Of course it’s not easy to think about how our lives might end — much less talk about it. But Americans are pretty good at sidestepping the whole issue of end-of-life care, despite the fact that their comfort — or survival — could depend on it.
But according to a new report from Kaiser Health News, only about a third of U.S. adults have taken the time to set up advance directives such as living wills and health care proxies or powers of attorney.
A Health Affairs study that examined a range of studies to determine how many people actually had gone through end-of-life planning reports that just 36.7 percent of subjects in the various studies “had completed an advance directive, including 29.3 percent with living wills … Similar proportions of patients with chronic illnesses (38.2 percent) and healthy adults (32.7 percent) had completed advance directives.”
Recommended For You
Complete your profile to continue reading and get FREE access to BenefitsPRO, part of your ALM digital membership.
Your access to unlimited BenefitsPRO content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking benefits news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the property casualty insurance and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, PropertyCasualty360 and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
