Brain-dead victims: suffer or pull the plug?

[Johnw1104]

hershel_layton said:

Johnw1104 said:
Well that'd worded kind of oddly, as brain-dead people aren't "suffering".

It's exceedingly difficult to decide, as many people who were thought to be brain dead have made some miraculous recoveries, but others have never come out of it. I'm not sure there's a right answer here, which is why I prefer leaving it up to close relatives to decide if no directions were provided in a will.

Reason I mention this is because not everyone makes comebacks(sadly). And it costs A LOT of money. Yes, money isn't everything, but i had family members who had their plug pulled because we couldn't afford to go into six-digit debt.

Yeah it's crazy how expensive it gets.

Heck, I recently had spontaneous pneumothorax (basically an inexplicable little hole opened up in the right lung causing it to partially collapse). All that really happened is they put a tube in my side and I sat around for 2 1/2 days. Among the many bills I've since gotten for it, in one of them they asked my insurance for $31,000 for that stay.

Thankfully with insurance I've really only had to pay about $1,600, but it's just incredible how much that sort of thing costs. Permanently occupying an intensive care room (though i suppose they might move them when things stabilize), while needing to be maintained by expensive as hell machines and constantly cared for... I can't even imagine how much that costs, but I wouldn't be shocked if it hits $1 million in just a month.