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Merrill Matthews, PhD, Director of the Center for Health Policy Studies at the National Center for Policy Analysis, wrote in his article, "Would Physician-Assisted Suicide Save the Healthcare System Money?" that appeared in the 1998 book Physician Assisted Suicide: Expanding the Debate:

“Would Physician-Assisted Suicide Save Money?

The answer to the question seems almost certainly no… The primary reason is that the number of people seeking physician-assisted suicide and being granted that asssistance is extremely small…

Most requests for physician assistance come in the last month, or even the last days of life, which would drastically reduce the actual amount of money saved. For example, in the survey of Dutch physicians, 64 percent said they had shortened a patient’s life by less than twenty-four hours, and in 16 percent it was shortened less than a week.

…Even though the various elements that make up the American healthcare system are becoming more circumspect in ensuring that money is not wasted, the cap that marks a zero-sum healthcare system is largely absent in the United States… Considering the way we finance healthcare in the United States, it would be hard to make a case that there is a financial imperative compelling us to adopt physician-assisted suicide in an effort to save money so that others could benefit.”

1998