Medical Aid-in-Dying

Current law authorizes an individual with a terminal illness to request, and the individual's attending physician to prescribe to the individual, medication to hasten the individual's death (medical aid-in-dying). The bill modifies the medical aid-in-dying laws by:

• Providing an advanced practice registered nurse with the same authority to evaluate an individual and prescribe medication as a physician;
• Removing the requirement that an individual must be a resident of the state to access end-of-life options;
• Adding language specifying that if any end-of-life options conflict with requirements to receive federal money, the conflicting part is inoperative and the remainder of the law will continue to operate; and
• Reducing the waiting period between oral requests from 15 days to 48 hours 7 days and allowing attending providers to waive the mandatory waiting period if the patient is unlikely to survive more than 48 hours and meets all other qualifications.

The bill also prohibits certain insurers from:

• Denying or altering health-care or life insurance benefits otherwise available to a covered individual with a terminal illness based on the availability of medical aid-in-dying; or
• Attempting to coerce an individual with a terminal illness to make a request for medical aid-in-dying medication.

(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)