For-profit health care can be a barrier to providing quality end-of-life care

Do not be misled by insidiously deceptive arguments about how physician assisted suicide is somehow compassionate. 

I urge blog readers to consider the points made in the rebuttal of a New York Times opinion writer who obviously has a point of view about death that is inconsistent with hospice care.

A New York Times opinion discussion creates the false assumption that for some "mercy is death", meaning those who cannot endure living with a terminal illness should have the autonomy to choose how they want to die. Somehow, this false narrative creates the impression that causing a person to die can be an act of compassion. But, what the narrative misses is that an alternative to physician assisted suicide are the actual compassionate supports provided by hospice and palliative care. Advocates for physician assisted suicide completely omit this alternative for the purpose of advancing their technique of supplying a persona who chooses to die with a toxic poisonous cocktail that they must ingest according to package directions, so they are sure to end their lives quickly. This is not a dignified way to die. Moreover, very few people who are truly at the end of their lives caused by a life ending disease are capable of ingesting so much liquid poison. The following response was published in The New York Times letters to the editor as a rebuttal to the argument made by one wrong minded advocate for supporting physician assisted suicide. 

To the Editor of The New York Times:

The question in a New York Times opinion was about whether choosing death in Canada is too easy, presupposes that everyone has choices. This is not so in the U.S. for-profit health system. 

Personal autonomy is paramount for most people, but true autonomy in end-of-life decision-making would mean that folks have equal access to care.

Canadian systems are stretched to a breaking point- is suicide coerced? Our broken U.S., profit-driven system causes health care disparities to remain rampant, so this situation is no better than in Canada.

When veterans in Canada are offered euthanasia for PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), when people with disabilities are approved for hastened death because of a lack of affordable, accessible housing, and when young people with anorexia at their wits’ end are provided a prescription by physicians to die by suicide, we have to ask ourselves if this is really even a choice.

When care is denied or even merely delayed by budget-strapped public programs or greedy U.S. for-profit insurers, while assisted suicide is available, it sounds a lot less like choice and more like coercion and a quiet form of eugenics.

Matt Vallière, New York
The writer is an emergency medical worker and the executive director of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, which is opposed to physician assisted suicide.

Definition of hospice:  A special healthcare option for patients and families who are faced with a terminal illness. A multi-disciplinary team of physicians, nurses, hospice aides, social workers, bereavement counselors and volunteers work together to address the physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs of each patient and family.