated and would die at an earlier date than had they been treated but, the benefits to society would far outweigh the loss of the people untreated.

Ever been on a ship in distress? The watertight doors tell you there are circumstances under which some will not be saved because the effort to save them would cost the lives of all on board.

Drugs should be legal, and overdoses should be fatal.