Preparing Americans for Death Lets Hospices Neglect End of Life reports that ‘[m]ore than four in 10 Americans now meet their end in hospice care, drawn by its promise of palliation and pain alleviation instead of extreme measures in their waning days. Medicare’s hospice rolls doubled to 1.1 million patients from 2000 to 2009, the last year of available data.” This has led to questionable business practices and poor patient care in some cases. “New federal hospice investigations rose 50 percent between 2008 and 2010, according to Gerald Roy, deputy inspector general at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Medicare spending.”
High quality end-of-life care is crucial to combatting the campaign for physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia progress.