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Afford $350 an Hour for an Attorney but Need an
Advance Health Care Directive?
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Advance Health Care Directory
Everyone should have an advance
health care directive, also known as a health care
proxy or medical directive. This document
names the person (agent) you choose to make
medical decisions on your behalf should you become
unable to make them yourself. This may occur
because of disease, injury, a debilitating
condition or advancing years. The
advance health care directive only comes into play
if your mental or medical condition leaves you
unable to understand potential treatments and
their risks, as well as the risks of doing nothing
at all for your situation. Otherwise, you
make your own informed decisions.
Choosing someone to be your agent
in the event you cannot make medical decisions for
yourself should not be taken lightly. You
want to choose someone who will follow your
wishes, which can be laid out in a "living
will," dutifully. Someone who loves you
but may not agree with your wishes may not be the
best person to select.
For example, you have made it
known that you would not want "extraordinary
measures" to keep you alive and you have
named your husband as your agent in your advance
health care directive. You are then injured
in a car accident and left in a persistent
vegetative state. If your husband does
not agree with your ideas about no extraordinary
measures, he may insist that the doctors keep you
attached to feeding and hydration tubes despite
your wishes, particularly if you do not have a
living will. In such a case, it would
perhaps be wiser to choose another relative or
close friend, one whom you know would execute your
wishes faithfully, as your agent.
Talk to an attorney to draw up a
health care directive as the rules vary state by
state.
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