Different ideas were in play then, and different circumstances applied.  Very different.

Today, we have the technological ability to extend life far beyond what most would consider a meaningful quality threshold, and our health care system does that reflexively, at enormous cost.

To be sure, we need checkpoints for avaricious beneficiaries, predatory body part merchants, misguided angels of mercy and a variety of other potential players.  But we need to get to work on these issues soon, before the cost of dying becomes the cancer that chokes our health care system, and our state.  Baby boomers are now starting into their 70's.