Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog:  The Journal of the American Medical Association recently published a study focused on end of life care. The study found that patients are more likely to have a higher quality of life and be at home when they die when medical personnel know the patient’s end of life wishes. Additionally, informing medical personnel about a patient’s end of life wishes can save Medicare about $5,600 per person in most regions of the U.S. (end of life treatment accounted for over a quarter of Medicare expenditures in 2006).

Forbes:  “If I should remain in a persistent vegetative state for more than 15 years, I would like someone to turn off the TV.”

This was the first item Paul Rudnick listed in his New Yorker parody, “Living Will.” But while his 2005 essay continues to amuse, living wills are no joke. They’re extremely difficult to think about and bring oneself to sign. For some people they also raise cultural and religious issues.

A living will, also known as a healthcare directive or advance directive, is a legal document authorizing someone to “pull the plug.” Of course it doesn’t say so that bluntly. Instead, it’s phrased in terms of withdrawing or withholding life‑sustaining procedures for a terminal condition if death is imminent. The provisions –for example, about not giving you intravenous fluids, using a machine to help you breathe or restarting your heart — are nauseating to contemplate. But unless you sign a living will, friends and family may be left to guess about your wishes or doctors may refuse to carry them out. This just adds to their stress at an already stressful time.

Estate of Denial:  When Roberta Battle and her 10 siblings gathered in Washington, D.C., twice each year for their parents’ birthdays, her mother, Helen Harper White, always initiated a family business meeting. The agenda included her and her husband’s wills, their health care wishes, their financial situation — the entire spectrum of issues that experts call end-of-life planning.

When White died in 2009 at age 92, the family was prepared.

“With that background, I should be better prepared than I am myself,” said Battle, 67, a retired consultant. “I haven’t even done my own health care directive. I’ve just told my daughter things.”

For millions of baby boomers and their parents, this conversation is the elephant in the room. And in today’s volatile political and financial landscape, experts say, frank discussions between the generations about money, health care and other end-of-life issues are all the more crucial.