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show first aired January 28, 2010
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1139
As we’ve reported before, one of the earliest and noisiest sticking points in the health care debate surrounded end of life care. After sifting through the nonsense about death panels and Nazi camps one fact was evident: Americans get most of their health care at the end of life. On this week’s Health Show, we’ll wade into those waters. We’ll hear a report that suggests that perhaps our health care system goes overboard with treatment when comfort might be a better route to take. We’ll hear from the editors of a new book of essays on the end of life. And we’ll welcome a new commentator to the program with her take on the topic.
listen to this story in RealAudio 25:00
OVER TREATMENT
As the health insurance reform debate winds down, a lot of the talk has focused on who will get it and how much they will get. There’s a basic assumption that more health-care is better. But Americans already get a lot of medicine, and don’t seem to be much healthier than the rest of the world. In this report from Nathaniel Johnson he says there’s overwhelming evidence that Americans are over-treated.
Lynn Pasquerella - The Ethics Of Over Treatment
The decision to aggressively treat or not treat a patient is filled with moral and ethical dilemmas. And, as commentator Lynn Pasquerella recently found out, those dilemmas can turn personal.
Final Acts
Sure, there are exceptions but for the most part, people don’t die suddenly anymore. Rather than massive heart attacks and swift moving illnesses, death for many people has become a gradual process of incremental illness. This has given rise to the concept of planning a “good death”. That’s the topic of a new book of essays and stories called “Final Acts: Death, Dying and the Choices We Make”. Here to talk about it are the two editors of the book. Donna Perry is a professor of English at William Patterson University in Wayne, New Jersey. Nan Bauer-Maglin is an educational consultant and a retired professor of English at the City University of New York.
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