James Raymond Reese

Link: http://bit.ly/15EJkZ

This story is from the London Daily Mail. It takes a look at Oregon's Assisted Suicide law because it has been touted as a model for Great Britain.

What we learn deep down in the article is that medical costs eventually force government-run health care to refuse treatment to people who need it. As the story shows, it isn't only Canada who is refusing to diagnose and treat cancer patients because of the cost. It's just cheaper to let them die.

The following is from the UK article.

"One of the great concerns about Oregon is the suggestion that the very existence of the right-to-die law means the state's health system now has less of an incentive to provide terminally-ill people with proper care.

It is something that came to blight 64-year-old Barbara Wagner's last days. Diagnosed with lung cancer in 2005, the former bus driver vowed to fight the disease so she could spend as long as possible with her family.

Even after her doctor warned last year that she had less than six months left, she refused to give up, pinning all her hopes on a new life-prolonging treatment.

But her request, at the beginning of last year, for the £2,500-a-month drug was refused by Oregon's state-run health plan as being too expensive. Instead, she was offered lethal medication to end her life.

'It was horrible,' Barbara told reporters. 'I got a letter in the mail that basically said if you want to take the pills we will help you get them from a doctor and we will stand there and watch you die - but we won't give you the medicine to live.

'I told them: "Who do you think you are to say that you will pay for my dying, but you won't pay for me to possibly live longer?"

Click on the link above to read the entire article.