Photo: la cola de mi perroSupporters and critics of physician-assisted suicide agree on at least one thing: terminally ill patients who take an early exit save the health care system money.
Nationally, legal euthanasia for terminally ill patients could cut American health-care costs by $627 million per year (less than one-tenth of 1 percent of total expenditures), according to a New England Journal of Medicine article by doctors Ezekiel Emanuel and Margaret Battin, who each come down on opposite sides of the ethical argument over assisted suicide.
But could the business case for managed death push health insurance companies to pressure their customers into taking their own lives before they’re ready?
That’s one of the questions in a debate raging in Washington State right now, as voters there are set to decide on a ballot measure that would allow doctors to prescribe their terminally ill patients lethal doses of drugs on request.
Critics of the measure point to the story of Barbara Wagner, a cancer patient in neighboring Oregon, whose insurance company denied her request for coverage of potentially life-saving drugs, and instead offered her money for lethal drugs. Oregon is currently the only state where doctor-assisted suicide is legal.
Does the legalization of physician-assisted suicide incentivize early death?
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You might want to note that Barbara Wagner’s insurance company was the Oregon Health Plan, the government-run, taxpayer-funded health care plan. The STATE told Barbara Wagner it would pay for her death, not her life.
National health care? For this and many other reasons, I think I’ll pass…
I’m not completely opposed to letting terminally ill patients make such a choice, but I absolutely detest the idea of insurance companies getting control over the decision on spending $4,000 per month to *maybe* keep me alive vs. $50 to get rid of me for good.
I wrote a paper on the legal issues surrounding physician assisted suicide and euthanasia (not the same thing). I think the slippery-slope argument and the general moral repugnance of the concept hold a lot of weight. I’m still unsure where I stand on the issue. It’s just too hard to wrap my brain around.
Perhaps if it is legal to prescribe lethal drugs, it should be illegal for insurance to cover them since it would be a conflict of interest.
Similar to how “wellness” programs at many hospitals are kind of a conflict of interest for them.
The business side of the pharmaceuticals industry will find a way to incentivize anything that is suddenly made legal.
I can’t wait to see the drug company commercials when this happens: “Ask your doctor if new Muerta is right for you…”
And will they still have to read us the list of possible side effects?
I have not seen recent data from Oregon, but my understanding is that very few persons have utilized the opportunity for physician assisted suicide. However, many terminally ill persons have expressed the sense of relief from knowing that this option is available. This does not sound like a very “slippery slope”.
I am intrigued by Ben’s suggestion. I can see the advantage to be found from removing insurance companies from the decision matrix facing people and families in terminal illnesses.
If I were spending my own money and had a choice between spending $5,000 or more per month to maintain an existence as a bed-ridden terminal patient and leaving the money to my children, I might well, when the occasion arises, decide that I want to take the cup of hemlock and meet death on my own terms. Having watched my father die by slices until he had no dignity left an earlier exit has a lot of appeal.
It makes no sense for an individual or society to spend huge sums to achieve minor extensions of life just because the next of kin are afraid to face their own mortality.
@Chris,
Great idea Chris. Would one of the possible side effects of Muerta be life?