Keeping End-of-Life Decisions, Our Decision

Emotions are high in the debate over the future of our health care, and for good reason. What we are discussing are deeply personal, often deeply emotional issues.

Americans are troubled by what we’re hearing from Washington because we don’t want government to dictate these deeply personal, deeply emotional decisions. Especially those decisions that come near the end of life.

Like so many Americans, I know this from personal experience.

My father-in-law recently passed a few years ago. It was a tragic, grief-filled event. But in the end, my father-in-law, his doctors and his family controlled the care he received. Not a bureaucrat. Not an impersonal panel of government “experts.”

That’s why this debate is so emotional.

The Model for End of Life Care

I think every American should have the opportunity my father-in-law had to have a conversation with their doctor about end of life care that is totally private, in which there are no standards set by the government and no fear of the bureaucracy.

We had that kind of an experience at Gunderson Lutheran Hospital in Lacrosse, Wisconsin, where my father-in-law died.

At Gunderson -- without any mandates from government -- 92 percent of patients have advanced directives setting out what kind of care they want at the end of life.

Patients are treated with compassion, dignity and humanity. Families are engaged. Doctors are allowed to do what they think is best for patients, without fearing that the federal government is looking over their shoulders.

Health Care Isn’t Politics. It’s Personal.

End-of-life care is becoming a political football -- and that’s precisely why so many Americans are fearful for the future of their health care.

Because it’s not politics. It’s personal.

And the test of any health care reform proposal is whether it gives us more power to control deeply personal decisions, or whether it takes that power away.

What follows is an article I wrote for the Los Angeles Times this weekend that explains how health care reform in Washington threatens to take us down the road to government control, and what we can do to stop it.

Read Healthcare Rationing: Real Scary

Your friend,

Newt’s Quick Links

• You can also watch me explain the benefits of private end of life care versus government imposed decisions in this video.

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Comments

By janiep @ Thursday, August 20, 2009 5:00 PM

Thanks again for highlighting the fact that bureaucrats shouldn't decide how or when people die (not that they do in any civilised country).

It is a vital question, and one that is illuminated by comparing and contrasting with the following opinion piece from a London newspaper:

"The US is the only major industrialised country that does not provide regular healthcare to all its citizens. Instead, they are required to provide for themselves – and 50 million people can't afford the insurance. As a result, 18,000 US citizens die every year needlessly, because they can't access the care they require. That's equivalent to six 9/11s, every year, year on year. Yet the Republicans have accused the Democrats who are trying to stop all this death by extending healthcare of being "killers.""

18,000. Wow. 6 9/11s every year, year on year. Wow.

By janiep @ Thursday, August 20, 2009 4:46 PM

Ginster that's a great post. I too have watched a loved one with an incurable illness approach the inevitable end. We were all of us so utterly grateful to the wonderful doctors and nurses, and I hasten to add that when it came to making decisions, there wasn't a bureaucrat in sight. That's the United Kingdom's magnificent National Health Service for you.

By ginster @ Thursday, August 20, 2009 12:00 PM

Having witnessed the death of several family and friends I have discovered that most opt not to have "heroic" measures taken to be kept alive but just want to be comfortable (no pain) when they die. Our elderly, especially, do not want to be a burden on their families and are more likely to have the DNR on file. It is a personal issue that should remain between families and their healthcare team. It is so cold and uncaring for whoever wrote that part of HR 3200 that addresses this issue. Definitely no compassion. Suffering, death, etc. is the most personal issue anyone can face and the government should be kept out.

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