The Patients Rights Action Fund, a group fighting against the expansion of aid-in-dying laws, started a video campaign Wednesday urging lawmakers to oppose legislation that allows terminally ill patients to obtain prescriptions for life-ending medications.
The online video features Dr. Brian Callister, an internist and medical professor at the University of Nevada Medical School, who said that insurers refused to cover life-saving procedures for two out-of-state patients who were not terminally ill but offered instead to cover medication for aid-in-dying.
“This is something we didn’t talk about, we didn’t request, we didn’t ask for,” he said in the video.
Laws to expand access to aid-in-dying recently have passed in the District of Columbia and in Colorado. Other states that are considering similar laws include Nevada, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Callister said in a recent interview with the Washington Examiner that he supports increasing access to palliative care, which he says help improve patients’ quality of life.
“What’s interesting is that the proponents of [aid-in-dying] talk about freedom and choice, but this is reducing choice,” he said. “This is cutting patient access.”
J.J. Hanson, president of the Patients Rights Action Fund, has been fighting against legalization of aid-in-dying in various states, sharing his personal story about being told by doctors three years ago that he had six months to live, and about a time when he considered ending his life rather than seeking medical care.
“I got out of that phase and decided to set a positive mode and think about how to fight,” he said. “That’s the danger … people are not necessarily working to make a good decision for themselves.”
Hanson said he has the same form of cancer as Brittany Maynard, who moved to Oregon to get access to the state’s allowance for aid-in-dying. Her husband, Dan Diaz, took up the cause after her death, working with the organization Compassion and Choices to advocate for successful passage of an aid-in-dying law in California.
Kat West, the national director of policy and programs at Compassion and Choices, raised concerns about the credibility of Callister’s story in an emailed statement and called it “highly unlikely,” citing lack of evidence.
“Without corroboration, we remain skeptical of Dr. Callister’s claims,” she said. “Compassion and Choices’ mission is to improve care for all terminally ill people regardless of their choices and it would be appalling if insurance companies actually denied effective life-saving treatment and suggested medical aid in dying to save money, as Dr. Callister implies. … Medical aid in dying is a safe, trusted and compassionate practice that brings comfort and peace of mind to dying people so they can live their remaining days to the fullest.”
Under aid-in-dying laws, terminally ill patients can fill a prescription to ingest life-ending medication. They are not required to have a doctor present at the time of death, making the process different from euthanasia in some countries in Europe, in which a liquid solution can be injected by a doctor.
In states where aid-in-dying is legal, laws require that patients be 18 years or older, have a medical diagnosis of six months left to live and be determined mentally competent by two doctors.
