Your father is in a coma. A huge issue is breaking out about what treatment should be applied. You can feel the tension creeping its way inside of you, and undoubtedly in your loved ones also. Your loved one's health is deteriorating and you want treatment applied fast, but no action can be taken and everyone is at a loss of what to do. Fellow family members are arguing about what treatment should be applied but nothing can be finalized. This could happen to anyone - and can be prevented by living wills.
A poll taken in January of 2006 revealed that only 29% of Americans had living wills. This is very alarming. Many minor issues have morphed into big-blown controversies because no one had the power to decide what treatment should have been applied to the patient. Due to this lack of living wills, approximately 1.7 billion dollars are shredded each year, and that is preposterous. We are wasting money like it grows on trees, and there is an obvious solution that people seem to overlook.
Some people believe that living wills are too much of a hassle and don't have any use. This is a very fallacious statement. If everybody were to have living wills, then we wouldn't be seeing any more cases such as the Terri Schiavo Case. It would be beneficial for everybody and save our lawyers' a lot of trouble. Expert Kutner L. states that “living wills respect [people's] lives.”
A review shows that most people in the United States don't know what treatment they would want if they were to go into a vegetative state. This is another huge predicament. Many people fail to believe that situations such as the Terri Schiavo Case could occur to them. This ignorance is not only creating problems for the government, but for the patients' doctors. This senselessness must stop.
Some people believe that everybody should live to their fullest; if there is even a tiny percentage that a treatment could save one's life, it should be applied. This problem has an answer; you can get a living will and say that you want every treatment (that could help you survive) applied. This may seem like a waste of time and money to the person filling out this living will, but it saves money for the government. Besides, it is not in one's power to decide others' treatment unless they are the patient's proxy.
Living wills are very useful, so everyone should have one. Expert Marcus Peterson says that “it is advisable that people should have [living wills].” If one is too lazy to get a living will, then they should think about how much good they would be doing to everyone. Hopefully, this will change people's minds about the “uselessness of living wills.”
