If I get to choose the way I die it will be with an unlimited morphine drip slamming on the button repetitively. I had morphine back as a kid for a ruptured appendix and damn that stuff was good. I'll never forget the day they came in and I was expecting to get my daily shot and they told me I was being switched over to Tylenol lest I become addicted. I was 8, and I still remember thinking of saying "Oh I'm not becoming addicted but can we do it for 1 more day" haha...

> I had morphine back as a kid for a ruptured appendix and damn that stuff was good.

I suppose this varies a lot from individual to individual. I had morphine a few months ago for a shoulder reduction, and I felt horrible enough that I almost wish I'd just done it without painkillers at all.

Sadly there's still some prohibition on giving the patient enough to comfortably OD and voluntarily end their suffering in a lot of places. I've heard nurses say that they're instructed to try and keep the patient optimistic, even when all that life means to them anymore is continued suffering. Gotta squeeze every last dollar out of them or something I suppose.

There is a less cynical explanation: if you make it too easy for people to kill themselves then you run the risk of old people being coerced into taking that option by, for example, greedy relatives eyeing their inheritance.

And it could be seen as a perverse incentive for governments to make it too easy for people who are an economic and budgetary burden to end their own lives.

I believe this approach is also present in the UK where the patient isn't paying for their treatment directly. So I doubt it is to do with making money.

The patient may not be paying, but is the question is if the hospital still gets paid for his continued use of their services.

Wouldn't that be the argument of legitimate medical use though? You're mitigating the pain of people who literally have less than a year to live.