Mom is back from the hospital

About two months spent in, open heart surgery, very hard and long recovery. She is still not quite herself, but the prognosis is good.

When I look back at this ordeal, I realize we've just spent 200,000. I am not a poor man at all, but I could barely afford something like this. I would have to stop spending on my kids' education, too. Thankfully, the government helped with Medicare

Nowadays, it seems, every person, after reaching certain age, is guaranteed to need this kind of spending to stay alive 10 or fifteen years longer. This kind of money would bankrupt most people, and I am afraid the government will not have any money either, in near future. We've gotten so good at medicine, doctors can literally perform miracles. For a price.

Personally, I would do whatever it takes to help my mother, bankruptcy or no bankruptcy. And in my particular case, it would probably be enough. But many people simply don't have enough resources to do what it takes. And in aggregate, as a state, much less as the whole world, we don't have enough resources to do everything for everyone. Who picks the winners? Is my Mom supposed to live longer, or someone else's? The science brings terrible moral choice - no matter what we do, someone who could live dies.

I don't care at the moment. My Mom lives.