Rogers / 5 Senator Lervaag

S.B._____

A BILL
To ensure the right of physician assisted suicide to terminally ill patients and establish the Office of Physician Assisted
Suicide.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE
This act may be cited as the Final Choice Act of 2015.
SECTION 2. FINDINGS
Congress hereby finds and declares that,
A) Approximately ten to fifteen percent of pain and other physical symptoms become refractory, meaning they cannot be
significantly controlled or lessened with the aid of medication.
B) The average time estimated between euthanization and prognosis is about two weeks.
C) Unbearable symptoms were present in ninety-four percent of patients with an explicit request for physician assisted
suicide.
D) By 2050, the amount of people in palliative care is estimated to double.
E) Cardiac failure and cancer have become the predominant causes of death, the latter especially often causing a difficult
process of dying.
F) Out-of-pocket expenses for Medicare recipients during the five years before their death averaged about thirty-nine
thousand dollars for individuals, fifty-one thousand dollars for couples, and up to sixty-six thousand dollars for people
with long-term illnesses like Alzheimers; for more than forty percent of these households, the bills exceeded their
financial assets.
SECTION 3. STATUTORY LANGUAGE
A) Physician Assisted Suicide is hereby legal for all terminally ill patients. Physician assisted suicide is defined as a
physician supplying aid-in-dying drug and administering the drug; the patient can request to self administer the drug.
Under no circumstance will other persons other than the physician or patient be admitted to administer drugs. The Health
Resources and Services Administration within the Department of Health and Human Services will create a new office
that regulates and manages the practice of physician assisted suicide. This office will be referred to as the Office of
Physician Assisted Suicide. A qualified individual who is at least eighteen years of age with the mental capacity to make
medical decisions, may request a prescription for an aid-in-dying drug; there must be a minimum of two requests for an
aid-in-dying drug in the presence of a physician made at least five days apart. In order to qualify, the individual must be
a U.S. citizen, have a diagnosis of a terminal disease, have made two voluntary requests for a prescription under
supervision of a physician, have two independent physicians make a prognosis of six or fewer months to live, has been
determined to be operating without coercion from the physician or other outside party, and has the physical and mental
ability to make the decision. All prescription reports must be submitted to the Office of Physician Assisted Suicide
within two weeks of the request. The office of Physician Assisted Suicide must review and give approval before action
can take place. All euthanizations must be completed by or under the supervision of a physician and must be selfadministered by the patient who made the requests. A patient may refuse the aid-in-dying drug at any time regardless of
their current mental state or awareness. If a patient is unable to communicate in any form, the patients family or
guardian will have the right to request an aid-in-dying drug. Further regulatory provisions will be established by the
Office of Physician Assisted Suicide within two months of the date this bill shall go into effect.
B) The Office of Physician Assisted Suicide will enforce and regulate the practice of euthanasia. Funding will be part of
the budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. The aid-in-dying drug will be covered by the patient's
medical insurance.
C) Any practitioner convicted of perjury, coercion, unethical practice, administration of drugs to patients other than
supplying, or violation of other guidelines established by the Office of Physician Assisted Suicide will have their
medical license revoked and be imprisoned for a minimum of two years. This law shall go into effect on January 1,
2019.