[Carry_Okie]

Just think forward when the inevitable meltdown of Medicare and Social Security occurs and it is considered "not cost effective" to provide "medical treatment" like "food and water" [an absurd proposition] to the terminally ill with "old age" considered a terminal condition.

Tube feeding is not cheap. TPN solutions cost about $350/per bag, plus the delivery apparatus, lipids, the nurse time, and the hospital bed. Labs have to be pulled to make sure the body's major systems are in balance. Total cost, at a minimum, about $5,000 per day. TPN in a TCU in a major US city can easily be three times that.

You can thank the lawyers and bureaucrats for a fat slice of that price tag, but asserting that food and water are expensive is not "an absurd proposition." Somebody has to produce that $5,000 per day to fund it.

[SendShaqtoIraq]

"TPN solutions cost about $350/per bag"

This is NOT tube feeding. This is specialized INTRAVENOUS nutrition. This is NOT what Terri Schiavo is receiving.

Nor is it what MOST folks in nursing homes are receiving as their nutrition.

[TaxRelief]

Daily tube feeding costs vary from $33.70 to $87.50, including medical care related to the tube. (Surprisingly, costs outside the US are as low as $12.00 per day) The high end cost is for those patients with frequent medical complications that require expensive emergency intervention, such as for those who have very short intestines. Costs are also higher for those with special dietary needs.

Tubal feeding is cheaper than hand feeding in the nursing home setting, according to the only major controlled study that has been conducted in the US.

Total costs for nursing home care can approach $5000 a day. But something about the whole expensive nursing home care thing makes no sense to me. (Collusion?)