The Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (POLST) form, available in Washington state, allows patients to summarize their wishes regarding life-sustaining treatment.
Advocates say change may encourage people terminal illnesses to take advantage of hospice care earlier.
“What would you do if your mother needed an expensive, painful operation that had only a one in a million chance of saving her?”
Most had cancer and expressed concerns over loss of autonomy and dignity at the end of life.
Some hospice executives say the poor economy may also be driving doctors to hold on to patients longer.
NYTs on end-of-life care and the career of UW researcher Dr. Walter Stamm
“We’re finding more and more expensive ways to keep people alive. So we have to find ways to set some limits,” ethicist says.
You hope an accident or illness won’t send you to the ER. But being prepared can help you get good, timely, and safe care when should the need arises.
Howard Gleckman, Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute
August 14, 2009
We live in a time when seemingly no subject is taboo. People discuss, in excruciating detail, their weight, sex lives, and bank accounts on reality TV. Kids tweet about their dates—in real time. And we happily blog away on our latest medical diagnosis. It is apparently no [...]
By Kate Steadman
August 14, 2009
The furious controversy over Medicare payments for end-of-life care counseling stems from Section 1233 in the health bill passed by three House committees.
Related article:
Doctors Providing End of Life Counseling See Benefit in Current Controversy
That language would amend the Social Security Act, which also governs Medicare, the federal program for the [...]
By Jessica Marcy
August 14, 2009
Photo Credit: Kaiser Health News
The paragraphs, buried deep in the 1,000-page House health reform bill, appear innocuous, but they have ignited a firestorm among critics predicting government-sponsored euthanasia.
The controversy, over proposed Medicare funding of end-of-life counseling, has come to epitomize some of people’s deepest fears about the government’s role in health [...]
By Carol Ann Campbell
August 13, 2009
NEWARK, N.J. – Fourteen-year-old Prince Jackson made a fist and banged his hand on his head, again and again. “It was like this,” he said, trying to describe the blinding pain from the tumor growing inside his head. “It hurt so much. It wouldn’t stop.”
Jackson could not read or sleep [...]
The White House has launched a “Reality Check” Website to counter what the administration considers to be lies and distortions being spread about health-care reform plans now being considered by Congress by opponents of the measures.
The site features videos of experts addressing concerns that have been raised about rationing, euthanasia, and the effects reform might [...]
[ May 12, 2009; 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. ] Life on Your Terms – Communicating Your Wishes to Your Family and Physician
What kind of health care do you want to receive if you become ill or injured? Health care decisions are for everyone, whether you’re 18 or 100, healthy or currently undergoing medical treatment. Come learn about health care directives and communicating your wishes [...]
Today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer features two op-ed piece taking opposing sides on Initiative 1000.
If passed, the measure, which is on this Nov. 4 ballot, would allow physicians to write prescriptions for a lethal dose of medication for terminally ill adults who wish to take their own lives.
Aida Kouyoumjian and Dr John H. Lindberg collaborated in a [...]
Invisible Families: The homeless you don't see
They squeeze in with relatives, couch surf with friends or camp out in cars. More families are quietly becoming homeless, driven to the edge by a lack of jobs and affordable housing. The Seattle Times and its local news partners tackle the topic together. Project home
E-Health Records: Seattle is ahead of the curve
Health News from the Seattle Times
