How does a living will work, and how is it different from a health care proxy?
A living will also called an advance directive spells out a patient’s wishes if he or she becomes incapacitated. Often people say they don’t want to be kept alive on breathing machines if their condition is terminal and irreversible. A health care proxy empowers another person to make medical decisions should the patient become incapacitated. There’s also a power-of-attorney, which authorizes another person to make financial decisions for someone who is incapacitated. Such legal documents have become standard estate-planning tools in the last twenty years. Q: Would the health overhaul legislation change the way people now deal with making end-of-life decisions? A: It very well could. Supporters of the provision say the main consequence would be to formally bring doctors into a discussion that now takes place mainly among family members and lawyers. “When you execute a legal document with your lawyer, it ends up in your files and in the lawyer’s files,” said John Rother, a senior policy
