From the June 25 Los Angeles Times:
President Obama suggested at a town hall event Wednesday night that one way to shave medical costs is to stop expensive and ultimately futile procedures performed on people who are about to die and don’t stand to gain from the extra care.
In a nationally televised event at the White House, Obama said families need better information so they don’t unthinkingly approve “additional tests or additional drugs that the evidence shows is not necessarily going to improve care.”
He added: “Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”
I don’t know about you, but I do not like the idea of any government involvement at this vulnerable and ultimately exploitable stage of life. Especially when professional periodicals like the June 11 Oncology Nursing News, reporting from a research paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Phelps AC, et al. JAMA. 2009;301:1140-1147), seek to establish a link between religion and futile end-of-life-care:
Compared with persons with a low level of religious coping, individuals who had a high level of religious coping at the start of the study were 3 times more likely to receive mechanical ventilation and intensive life-prolonging care in the last week of life. They were also more likely to prefer “heroic measures”—wanting everything possible done to keep them alive. Finally, those with a high level of religious coping engaged in less advance-care planning (eg, do-not-resuscitate orders, living wills, and healthcare proxy/durable power of attorney matters) than their counterparts who did not lean as heavily on religion.
Note the president’s concern that families may “unthinkingly approve” certain end-of-life treatments, coupled with “high level of religious coping” and “lean. . . heavily on religion.” The case is being established, folks.
