Straight talk on living wills

By Steve Dzielak

Make everything clear to your family. YOU are in charge. Not some fantasy death panel.

The summer of 2009 will live in infamy for the fear-mongering aimed at seniors in an effort to protect rapacious insurance companies and destroy meaningful health care reform. The biggest lie – so-called “death panels” – distorts one of the most sensible and compassionate concepts ever created on behalf of patients and their families: the advanced directive, popularly known as the living will. It’s time for some basic education.

A living will is a legal document that a person uses to make known his or her wishes regarding life-prolonging medical treatments. It’s also called an advance directive, a health care directive, or a physician’s directive.

Generally, a living will describes certain life-prolonging treatments. You, the declarant, indicate which treatments you do or do not want applied to you in the event you either suffer from a terminal illness or are in a permanent vegetative state.

A living will does not become effective unless you are incapacitated. Until then, you’ll be able to say what treatments you do or do not want. Living wills usually require a certification by your doctor and a second doctor that you are either suffering from a terminal illness or permanently unconscious before they become effective as well. A living will is only used when your ultimate recovery is hopeless.

If and when you are incapacitated and not able to speak for yourself, but your condition is not so dire as to trigger your living will, you should have a health care power of attorney or health care proxy. A health care power of attorney is a legal document that gives someone else – a person you select – the authority to make health care decisions for you in the event you are incapacitated.

The requirements for a living will vary from state to state, so an attorney is indispensable. Many lawyers who specialize in trusts, wills and estate planning include a living will and a health care power of attorney in their package of estate planning documents.

None of these documents matter if no one else knows about them. Talk with your doctor and the person you designate as your health care proxy. Be thorough. Then make everything clear to your family. You are in charge. Not some fantasy “death panel.”