PCHETA (Pa Cheetah) -- the bill with 9 lives

By Sara Buscher, Attorney, Past Chair, EPC USA 

They say a cat has 9 lives. The  "Pa Cheetah" certainly does. 

The first version of the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act (PCHETA) was introduced in 2004. It evolved into the current version in 2015. Come 2024 that will be 9 years. The Euthanasia Prevention Coalition USA has been opposing PCHETA since 2017. According to the HHS Office of Inspector General:

“Our reports and investigations have revealed several concerning issues, including poor—sometimes harmful—quality of care, fraud schemes that involve enrolling beneficiaries without their consent, inappropriate billing practices, limited transparency for patients and their families, a payment system that creates incentives to minimize services, and a rapid growth in the number of new hospices, often to take advantage of these conditions.”

We see the Bill rewarding those who nudge people into hospice (by way of palliative care programs) where they are subjected to abuse and, in some cases, euthanasia. One reason supporters keep trying to get this Bill passed, are its meaningless safeguards.

The Bill’s Safeguards are Illusions.

The current bill, S. 2243 has two safeguards in Section 5. Two years ago, Senator Baldwin the bill’s sponsor, got PCHETA language added to a House budget reconciliation bill without the Section 5 safeguards. The Senate Finance Committee refused to include PCHETA, so once again the Bill died. In mid-September 2023, Senator Baldwin announced she will try to get it included in a bipartisan bill that must pass, probably without safeguards. She said this as she withdrew S. 2243 from action by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) committee.

The Section 5 safeguards are unenforceable and pretty much meaningless.

Don’t talk about it, Section 5(a). Section 5(a) prohibits using the Bill’s funds to provide, promote, or provide training about any item or service subject to the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act (ASFRA). Nothing prohibits federal funding of teaching about assisted suicide and euthanasia as long as the funding does not come from PCHETA. The ASFRA itself does not prohibit federal funding for speaking about assisted suicide and euthanasia, only the provision of items and services for that purpose. Nor, does it prohibit withholding or withdrawing medical care, nutrition or hydration. It also allows funding for relieving pain or discomfort with an increased risk of death, as long as death is not intended. Lastly, Compassion & Choices has a goal of repealing ASFRA.

Don’t do it, Section 5(b). This section says: 

“As used in … [PCHETA], palliative care and hospice shall not be furnished for the purpose of causing, or the purpose of assisting in causing, a patient’s death, for any reason.” 

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Here’s the problem. It only applies to PCHETA funds, nothing else; PCHETA only funds education, research and public information, not the furnishing of care. In other words, Section 5(b) does nothing.