Cost of End of Life Care: Policy Change

Cost of End of Life Care: Policy Change
Student’s Name
Institution
Student’s Name
Address
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Date
Charles Grassley
Senator, Iowa
135 Hart Senate Office Building Washington DC 20510
Dear Sir,
Cost of End of Life Care: Policy Change
The cost of end of life (EOL) care has been rising over the past few decades in the United States (US). While the overall cost of healthcare is high for individuals requiring acute or chronic care is high, these costs rise even further for patients who are diagnosed with a terminal illness (French, et al., 2017). This suggests that the costs of EOL are even higher than the cost of acute or chronic care. To remedy these rising costs, a number of end-of-life care reforms have been put in place. Patient directives have been used since the 1980s to set down patient preferences about their EOL care (French, et al., 2017). These directives are provided by the patient before they have a life-limiting condition so that when they do, physicians and families will know what to do, thus avoiding unnecessary and non-beneficial treatment plans. Other reforms have involved a shift to home, palliative, or hospice care instead of the traditional care setting. Also, there has been a focus on hospitals to have procedures and guidelines for determining and reducing futile treatment for patients at EOL (French, et al., 2017). All these reforms have been considered cost-effective, yet very little change has been realized. Policymakers need to re-strategize and focus their efforts on helping reduce the cost of EOL care while still advocating for quality EOL care.
The need for policy change has been necessitated by the high costs of healthcare in general. According to Jha (2018), in the US, EOL care accounts for approximately 25% of Medicare spending, specifically for people in their last 12 months of life. Also, the growing number of the aging population and people with chronic diseases is a call for action for policy-makers. The aging population is characterized by chronic diseases that require extensive and expensive care; hence the high costs of healthcare (Sinclair & Meier, 2017). Yet, policymakers and practitioners in the healthcare industry have a responsibility to this population of ensuring that they receive high-quality care without incurring the relatively high costs. The needed change should ensure that while money is saved on EOL care by reducing wasteful spending, the quality of care is improved or, at least, is not affected negatively by the changes. Further, since little change has been realized following the current EOL care reforms, there is a need for a change to remedy the situation. If anything, these reforms have yielded mixed results about the cost-reduction (French, et al., 2017). The involvement of the federal government is necessary because it also bears part of the healthcare cost by funding states. Also, policies and EOL care reforms can be more widespread at the federal level. The federal government has a longer reach and as such, the effect of the suggested change will reach more people.
I suggest that the federal government expand access to palliative care. This suggested change will bear results because evidence shows that palliative ...