Medicare, the US health insurance program for the elderly, spends nearly 30 percent of its budget on beneficiaries in their final year of life. Slightly more than half of Medicare dollars are spent on patients who die within two months.

The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA), which oversees Medicare spending, did a major analysis of end-of-life spending trends in 1993, looking at data for 1975, 1980, 1985, and 1988. This remains one of the most extensive studies in the field and the situation has changed little in the interim.

– Nearly one third of terminally ill patients with insurance used up most or all of their savings to cover uninsured medical expenses such as home care.
– 27 to 30 percent of Medicare payments cover the cost of care for people in the last year of life.
– 40 percent of Medicare dollars cover care for people in the last month.
– 12 percent of Medicare spending covers people who are in the last two months.
–
H 10 percent of Medicare beneficiaries account for 70 percent of program spending.

How many of these people have in reality had enough? How many, if it were it for doctors, hospitals and interfering relatives, would opt to quietly pass away without fuss? But they are not allowed to – the priests and pastors say so.

It should be a human right to die when you want to, not when someone else says so. All the emphasis is on “right to life”. Epicureans should support “right to die” for those who prefer it to being kept alive to shrive the consciences of others.
(Statistics quoted by WNET New York Channel 13)