Patients Denied Medical Care, Offered Assisted Suicide Instead

Much has been written about how euthanasia in Canada has been used as a cost-saving method because it’s cheaper for the government to offer assisted dying than healthcare to disabled people.

Canada has government-run healthcare, and the Canadian government seeks to save money by withholding care to chronically ill people, leaving many to consider euthanasia as their only choice.

What is less known is that the same thing has been happening in the United States. Only it’s not the government that is trying to save money, but private insurance companies.

Case #1: Cancer Treatments Refused, Assisted Suicide Recommended

Dr. Brian Callister worked in a hospital with cancer patients. He was taking care of two patients. He believed that neither patient was terminal and could recover with treatment.

But they needed procedures that were not performed at his hospital. To get these procedures, he needed to transfer one to California and the other to Oregon— two states with assisted suicide laws.

When he sought permission to transfer them from their insurance companies, both insurance companies refused to cover the procedures and the transfers.

Instead, both recommended and offered to cover assisted suicide drugs. Both these patients were refused life-saving treatment due to its cost and were instead given suicide as their only option.

The phone calls, Callister says, took place within the span of a month. In both cases, it was the insurance company that brought up assisted suicide.

According to him:

[I]n both cases, the insurance medical director said to me, ‘Brian, we’re not going to cover that procedure or the transfer, but would you consider assisted suicide?’…

It was estimated that [the patients’] chance for cure — cure, not just adding time — of about 50 percent in one case and 70 percent in the other case.

It is inevitable that health insurance companies, which operate for a profit, will want to save money. And money can be saved by refusing expensive treatment and covering the much, much cheaper cost of suicide.

Case Number #2: Treatment Denied, Assisted Suicide Suggested

A chronically ill mother of four, who was classified as terminally ill but still had time left to live, was told by her insurance company that they would no longer cover her pain medication, her chemotherapy, or her oxygen.

In distress, she asked them what she could do. They responded that they couldn’t tell her what to do. But they told her they would cover suicide pills for a copay of $1.20. She says:

I can’t — can’t describe what it feels like when someone tells you that they’re no longer going to pay for drugs that will extend your life significantly, that’ll give me more time with my kids, and my family, and all these adventures we haven’t gone on yet.

But for a buck I can go ahead and make it stop if I kill myself…. 

Without money, without jobs, without these things, there’s absolutely no way I could have any kind of comfort care treated. My only option would be to suffer with no medication, or to pay a dollar, with my kids around me, and watch me give up.

And I do understand that that’s what some people want. There is so much fear…

There are really painful days, and it gets scary. But those days also make the good days great.

When I can wake up and I’m able to do things, I’m able to experience so much more with my family and friends. That’s because I know what tomorrow might bring.

And that’s something that I wouldn’t wish on anybody, but it’s also something that I’m very thankful for. It, ah, it changes how you look at everything.

To rob a person of pain medication and force them to live in agony unless they “choose” suicide is a truly evil act. But this situation is a reality for people in this woman’s situation.

Fortunately, she was able to go into a hospice program and at least get pain treatment.

These are just two examples of what is likely happening all over the country. With the high costs of medical care and our profit-driven medical system, is there any way assisted suicide could not be coercive?

The Risk of Expanding Assisted Suicide

What would happen if assisted suicide were expanded to disabled, non-terminally ill people in the US, the way it is in Canada?

People with chronic illnesses are expensive to keep alive. I’m currently on Medicaid through Social Security disability. My medications alone, without which I would die, cost about $12,200 a month —  over $144,000 a year. This doesn’t count doctor’s visits, diagnostic tests, and periodic hospital stays.

Calculate that amount over time (I could potentially live another 20-30 years), and you can see how my death, by whatever means, would save our government an awful lot of money.

Because of insanely high healthcare costs in this country, this is the case for most chronically ill and disabled people.

Disabled people also need expensive accessibility projects and products, as well as services to help them live independently in the community and participate as equal members of society.

The reduction of government spending and healthcare costs could be a motive for encouraging the assisted suicides of those who are a financial burden. Or, in the case of those with private insurance, saving for-profit insurance companies money.

It is naïve to think that insurance companies and the government can’t make that connection.

Any one of us can suffer a life-threatening or terminal disease. We would all want medical care that would allow us to have a chance of recovery or, if recovery isn’t possible, medical care that will make our final days as comfortable as possible.

In states where assisted suicide is legal, we may be denied this.