Why aren't terminal patients in pain put into a coma to die in peace?

Ethical question: The vast bulk of healthcare costs, and efforts occur within the last 2 weeks of life. Eventually, we are going to have to grapple with this and arrive at decisions for terminal people. You see, we already have a fairly good idea as to how most of our pts will fare. Guess we just need more precise ways of predicting the future.

They sometimes to be: It depends on the patient's goals of care. Some want to remain as alert as possible and are willing to suffer to remain alert. Others do not but can be managed with pain medications yet remain alert. Others however require higher doses and the only way relief is found is when they are sleeping, in which case "sedation for refractory symptoms" is used when nothing else has worked.