My grandma was in the same situation for memory care facilities. $6000 or more per month isn't extravagant at all for that kind of thing. If you end up in the ICU you're looking at $10,000 a day. All the incentive for a hospital or care facility is to do more, test more, prolong and defer the inevitable.
This is my big concern with ER type things too, though honestly I'm not sure hanging on at a job for 20 more years would make a difference...I'm not sure anyone can expect to save their way into a stash big enough to outrun medical bills if the worst happens.
The US medical system is totally crippled, costs are out of control, end-of-life care is a huge percentage of where the national health care dollar goes, much of what is done is pointless, some is outright destructive. This issue WILL need to be addressed in the next 20-30 years, one way or another. I fear it won't be really pretty when it is.
(emphasis added)
Not to downplay the issues you raise, which I agree are real and serious, but I think it's important to recognize that the kinds of circumstances being discussed here are not unique to people with "serious health problems" or who have experienced "crises."
To take my dad as an example (since I reference him above in my reply to the OP), 8 years ago he had a stroke due to undiagnosed/untreated atrial fibrillation. Fortunately the stroke was caught quickly (basically immediately) and treated effectively, resulting in an ER admission, 4 days in the hospital, ~2 months in a rehab facility, and a resumption of his regular life, living independently and managing a small business. Oh, and life-long use of Coumadin, a product that's been used as a blood thinner to reduce stroke risk longer than I've been alive.
That circumstance continued until 3 years ago, despite his increasing frailty and confusion -- he continued to live independently, continued to run his business, continued to refuse to consider that he might need to re-evaluate and change anything about his situation. His stroke had left one side weaker than the other and affected his balance, but not to a point where he couldn't function. Then he fell one night, alone (in the wee hours of the morning, in his bedroom -- nothing nefarious), and may have spent as much as 24 hours on the floor before he was discovered, uninjured but dehydrated/confused. Another ER admission and another 4 days in the hospital allowed him to recover from the stress of the fall, etc.; tests turned up no obvious medical problems, but it was agreed (not by him) that he was developing dementia. The stress of these events (fall, being unable to get up, hospitalization, cognitive decline) left him more frail and barely able to walk independently, but not "sick." He was again released to rehab and subsequently moved to an assisted living facility. While there, he fell and broke his hip, underwent surgery, and has never regained the ability to walk. Thus is it that he now lives in a nursing home; he cannot get himself in and out of bed, or in and out of a wheelchair, he has to be lifted. Basically this is a combination of age + weakness + the cognitive declines associated with dementia. But, to be clear, he knows who the president is, watched the debates, and has opinions about current events. His clarity comes and goes, but he is far from incoherent and unaware.
I completely agree with you, philosophically, about the quality of life issues (my father, however, does not). But even if he did want to "end it all" (and after all, every one of us is "deferring the inevitable" every time we drink a glass of water or take a breath...), it's not entirely obvious what "dramatic" intervention he'd forego. Certainly, he could quit taking the blood thinner and would then probably have a stroke and could refuse treatment and die from that (not necessarily quickly, I don't think; untreated, his earlier stroke would probably have left his left side paralyzed, but would not, I don't think, have killed him). In his current state, simply refusing to lift him in-and-out of bed and to bathe him and so forth would kill him pretty quickly (albeit horribly) from bed sores and resulting infections, and obviously, if someone weren't preparing and providing his food, he'd starve (or die from dehydration).
And of course, that's just one case -- an anecdote, not data. But it is not the financial impact of developing-some-horrid-disease-in-my-dotage-and-not-being-able-to-get-treatment that worries
me, it's the gradual-declines-and-slow-incompetencies and their implications.