A couple days ago, the people I work with were sitting around the breakroom table. The boss, who shows the signs of a hard life lived as well as he could, was there; and so were two recent high-school graduates who are in the same junior college; and the fiftyish woman from Holland. The topic of health care costs came up.

"Is it better to go broke trying to fight a disease, and end up on assistance, or not to seek care and die, leaving your family behind?" the woman from Holland asked. "Me, I wouldn't fight it."

"What it boils down to," said the boss, "is we have to address the very basic question of how much we are responsible for each other. And I won't get into that." The boss wears a cross around his neck and is probably Republican, but is also a very Christian sort of Christian, always looking to give people second and third chances.

"We need socialized medicine," the woman from Holland said bluntly. "In Holland everyone gets it all. Here you need to be rich."

I put in, "What would happen to any of us if we needed, say, a heart transplant? What are we supposed to do if we get seriously ill?"

One of the junior college students spoke up. This is the future of our nation speaking here, and I fear we must listen to what he has to say. "We will have to get used to dying again," he said. "In the past, if you got sick, you died. Babies died. Children died. Young people my age died. Now people think only the old should die, and doctors should do whatever expensive heroic measures they have to keep us alive, and we need to get out of that attitude. Look at the art of the plague years, people knew about death then and they were used to it. We just have to get used to it, too."

There was some silence, and then the woman from Holland spoke again. "We need socialized medicine, but nobody in this country will go for it."

"It's easier," said the junior college student, "to get used to dying."

Tucker