ACTION ALERT from HALO-DANGEROUS FEDERAL HOSPICE BILL MUST BE DEFEATED!

ACTION ALERT from HALO-DANGEROUS FEDERAL HOSPICE BILL MUST BE DEFEATED!

The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (PCHETA) – HR 647 and S 2080 – would extend palliative care provided by hospice to non-dying patients, use our federal tax dollars to fund medical education for this purpose, and fund the “selling” of palliative care to the public. Hospice, a palliative care program, is plagued by Medicare fraud and poor quality care leading to serious harm and deaths.

The Senate bill has two proposed amendments intended to persuade opponents that this bill would not allow palliative care and hospice to cause patients’ deaths. These have no teeth—no provisions to ensure enforcement. This language will not stop the “stealth euthanasia”[1] deaths occurring in many hospice and palliative care settings. The federal government should be concerned about identifying dangerous palliative and hospice care, not promoting it.

The Healthcare Advocacy and Leadership Organization (HALO) supports life-affirming palliative and hospice care that provides comfort and pain control, but we oppose government funding of education programs that will very likely be run by proponents of medical killing.

RED FLAGS:

• The National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization (NHPCO), the leading trade organization for this industry, is the actual legal and corporate successor to the Euthanasia Society of America.[2]
• The PCHETA is enthusiastically supported by Compassion & Choices, the group leading the campaign to legalize physician-assisted suicide throughout the U.S.

IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED

HR 647 now has 255 co-sponsors, more than enough for it to pass the House. Therefore, our best chance to defeat this legislation is to keep it in the Senate committee. Before the end of August, it is crucial that you email the staffers of the Republicans on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) Committee, registering your opposition to S 2080. Also email the staffers of the pro-life sponsors of S 2080, requesting that they withdraw their sponsorship. Their contact information is provided here.

“Opposing PCHETA Talking Points” are available here. When emailing the Senators’ staffers, you may wish to use one or several of these talking points to argue against the bill.

It is particularly important to contact Senator Lamar Alexander, Chairman of the HELP Committee, and your own Senator, asking them to oppose S 2080.

We sincerely thank you in advance for taking action to defeat the PCHETA, which if passed will endanger the lives of many more vulnerable patients. – HALO

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[1] “Stealth euthanasia” means the intentional hastening of a patient’s death while pretending to provide appropriate treatment. A typical report HALO receives from grieving family members is that their loved one, who had been alert and was not complaining of pain, was administered increasingly frequent and larger doses of pain medications and sedatives to the point where they were sleeping all the time and could not eat or drink. Some reported that patients were also denied their usual medications to control blood pressure, diabetes, etc.

[2] In 2004, Last Acts Partnership—whose roots trace back 66 years to the Euthanasia Society of America—ceases operations. Its assets and some of its personnel go to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. “There is no further need for "Euthanasia Society of America" (or its successors) as the National Hospice & Palliative Care Organization has now been fully infiltrated by the euthanasia industry and is carrying on its work.”
https://www.hospicepatients.org/euthanasia-soc-of-america-to-natl-hosp-and-palliative-care-org.pdf