US lawmakers urge stricter monitoring of medically assisted suicide in hospices

Bipartisan group warns HHS that older adults and people with disabilities risk being pressured to end their lives Lawmakers urged the health and human services (HHS) secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on Thursday to establish strict hospice reporting rules to prevent discrimination and coercion in medically assisted suicide. The bipartisan group of members of Congress warned that older adults, people with disabilities, or those with disaffected caregivers face a particular risk of being pressured to end their lives. “Every person has inherent worth and dignity, including those facing their final days,” said the Republican senator James Lankford in a statement. “Hospice should be a place of compassion, comfort, and care, where the suffering are surrounded by loved ones and quality health care, not a place where they feel quietly pressured to end their lives through assisted suicide.” Lankford, as well as the Democratic senator Tim Kaine, Republican representative Greg Murphy and Jose Luis Correa, a Democratic representative, signed a joint letter asking HHS and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to monitor the practice. The members of Congress specifically requested tha