After 'death panel' nonsense, Medicare adopts improved hospice policy

[Star Tribune, August 30, 2015] Norman Mossberg of Coon Rapids was a loving husband and father. Still, the Vietnam combat veteran and retired bricklayer grew up at a time when men were taught to be taciturn. That makes one of his last gifts to his family, and to his fellow Minnesotans, even more extraordinary.

Months before he died in 2012 from pulmonary fibrosis, Mossberg, 65, opened his home to a camera crew to share his experience with hospice care. The resulting video, now on the Allina Health Hospice’s website, movingly shows how this type of medical care for the terminally ill focuses on quality of days left, not just the quantity. Read the rest of the editorial at startribune.com.