Some while ago the New York Times carried an article by Bob Goldman that proposed Life Panels for the very elderly. These would be groups of friends and professional people with the legal authority to ensure that a person near death actually gets what they have asked for in a nursing home or hospital.
End of life medical costs are huge in comparison to the more modest cost of treating younger people, often running at $100,000 a year or more for the elderly sick. Even a Living Will will not protect you in hospital, because the judgment of the doctors override it when it comes to the mental capacity of the patient. Part of the reason for the reluctance of doctors to pull the plug is the fear of subsequent legal action. This fear is overcome because a Life Panel would take full responsibility and would be be protected from prosecution, deciding on the use of intravenous morphine or a fentanyl patch according to the request of the sick person, thus allowing him or her a timely and respectful death.
We are all living longer, and must face the consequences of this fact. Right-wingers and Roman Catholics, who take the view that all life is sacred, regardless of age and circumstance, might reflect on the huge cost of end-of-life procedures to Medicare, the National Health Service and other national health organisations and the reduction in tax that would result in the adoption of Life Panels.
Epicurus believed that life should be a pleasure, not a torment to aged sufferer and to family. He would approve of Life Panels.
The Pew Research Center found that Blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely to insist that doctors do everything possible to stave off death, even in the face of incurable disease and great pain, because, if they do not, they would be implicitly be saying that they did not believe in the power of God to heal. Hospice care is overwhelmingly used by non-Hispanic whites, because they are not convinced that hospices are going to do their best to keep their patients alive. Few blacks and hispanics write Living Wills. Thus it is that, for religious reasons, the taxpayer had to stump up for the excessive costs of medical care for near-to- death patients.
It would make more (Epicurean) sense to spend this money on Blacks and Hispanics when they are young and need an education and a fair start in life. Throwing money at them in old age makes no sense at all.