End of life care is a tragic waste of money. About 50% of the healthcare dollar is spent in the las months of a patients life. We torture 85 year olds with ventilators, central lines, surgeries, dialysis. Why? Because families want to feel “that everything was done” even though they would never want to be tortured like that themselves. And they can find lawyers that will back them up

Weird article…comments about end of life care costs then veering off into a plan whose primary proposal is to limit patients’ access to docs. Less care = cheaper care & computers will solve all our problems.

Care at the end of life will always be messy and expensive. A lot of money is spent but often at the time it’s not clear that the person is dying and that the money will be ‘wasted.’ Expanding palliative care into places like the ICU will help prevent situations like Judy’s mother’s, but as long as death is seen as avoidable and a failure, and as long as medicine feels its mission is to stop death, situations like Judy’s mother’s will continue.

–Drew. Pallimed: a palliative medicine blog

By generalizing about “85-year-olds on vents” you risk denying worthy elderly patients the aggressive care they need to overcome serious illnesses that may be curable.

Furthermore, some of these elderly may have been healthy all their lives, and prolific taxpayers to boot. One can argue that they earned the right to use “end of life” healthcare dollars if they wish to try to fight for their lives.

Here’s what happened to my father and myself when doctors didn’t care to honor the family’s wish that “everything be done” because they knew better:
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