Expenditures on health care in the last year of life.

Abstract

18-26% of public expenditure on health care is devoted to care of patients in their last year of life. 60% of this expenditure is on patients in somatic nursing homes. The figures do not tell directly whether too much or too little money in Norwegian health care is spent on people in the end stage of life. In order to answer this question, one must look at the quality of terminal care and assess the share of patients having a reasonable benefit of the care they receive.