Comment by mcdonje

> 60% of the patients who died with Kevorkian's help were not terminally ill, and at least 13 had not complained of pain....The report also stated that Kevorkian failed to refer at least 17 patients to a pain specialist after they complained of chronic pain and sometimes failed to obtain a complete medical record for his patients, with at least three autopsies of suicides Kevorkian had assisted with showing the person who committed suicide to have no physical sign of disease. Rebecca Badger, a patient of Kevorkian's and a mentally troubled drug abuser, had been mistakenly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. The report also stated that Janet Adkins, Kevorkian's first euthanasia patient, had been chosen without Kevorkian ever speaking to her, only with her husband, and that when Kevorkian first met Adkins two days before her assisted suicide he "made no real effort to discover whether Ms. Adkins wished to end her life," as the Michigan Court of Appeals put it in a 1995 ruling upholding an order against Kevorkian's activity.[26] According to The Economist: "Studies of those who sought out Dr. Kevorkian, however, suggest that though many had a worsening illness... it was not usually terminal. Autopsies showed five people had no disease at all... Little over a third were in pain. Some presumably suffered from no more than hypochondria or depression."[27]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kevorkian

Canada. The critique is that people opt into euthanasia because of poverty, and that the government sees MAID economical alternative to investments in social programs and welfare. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_Canada

I don't think things are as bad, but I also think that old age in poverty is a valid reason for euthanasia if there is no alternative. If the society is cruel to the poor, holding poor elderly as hostage to improve situation is cruelty on top of the cruelty.

MAID being inappropriately offered to people who haven't expressed interest in it, and also being extended widely to people without terminal illness, has certainly become a controversy in Canada.

https://archive.is/bd0PV

https://thewalrus.ca/assisted-dying/

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/article/doesnt-line-up-mps-c...

Barbara Wagner [1]:

>Her last hope was a $4,000-a-month drug that her doctor prescribed for her, but the insurance company refused to pay.

>What the Oregon Health Plan did agree to cover, however, were drugs for a physician-assisted death. Those drugs would cost about $50.

Randy Stroup [2]:

> Lane Individual Practice Association (LIPA), which administers the Oregon Health Plan in Lane County, responded to Stroup's request with a letter saying the state would not cover Stroup's pricey treatment, but would pay for the cost of physician-assisted suicide.

Stephanie Packer [3] (although in this case she inquired herself):

> Then her doctors suggested that switching to another chemotherapy drug might buy her time. Her medical insurance company refused to pay. She says she asked if the company covered the cost of drugs to put her to death. She was told the answer is yes — with a co-payment of $1.20.

T. Brian Callister, MD, FACP, FHM [4]:

>When I spoke with the insurance medical directors of the patients' insurance companies by telephone on separate occasions, both of the insurance medical directors told me that they would approve coverage for either hospice care or assisted suicide but would not approve the life saving treatment option.

> Neither the patients nor I had requested approval for assisted suicide, yet it was readily offered.

[1] https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5517492&page=1

[2] https://www.foxnews.com/story/oregon-offers-terminal-patient...

[3] https://nypost.com/2016/10/24/terminally-ill-mom-denied-trea...

[4] https://www.cga.ct.gov/2018/phdata/tmy/2018HB-05417-R000320-...

I'd argue that sadly something like this is bound to happen for sure because many (if not most) humans are lazy, greedy and don't like sick people outside of movies. If it is happening systematically and encouraged by the government or insurance companies - that's of course a different matter and has to be prevented.

Canada.

You omitted the _most_ on-brand part of this story, which is the part where (per his last wishes) Johnny Depp spent $3m on a party that involved firing Thompson's ashes out of a 150-foot tower in western Colorado.

https://www.nyswritersinstitute.org/post/hunter-s-thompson-s...

>He was Catholic, and wouldn't do assisted suicide.

I thought Jain the perspective shared in this comment is valuable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45548178

Well, not just the comment, but also the wikipedia article linked to in the comment.

Obviously, Jainism isn't Catholicism, but this part of the wikipedia article got me thinking:

>It is not considered a suicide by Jain scholars because it is not an act of passion, nor does it employ poisons or weapons.

Catholics are probably never going to think suicide is ok, but I wonder if they could come around to a definition of suicide that is more narrow and which excludes death-with-dignity. If they did make that adjustment, I would personally agree with their stance.

There is plenty of precedent for this legislation through definitional scoping in history in general, though I'm not an expert on Catholicism. The book "Legal systems very different from ours" talks about it, and gives examples. It's really the only option for any sort of change when you're dealing with decrees from a supernatural entity or an unchangeable part of a constitution.

Yet you don't see insurance companies hiring snipers to get rid of their oldest customers. Maybe the solution is to prosecute those who would push MAID too aggressively as we would those who push to suicide.

> There is a direct financial incentive for families to push people into this

What financial incentives are there in killing someone?