About this time last year, voters and politicians were consumed by the rumor — fanned by healthcare overhaul opponents — that the legislation would establish "death panels" of government bureaucrats who could "pull the plug on Grandma" if she needed costly care.
The outcry led legislators to scrap a provision of the House bill that would have paid for voluntary consultations between physicians and Medicare beneficiaries about end-of-life care: living wills, hospice benefits and the like.
Since the furor died down, end-of-life care has been mostly out of the spotlight. But misperceptions remain. A July poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 36% of seniors still believe that the healthcare reform package created "death panels." An additional 17% said they didn't know one way or the other.
Many people may not realize that, in some ways, the new law will expand options for patients at the end of life.
One of these involves hospice care, in which a team of specially trained providers treats dying patients' pain and other symptoms but doesn't try to cure the underlying disease. The team also helps the patients' families, instructing them in caring techniques and providing bereavement counseling after death. Under current Medicare rules, beneficiaries whose doctors determine that they have less than six months to live can choose hospice care — but only if they forgo any further life-prolonging treatment.
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