Beth Pinsker

That's crazy.

You know, you have to have somebody that you're close to and you trust.

The thing about power of attorney is that there's responsibilities that come with it.

There's accountability.

And so if you are named as somebody's power of attorney and you are acting in that capacity, you have to act in their best interest and you can be held to account if you don't.

So if you go in there with the authority to do it and siphon off money for yourself.

somebody can call you on that and you have to produce receipts and be accountable for that.

So that's why it's helpful in a family situation where maybe siblings are prone to fighting about these sorts of things, which, you know, name me a family where they aren't.

You know, if you're going to end up fighting with the sibling, you want somebody to be the proper power of attorney because otherwise there's no accountability.

They're just a joint owner on the account.

They can do whatever they want.

Nobody has any say over them.

So the health care proxy gives somebody permission to make medical decisions for you if you're incapacitated.

The living will lays out what you want them to do in certain circumstances.

If you want to be resuscitated, if you stop breathing, if you want a breathing tube, if you want...

other extraordinary measures of any sort.

When it comes time for using those things, the doctors are going to want some sort of document that says what the person's wishes are.

It's best if it's just all written down and notarized and documented so that the family has something to go on and the hospital can trust that that's what the person actually wants.

The whole point of all of this, like the whole why that my message is that I'm trying to make people understand is that we do these things.

These things are hard.