Palliative Care Extends Life, Study Finds

[Greenbeard]

NYT:

In a study that sheds new light on the effects of end-of-life care, doctors have found that patients with terminal lung cancer who began receiving palliative care immediately upon diagnosis not only were happier, more mobile and in less pain as the end neared — but they also lived nearly three months longer.

The findings, published online Wednesday by The New England Journal of Medicine, confirmed what palliative care specialists had long suspected. The study also, experts said, cast doubt on the decision to strike end-of-life provisions from the health care overhaul passed last year.

“It shows that palliative care is the opposite of all that rhetoric about ‘death panels,’ ” said Dr. Diane E. Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and co-author of an editorial in the journal accompanying the study. “It’s not about killing Granny; it’s about keeping Granny alive as long as possible — with the best quality of life.” [...]

During the debate over President Obama’s 2009 health care bill, provisions to have Medicare and insurers pay for optional consultations with doctors on palliative and hospice care led to rumors, spread by talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and by the former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, that the bill empowered “death panels” that would “euthanize” elderly Americans.

Legislators eventually removed the provisions. In practice, Medicare and private insurers do pay for some palliative care, said Dr. Gail Austin Cooney, a former president of the palliative medicine academy. “But it’s piecemeal,” she said. “The billing is complicated, and for many physicians that’s enough of a deterrent to not bother.”

This is an example of why simply letting the loudest idiot in the room influence policy isn't necessarily a bright idea.