Euthanasia and Hospital Profits An important factor in debates about health care and treatment strategies is the question of cost. It is extremely expensive to provide the cutting-edge care that modern hospitals offer. Concerns about where the money for care for senior citizens will come from seems to make the case for "mercy killing" even more compelling. Under financial pressure, hospitals are exercising their right to deny such expensive healthcare to the elderly or seriously ill. We reserve the right to refuse service: Most people have seen these signs in restaurants and retail stores. But now, metaphorically, some hospitals are hanging such notices at their doors, enacting “futile care” protocols that grant doctors the right to say no to life-extending medical care for patients whose lives they believe lack sufficient quality to justify it. the cost. Without the mainstream press noticing, a disturbing study published in the Fall 2000 issue of the Cambridge Quarterly of Health Care Ethics reveals the extent to which the futile care movement, in reality the opening salvo in a planned campaign among medical elites to impose healthcare - the rationing of care is already advanced on us. The authors examined futility policies currently in place at 26 California hospitals. Of these, only one policy stated that “physicians should act to support the patient's life” when life-prolonging treatment is needed. All but two hospital policies define circumstances in which treatments should be considered nonmandatory even if requested by the patient or the patient's representative. In other words, 24 of the 26 hospitals allow doctors to unilaterally deny desired life-sustaining care. How is such medical abandonment justified? Proponents of the futile treatment theory skillfully shift the focus away from the physiological effect provided to the patient and toward whether the patient has the “potential to appreciate the benefit of the treatment.” Thus, the Cambridge Quarterly reports that 12 of the 26 hospitals examined prohibit treating people diagnosed with permanent unconsciousness (except comfort care) on the basis of these patients' alleged inability to know they were being treated. Never mind that several medical studies show that this condition is often misdiagnosed (40% misdiagnosis according to a British report). And it doesn't matter that these patients sometimes wake up unexpectedly, as recent headlines attest. What is most disturbing is that these policies, if enforced, would prevent patients with deep brain damage and dementia from receiving tube-fed food and water, because such care is considered medical. treatment.