This is good to do for its own sake, but on a large scale it does not decrease health care costs: it makes people live longer, but they will still ultimately need the kind of end-of-life care where the majority of health care costs come from. Those costs don't go down for healthier people, and it might even increase health care spending on net if it takes people longer to die.
I know it’s easy to say but you do hear stories of families going to extraordinary lengths for an elderly loved one to give them a couple months of low quality of life. Is it the family trying to feel better or hoping for a miracle, or the patient themselves; I’m sure it’s both, but I can’t help but think if we were more comfortable with death, these really costly situations would go away and suffering would actually be reduced. I know it’s easy say and it sounds like I’m advocating for death, and in a way I am, but we all have to go. If your quality of life is so terrible… I’m also a hypocrite because I think that when it will be my turn or my parents’ and I have to decide, I’ll tell them to do everything possible within their directives.
Totally agree. Just in those cases where death in the next month is inevitable and significant suffering is guaranteed, I guess to me (right now) it’s more about acceptance and mercy.
