Thought-provoking sentence of the day: Pneumonia, once regarded as the "Old Man's Friend," offered the very frail a dignified death.

Peter Schuck asks "Why do we keep spending on bad bets and bad apples? Healthcare is the most wasteful area for bad bets."

Now we spend millions of dollars per year offering Alzheimer's patients an abysmal existence by keeping them alive on dialysis. Opinion leaders and litigation exacerbate the problem: A leading medical journal recently attacked one of our poorest states for proposing to give extra coverage to its Medicaid patients who join weight-loss or antismoking programs - a cost-effective way to improve health and extend life.

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