Drain

Under the Nazis, there was increasing discussion of the possibility of mercy killings, of the Hoche concept of the "mentally dead," and of the enormous economic drain on German society caused by the large number of these impaired people. A mathematics text asked the student to calculate how many government loans to newly married couples could be granted for the amount of money it cost the state to care for "the crippled, the criminal, and the insane."
--Robert Jay Lifton, "The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing And The Psychology Of Genocide", page 48


"That's a tradeoff society is making because of very, very high medical costs and a lack of willingness to say, you know, is spending $1 million on that last 3 months of life for that patient, would it be better not to lay off the -- those 10 teachers and to make that trade off in medical cost.  But that's called the death panel, and you're not supposed to have that discussion."
--Bill Gates
Aspen Conference, July 8, 2010