A story from economicprincipals.com:

30 percent of all Medicare spending is on patients in their last year of life.

and

as much as 4 percent of US GDP today may be spent on patients in their last year of life.

Society�s willingness to transfer more and more resource to persons near the end of life is the crucial factor in climbing health expenditures. Yet some families want EVERYTHING done to save an elderly relative, even if it means they die in horrible pain. See On Not Withdrawing (Tales from the CCU) from code blog: tales of a nurse.