Preview: The Cost of Dying

November 20, 2009 11:47 AM

Many Americans spend their last days in an ICU, subjected to uncomfortable machines or surgeries to prolong their lives at enormous cost. Steve Kroft reports. Sunday, Nov. 22, 7 p.m. ET/PT.

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by Aaron_B_Butcher November 25, 2009 2:33 PM EST: I smoke. I have emphysema. I am going to die. I'm NOT going to go to a hospital to do it. I am going to get up, go for a walk, look death straight in the face and say "what took you so long?" I will be high as a kite on as many pain killers as I can get, legally or otherwise. If it appears that I may lose control of my faculties and be taken to a hospital against my wishes, I will take a bottle of pain killers and hide until I AM DEAD. It is the fear of death that is the major problem here. Everyone is afraid to die or to let someone die. God forbid anyone should HELP someone die. Until we, as a species, figure out that death is not the enemy, this will continue to be a problem. Poor quality of life should be the enemy. When my quality of life degrades to the point that I am a liability to the wonderful family I have built and the great country in which I live, I WILL TAKE MY OWN LIFE, if neccesary. What are they gonna do to me? Put my dead body in jail? Fine my wife and kids? I don't think so. So to all you people hanging on by a thread because you are afraid, I say this. Bravery is not the lack of fear. Bravery is being afraid and doing the right thing anyway.; Reply to this comment


by CAB-AZ November 23, 2009 11:26 PM EST: BRAVO TO 60 MINUTES for exposing this giant atrocity which has been performed by hospitals for a very long time at the emotional expense of dying patients and their families and the financial expense of American taxpayers. My dad was an 88 yr old paraplegic who went into the hospital for what should have been a routine urinary tract infection but instead it spiraled into sepsis due to the MRSA that the hospital infected him with during his stay. He got progressively worse and was sent to ICU where he was thankfully put into a drug induced coma and inturbated. In ICU he had 12 IVs in him at all times which were changed regularly. The attending doctor kept telling me that all hope was not lost - although every indication was just the opposite. His intent was to give me just enough hope so that I would agree to keep my dad going for as long as possible. My father's kidneys had not worked in days and he was severely bloated from liquid retention. His blood pressure was non-existent without the IV drugs. I wanted nothing more than my dad to live but could not stand to watch the horror show any longer and stopped what could only be described as a "science experiment" after 4 agonizing days. I should have stopped it on Day 1 but I desperately wanted to believe and trust the attending doctor. The doctor and hospital would have kept it all going indefinitely. It was clear they were far more focused on their own measurements than my father. Until you have lived this first hand you cannot understand it. You think this is politically driven journalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. My experience is sadly not unique, it is the norm and it is a total disgrace. Our entire medical system is broken. I do not believe any politician or political party can fix this mess because they too are self-serving just like our hospitals. Thank you 60 Minutes. This has been long overdue.; Reply to this comment


by andyfu November 23, 2009 10:07 PM EST: One of the very sad stories in this program was about a woman who was dying largely due to a hospital acquired infection. Many hospitals have nearly eliminated these complications by strict procedures insuring hands are washed and sterile conditions are created for the insertion of catheters, for instance. I am disappointed that Steve Croft did not immediately follow-up to find out what the Dartmouth hospital's rate of acquired infections was, and what they are doing to eliminate them. It is certainly true that we are all going to die, and that it would be wise for all of us to think about what procedures we would or would not like to have done, but while that will depend on individual choice, I am sure we can all agree that none of us wants to acquire a preventable infection at a hospital.; Reply to this comment


by littledeeks November 23, 2009 12:05 PM EST: Medicare will destroy our economy. It is horrific to see what rehab facilities are doing to ensure they get paid by Medicare. I have seen firsthand how rehabs are trying to make sure that they keep their beds occupied by elderly who should be sent home and who can care for themselves. It is a reckless cycle that needs to be stopped. Surgeries are being ordered for folks who have little years to live. The focus needs to be on preventative care.; Reply to this comment


by NoraRN November 22, 2009 11:49 PM EST: All I have to say 60 minutes is thank you thank you! As a registered nurse in the ICU, I can tell you this is the NUMBER ONE issue I deal with on a daily basis. No one wants to die suffering and believe me, sitting in an ICU, full of tubes and monitors, drugged up beyond sense and without any autonomy is not the way anyone would want to die! No one knows this though, the media does a great disservice in portraying what death in an ICU is really like, what a "save" with CPR is really like on a grandmother who is 95 (broken ribs, bleeding in the chest, now with gross sepsis, on a ventilator, etc.) Thank you to the MD who is brave enough to say people and their expectations to live forever is delusional!; Reply to this comment


by knobbycue November 22, 2009 11:35 PM EST: What is happening to Sixty Minutes??
They will not question Doctors charges to Medicare? Nor question Hospital charges? Nor drug companies charges(My Mother-in-Law got an infection while in the hospital, the perscription was $3000.00)? You don't question the insurance companies when they continually increase prices to the little guy? BUT!you will go into a hospital where an older gentleman(Who paid into Social Security all his life)is sick and listen to a Doctor tell you why he should die so it will save Healthcare money!!?? Some of you older guys on sixty minutes must remember the movie "Soylent Green" ? That's where we are headed!; Reply to this comment


by knobbycue November 22, 2009 11:32 PM EST: What is happening to Sixty Minutes??
They will not question Doctors charges to Medicare? Nor question Hospital charges? Nor drug companies charges(My Mother-in-Law got an infection while in the hospital, the perscription was $3000.00)? You don't question the insurance companies when they continually increase prices to the little guy? BUT!you will go into a hospital where an older gentleman(Who paid into Social Security all his life)is sick and listen to a Doctor tell you why he should die so it will save Healthcare money!!?? Some of you older guys on sixty minutes must remember the movie "Soylent Green" ? That's where we are headed!; Reply to this comment


by RichardInOhio November 22, 2009 9:22 PM EST: You call yourselves "journalists" ? How coincidental that you would have ready to air such a leftwing piece of crap as "The Cost of Dying". In some respects though, it might well be considered as "must see TV" for every voting American citizen(2010 is coming!) for it portrays where we are headed with so-called health care reform. Your piece points out very well how Medicare costs can be reduced by $500B a year - simply allow some bureaucrat in Washington to set up "guidelines" about when lives are no longer financially worth saving. And while we're at it, maybe we could incorporate language for "he brought it on himself or herself" (obesity, drinking, smoking, etc). Those kind of lives aren't worth spending a lot of taxpayer money to save, are they ? CAN YOU SEE WHAT CBS IS SUPPORTING HERE, AMERICA !! WAKE UP !!!!
CBS, I hope you go as bankrupt financially as you are morally.; Reply to this comment


by AnnieT123 November 22, 2009 8:56 PM EST: Can we now have an honest discussion of euthanasia? We allow this practice for our beloved animals but deny that right to our suffering (and often terminally ill) citizens ... talk about the right to choose!; Reply to this comment


by fredrick house November 22, 2009 8:12 PM EST: Unblievable 60 Minutes! We agree on something! Yes, end of life "so called care" is bankrupting the nation and creating a nightmare for guilt ridden family member survivors. Not to mention the rampant greed fostered by the Legal Profession for whom much of this uneeded and at times cruel care is being provided to avoid litigation. Having gone through this twice with my mother and my mother in law we were fortunated that being a physician myself and my wife a nurse we were able to curb the process and follow our loved ones' wishes. Not only are taxpayers having to bear costly burdens, surviving spouses are often forced into
poverty with the hospital bills these choiceless "Consumers" are forced to buy by a system more concerned with hospital profits and avoiding litigation than allowing "the necessary end to come when it will come". Why doesn't the noxious Obama administration do something about tort reform to help end this mess. Because trial lawyers are a major source of Democrat campaign funding. Tell that!!
No doubt much of the advance payment for "Health Care Reform" will end up in the pockets Democratic Campaign Workers and Democrat Politicians instead of helping patients and paying physicians for work they are already increasingly underpaid for doing by Medicare at the same time that politician owned Medicare supply companies,crooked home infusion vendors, physical therapy ripoffs, lawyer owned nursing homes, for-profit and not-for-profit hospital administrators, dishonest medical school executives, and crooked pharmacists are raping the taxpayers under the guise of "providing healthcare".
If there is to be healthcare reform, let's have real reform, not just using physicians for whipping boys to distract from the real abusers.
At most independent physicians get 14-16% of the health care dollar.
Yet they get 80% of the blame for the abuses of the system. Is Obama really about reforming the system or punishing physicans who are guilty of exceeding the Marxist Standard Deviation for income and social achievement, who unlike lawyers actually do help people for far less than the legal profession's contingency fees. What if doctors were allowed to treat the ill for 50% of their net worth or their hospital bill. How about Medical Class acton suits where doctors recover damages for public health disasters caused by corporate and governmental negligence and carcinogenic environmental toxins??? Why should lawyers and politicians get all the gravy?
If there is to be health reform, when are we going to have legal and political reform? After all that is the real source of much of the problem!

Sincerely,
Fredrick C. House MD; Reply to this comment