Rationing Health Care for Seniors

I worked on the psych consultation-liaison team at big teaching hospital several years ago, and we had a lot of clients we followed in the dialysis clinic (med management and supportive therapy for depression, and also we were called in for a competency eval whenever someone decided they wanted to stop their dialysis). I remember frequently seeing elderly people in persistant vegetative states, seriously contracted (but breathing independently, darn the luck!), being wheeled in on gurneys from nursing homes for their thrice-weekly kidney dialysis. Why?? Because somebody (the government) would pay for it, and somebody else was making money off it ... If we can continue to dialyze people in COMAS indefinitely, I wouldn't be too worried about the outlook for the elderly in this country regarding healthcare, regardless of what healthcare "reform" gets passed.

Frankly, personally, I'd rather see a lot less of that kind of "treatment" happening.