Suzanne O'Brien noted that the average cost of a funeral in the United States is between $7,000 and $11,000, far more than what a fraction of that sum could provide in end-of-life care.
Where this was said
At 47:28 · chapter starts 46:30
The conversation reaches its most layered moment as Dubner asks O'Brien how her work intersects with MAID. She doesn't offer a simple answer. In her experience at the bedside — with ALS patients, cancer patients, people terrified of suffocation or becoming a burden — she hears fear underneath the demand for assisted dying. Her approach is to address the fear directly: educating patients on what medications are available for breathing difficulties, on what the dying process actually looks like, on how their families can be supported. She recounts an ALS patient who said early on 'when the time comes, I'll take care of it' — code for a plan to take his own life — and how building trust and providing education changed that calculus. O'Brien's most revealing data point: 61% of people who legally obtain end-of-life medications under MAID laws never use them [1] — Suzanne O'Brien "61% of people who legally obtain end-of-life medication under MAID laws never use it. O'Brien argues this reveals the real driver: people w…" 50:30 . What they want, she argues, is the sense of control — the option in their back pocket — not the act itself. She stops short of calling MAID unnecessary, acknowledging cases of intractable pain where it may be the right answer. But she argues that a massive education gap means people are fighting for laws when they already have tools they don't know about.
61% of people who legally obtain end-of-life medication under MAID laws never use it. O'Brien argues this reveals the real driver: people want the option, the sense of control, not necessarily the act itself — which raises the question of whether addressing fear is a better intervention than prescribing lethal drugs.
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