The Economics of Dying -- The Illusion of Cost Savings at the End of Life

Abstract

For more than a decade, health policy analysts have noted -- and some have decried -- the high cost of dying^1-7. With the acceleration of pressures on health care costs and calls for reform, considerably more attention has been focused on proposals to control costs at the end of life⁸. One proposal would require persons enrolling in a health care plan to complete an advance directive^9,10. Others would require hospitals to establish guidelines to identify and reduce futile care^11-13. Similar ideas have been expressed by members of President Bill Clinton's Health Care Task Force and by Joycelyn Elders, the surgeon general¹⁴.