Instances of euthanasia or mercy killing date back to antiquity. However, it is only recently that the unprecedented grassroots efforts to legalize euthana sia have begun building. "Terminal Illness, Assistance with Dying," a California ballot initiative for the No vember 1992 election, might for the first time in modem history legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide by physicians. Similar initiatives are planned in other states. To vote intelligently, citizens in California and throughout the United States need to learn who is likely to request euthanasia or assisted suicide, and why. How we care for the terminally ill eventually af fects us all. In over half of all deaths, a chronic dis ease process such as cancer or congestive heart failure leads to a terminal phase that may last for days, weeks, or months. Most people are more afraid of the suffering associated with this terminal phase than they are afraid of dying itself. When polled, most Americans tell us they would prefer to die at home, surrounded by loved ones, rather than in a hospital receiving high-tech tests and treatments until the last. Yet the majority of people, even those with term inal illnesses, die in the hospital. What factors in our culture and health care system have led to this dichotomy? Unrelieved suffering is also the primary reason for euthanasia requests."

Can universal health care be obtained at an affordable price today? Drawing on many real-life medical case histories, David Cundiff, MD, and Mary Ellen McCarthy, PhD, develop in this innovative and highly readable book, The Right Medicine, a comprehensive, justly humane, and economically sound plan for the full and effective solution of the terrible crisis in today's American health care system. Here are the key steps that the authors - a practicing oncologist and an experienced health care financial analyst - believe will succeed in providing high-quality, cost effective, universal coverage for all Americans establish a single-payer system, thus avoiding employer mandates and dramatically lowering health care costs by radically downsizing both hospital and insurance bureaucracies; make preventive care a top priority. This will ultimately produce substantial new cost reductions as levels of health improve; establish a national program of local Community Wellness Centers for the coordination and delivery of health promotion and disease prevention services; restore the family physician to the traditional role in the medical system - thus renewing focus on the individual patient and reducing the overuse of specialists; encourage palliative (hospice) care for the terminally ill, thereby providing dignified, pain-free care and eliminating the excessive costs of current high-tech hospital death and establish strong incentives to adopt a healthy lifestyle by radically increasing taxes on alcohol, tobacco, dietary fat, firearms, violent media, and the wasteful uses of fossil fuels - taxes that will repay the heavy health care costs they impose. The Right Medicine proposes an eminently workable"win, win, win" program that will keep alive the promise of America the public wins with more appropriate and efficacious health care services at lower overall cost; the economy wins with more jobs through community wellness programs and more productive workers and health care workers win with less bureaucracy and more satisfying work. Whatever your position on health care reform, your views will never be the same after reading The Right Medicine. Its commonsense proposals make clear that health care reform is possible only if - beyond all institutional change - we also persuade Americans to become active, responsible partners in their own health care. The programs of The Right Medicine - the only comprehensive, affordable alternative to all the current health care plans - will surely transform our lives.

Today's news is full of stories about suicide machines, critical life-and-death decisions, who owns a person's life, death with dignity, prolonging painful life, and euthanasia as a justifiable release for terminally ill patients. And this year, California voters will be faced with a real life-and-death decision: the Euthanasia Initiative. Other states are expected to follow suit soon.
Can euthanasia be accepted as a reasonable choice? Or must a patient's pain and suffering be prolonged in order to preserve life, without regard to the quality of that life? Are there viable alternatives? Can a patient in fact live out his or her days in relative comfort, with love and support from family, friends, and health care workers?
A mind-opening new book from Humana Press, Euthanasia Is Not the Answer shows how terminally ill patients, especially those with cancer or AIDS, can live in comfort and dignity until death. The proper use of modern pain medications can ease the pain that drives them to despair and the request for euthanasia. And dedicated hospice care can allow them a meaningful life to the end.
Written with intelligence, deep understanding based on the author's pioneering experience in hospice care--and, above all, sensitivity and respect--Euthanasia Is Not the Answer explores these alternatives, using case reports and powerful medical and socioeconomic analysis that soundly argue Dr. Cundiff's case.
This important book adds new dimensions to our society's concern for the pain and suffering of the dying, clarifying the key issues associated with euthanasia and hospice, putting them into a new perspective, and showing that an approach based on easing pain and providing kind, caring support--rather than heroic high-tech medicine--is what is really needed for the terminally ill.
Death with dignity can be a reality...without drastic measures

When Dr. David Cundiff called me with a proposal to help research and write The Right Medicine I was intrigued but skep tical. His ideas for reform of the US health care system were visionary, radical, and highly original-but would they work? As a Wall Street analyst and long-time student of the health care system, I had my doubts. had read David's book on hospice care, Euthanasia Is Not the I Answer, and was impressed. And I had recently witnessed the slow death of my grandmother from the complications of Alzheimer's disease. Despite the fact that she was and had been suffering for years and despite the fact that her care was an extraordinary emotional and financial burden, nursing home administrators and physicians encouraged one last ditch treat ment after another, pulling her back each time from the brink of what would have been a merciful death. I knew that David was correct in his contention that hospice care and a more spar ing application of high technology medicine were major keys to improving health care. I also realized, after a decade of analyzing the health care industry, that a government-funded system along the lines of Canada's was probably the only way to rein in rampant infla tion and provide universal coverage. But David had other ideas, too. He argued that preventive care could dramatically cut both the incidence and costs associ ated with the most common causes of illness in America today.