Background: Relatively little is known about neonatologists' roles in helping families navigate the difficult decision to attempt or withhold resuscitation for a neonate delivering at the threshold...

The cost of health care in the United States has important generational considerations whether analyzed at a point in time, or over many years. The budgets of governments contain important information about the funding of public services, including health care, and the intra- and inter-generational implications of both the inherent tradeoffs, and the particular means of funding the services. End-of-life expenditures, while a significant component of the cost of health care, are not the primary consideration in the ethical or moral (...) questions raised. (shrink)

In this essay I ask the reader to consider the “end of life” as a life stage, rather than as a health state. At one end of the life course is childhood and at the other end is elderhood. The basic inter-generational social compact in most societies is that working adults take care of their children and their parents, and count on their children to do the same for them. In developed countries, these obligations are met in part through government (...) programs, with taxpayers funding significant portions of education, health care, and income support. (shrink)