US lawmakers urge stricter monitoring of medically assisted suicide in hospices | US healthcare
Lawmakers on Thursday called on Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. to establish strict nursing home reporting rules to prevent discrimination and oppression in medically assisted suicide.
The bipartisan group of members of Congress warned that older adults, people with disabilities or those with disgruntled caregivers are at risk of being pressured to end their lives.
“Every human being has inherent worth and dignity, including those facing their final days,” Republican senator James Lankford said in a statement. “Hospice should be a place of compassion, comfort, and care where sufferers are surrounded by loved ones and quality health care, not a place where they feel silently pressured to end their lives through assisted suicide.”
Along with Lankford, Democratic senator Tim Kaine, Republican representative Greg Murphy and Democratic representative Jose Luis Correa signed a joint letter asking HHS and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to audit the practice.
Members of Congress have requested that the monitoring include discriminatory practices, such as whether insurers deny life-sustaining medical care and instead offer to cover physician-assisted suicide medications, compliance with federal restrictions prohibiting the use of federal funds for physician-assisted suicide products or services, among other investigations.
While federal funds are available legally prohibited While 13 states support medically assisted suicide, including New York and California, and the District of Columbia allow it. Eligible patients are generally adults who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and have a prognosis of six months or less and who self-administer prescription lethal medications.
“Many disabled individuals warn that states that legalize physician-assisted suicide send the message that the lives of disabled people are less valued in society,” the letter says.
Lawmakers have expressed concern that requiring witnesses for assisted suicide may fail to protect elderly patients from financial exploitation, as witnesses could benefit financially from the patient’s death through a will or life insurance.
The nonprofit organization Aging With Dignity reported in March: at least 14,446 Americans have been dying by suicide with the help of doctors since 1997.
