Critics fret that health care reform would undermine American family values, not least by convening somber death panels to wheel away Grandma as if she were Old Yeller. But peel away the emotions and fearmongering, and in fact it is the existing system that unnecessarily takes lives and breaks apart families. My friend M. - you’ll understand in a moment why she’s terrified of my using her name - had to make a searing decision a year ago. She was married to a sweet, gentle man whom she loved, but who had become increasingly absent-minded. Finally, he was diagnosed with early-onset dementia. The disease is degenerative, and he will become steadily less able to care for himself. At some point, as his medical needs multiply, he will probably need to be institutionalized. The hospital arranged a conference call with a social worker, who outlined how the dementia and its financial toll on the family would progress, and then added, out of the blue: ‘Maybe you should divorce. ‘I was blown away, M. told me. But, she said, the hospital staff members explained that they had seen it all before, many times. If M.’s husband required […]