60 minutes on cost of dying

report last night on 60 minutes, video here. It is a reasonable look at the situation, high marks for starting it on the right foot by saying, "All medical studies agree, that patients have a 100% chance of dying eventually." They could have talked a bit more about options, such as hospice care. And they failed to mention the concurrent care demonstrations that were financed as part of Medicare (where folks get expanded access to hospice services without unelecting curative care). However, talking in plain terms about the reality that a good deal of health care we spend in non-productive is important. We have to learn how to do so. A couple of weeks back, I had this along with Amy Abernethy in Health Affairs blog that discusses why it is hard to move from 'it is possible to have a state worse than death' to a practical means of reducing such spending.