New safeguards added to New York's proposed Medical Aid in Dying Act

New safeguards added to New York's proposed Medical Aid in Dying Act
Spectrum News 1, by Luke Parsnow; 4/5/24
The two architects behind New York’s Medical Aid in Dying Act have amended added additional safeguards to the legislation in the hope it can soon become law. The act would allow terminally ill, mentally capable adults who have been given six months or less to live to take their own lives with a cocktail of pharmaceutical drugs.

The changes include:

• Making even more explicit a prohibition that a health insurance company cannot deny coverage for care because a person requests, or fails to request the procedure
• Expanding the list of people who cannot serve as a witness to a dying patient who requests the procedure to include the patient’s domestic partner, health care proxy, or anyone who has power of attorney for the patient.
• Extending immunity from adverse action for those who refuse to participate in the procedure by adding a new section explicitly providing immunity from “employment, credentialing, or contractual liability or penalty for any reasonable good-faith action or refusing to act under” the law.