Opinion: Rational healthcare, not rationing

Our system is specialist-centered rather than patient-centered. And anyone who has watched a loved one die badly will tell you that sometimes specialists do too much. The state of end-of-life care in America is marked by too many treatments and too little attention to alleviating pain, clear communication between doctors and patients (or their families), and coordination among multiple specialists or treatment centers. In the quest to save lives, our healthcare system has become exclusively a disease-treatment system.