A long time friend's husband was in the later stages of Parkinson's. He fell and ruptured his bowel (and didn't know for 2 days). It got infected and he was helicoptered to a Catholic Hospital in Bellingham. When his wife got there they had done some surgery and paced him in a coma. They were prepared to give him a colostomy bag when he recovered. Even the nurses questioned that absurdity. He had a do not resuscitate and his wife threatened to call an attorney unless they removed the coma meds. She stopped giving him his meds and over some 5 days he slipped away.

The thing is keeping people alive is profitable for some hospitals so again money is behind this obscene thinking. I suspect government subsidies is just a way to privatize what should be a service our country should provide in the way of a national health care plan like so many other countries have.