I think people need reminding or educated on just what hospice is. Hospice is where all treatment is stopped, all and any treatment that prolongs or assists in prolonging and maintaining ones life. The exception would be the administering pain control, but that is it and no treatment beyond pain control will be administered.
Should you come down with a simple infection, oh say a kidney infection or bladder infection, antibiotics will not be administered to a patient in hospice care. They have strict rules and regulations pertaining to hospice care, and once you and your family agree to those rules then the family and the patient acknowledge no treatment will be administered, period. End of story.
In short, you are expected to die and you and your family agree with that expectation. For example, if we are talking about cancer and the patient should develop a simple infection, the patient will not be treated for that simple infection. I know that seems pretty crazy and harsh, but that is how hospice care works.
And frankly, most hospice patients simply die from starvation, and most cancer patients die from starvation as their body can no longer take in food or process food including fluids. Hospitals and treatment clinics will administer fluids intravenously to a cancer patient, but never will they in hospice care situation. Just like a person on a hunger strike protesting for a cause, that person withers away and their body shuts down, the same goes for a patient in hospice care.
From lack of food and fluids, the body shuts down and usually it is the heart that fails thus the cause of death. Not the cancer per se, but organ failure from lack of nutrition.
I had always believed people that die from cancer die in pain and agony, but that is not the case most of the time. Most cancer patients die from organ failure and extreme weakness due to lack of nutrition. However, pain medication will always be administered.
Then you have the costs of hospice care.
Home hospice care most likely will be covered by most insurance, to a point. However, in-facility hospice care is usually not covered and facility hospice care runs into thousands of dollars a month. Thousands of dollars a month not covered by insurance.
My sister who died from pancreatic cancer (the death sentence of all cancers), could not do home hospice and entered into a hospice facility where she was billed some $11,000 a month for care. She lasted two months in hospice, insurance would not pay a dime, and the bill(s) went into her estate. I suppose the in-laws will need to sell her house to settle those hospice bills. I don't know... its their problem now. Death, money, wills and in-laws... Quite another issue.
If Jimmy Carter can eat on his own or take in fluids on his own then he could certainly last weeks and possibly months. But when his body can no longer process food and fluids, that's about the end of it. And that is how most hospice patients pass away both in home care and in-facility care.
That's all.
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