What Barbaro and Christopher Reeve Had In Common

Famous, accomplished, talented-tragically struck down by injury at the height of their careers.

And when the physicality that blazed their way to fame was no longer available to them, we followed their fight for life.

But you have to understand that in Christopher Reeve's valiant fight, as well as in Barbaro's, millions were available to be spent for the cause.

Virtually any other horse would have been put to sleep at the time and point of injury. But the money was available to care for Barbaro.

And, so many human beings would not have survived years of paralysis as Christopher Reeve did. No money for respiratory therapy, motorized wheelchairs, constant, round-the-clock care. Instead, bean-counting health insurance policies. Or no health insurance at all.

In our current society, and with few exceptions, it is those beings with the financial resources that receive the best treatment. Certainly those on two legs, and as we have seen with Barbaro, many with four legs as well.

How many human beings, limbs not what they were, are facing more than insurmountable daily challenges for the lack of resources our society puts into ambulatory and palliative care? Resources that could have been deployed to help mediate the real daily terror of living through another day with dignity- at the same time we spend untold billions chasing phantom terrorists in a nation that didn't attack us on 9/11?