See my post 10. Also, what I think this article is saying is that people who should not be are being shoved off onto Hospice. Hospice was created for the dying, not those who actually might recover.
“Hospice was created for the dying, not those who actually might recover.”
My father at 94 had a major heart attack. The doctor said he could die at any moment. Since the hospital wanted us to take him home and we could not care for him we asked for Hospice. In one of his last somewhat conscious moments the Hospice nurse asked him, “Mr. Pearson, do you feel like you’re going to die?” He said, “No.” She shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” Since his insurance was still paying the hospital kept him. He died three or four days later.
I was told by a friend whose mother was dying that the Hospice nurse said, “I’m going to ask your mother if she’s dying. If she says no I can’t help you.” This lady had severe Alzheimer’s. When the nurse asked my friend looked at her mother, shook her head yes and said, “Say yes.” And, she did. Her last month or two was relatively comfortable.
FWIW, a neighbor in his 90s was dying in the hospital, going through all kinds of medical treatments and drugs. His family (a wife in her 90s and a daughter in her 60s) took him home "to die" but needed someone from hospice about an hour a day to help.
He gave up doctors, medications, treatments, all of it. He got somewhat better, became more coherent, and lived almost two years more.
What's my point? In some cases hospice is expensive because people the hospitals, drugs and doctors would've killed actually live longer.