Reply #22: If Medicare did not exist, someone would have to invent it.

[JDPriestly]

At the same time, Americans, especially elderly Americans, need to be educated on the alternatives they face at the end of life.

Each person must decide how long he or she would want to be placed on life support, how long he or she would want to have dialysis, what kinds of invasive procedures he or she would want to endure just to have a life that may not be of acceptable quality.

Most Americans don't think about these things until it is too late. And then family members make the decisions for their loved ones. And very often those decisions are based on fear or guilt or simply confusion about what the dying person would want. This needs to change.

We need a national conversation about end-of-life decisions. Do you really want to lie inert and helpless in a bid with a tube down your throat for months and months on end just because no one wants to let you go? I know what I want. Each person has to make this decision for him- or herself.