Gruesome New Year's Eve thought

Somewhere in this country tonight, on New Year's Eve, an old, dying man or woman is being kept alive through undue "heroic measures," when he or she is ready to go, because the next of kin want him/her to make it to 2010 so they can avoid the estate tax (if the one-year repeal isn't called off through legislation in the new year).

And someone, somewhere, is talking elliptically (but not too much so) to a doctor about reporting the death as 2010 even if the individual doesn't actually quite make it to midnight.

The stakes could be tens of millions of dollars, so I would have to think that someone, somewhere, is likely doing these things.