Health Care Reform and  
Quality of Life

The controversy about health care reform has raged for years. Our family has been directly affected. In 1984 our 16 year old daughter was in an auto accident that resulted in a head injury and left her in what is commonly called a “permanent vegetative state.” She died September 15, 1993 due to natural causes.

She survived that long because of the medical technology instituted at the time of the accident. Our full understanding of these technologies and their legal ramifications were unknown at the critical time of injury. This technology saved her from death; it was wonderful and new, and the advisors meant well. However, no one could imagine the hell she and the family would suffer all those years.

We did give permission for the initial care. We were told years later that even when there was no longer hope for recovery, the technology was in place and legally could not be removed. Our daughter died naturally after all those years. We were not faced with having to fight the system or the politics or religious beliefs of those who would have insisted that she had to continue her inadequate existence.

As health care reform issues continue, quality of care for patients as well as quality of life must be considered. While we all expect our country will provide us with the best care technology can provide, we should also expect information concerning legal ramifications, and the potential outcome to the care we are asked to give permission for.

It occurs to us that it is easy to judge what must happen to others... until you have a loved one experience the trauma and you are left in a murky system to deal with the consequences.