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HB 408 KY
Introduced

AN ACT relating to patient-directed care at the end of life.

KY · session 2026RS · Assembly / House · bill

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Introduced Jan 15, 2026

Latest action (Jan 23, 2026) to Health Services (H)

Summary

Create new sections of KRS Chapter 311 to define terms; establish a qualified terminally ill patient's right to voluntarily request medication to self-administer to cause death; establish conditions required to make request; permit patient to rescind request at any time; permit an attending provider to provide medication; establish requirements for attending providers to inform patients and document request; require disposal of unused medications; require report by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services; establish provisions for contracts, insurance policies, and beneficiaries; prohibit applicability of provisions to ending a patient's life by lethal injection, mercy killing, or active euthanasia; establish that a health care provider is not required to provide medication to a qualified patient; permit health care providers to prohibit persons or entities from participating in a qualified patient's request during or on the premises of employment; prohibit reporting a health care provider to a licensing board for participating in a qualified patient's request; state that actions under this Act do not authorize lethal injection, mercy killing, or active euthanasia; establish that actions under this Act do not constitute suicide or homicide; create the offenses of forging or altering a request for end-of-life medications, concealing or destroying a rescession of a request for end-of-life medication, and coercing or exerting undue influence on a terminally ill patient to request or utilize end-of-life medications; create a form for a qualified patient to make a request; create a form for an interpreter for a qualified patient making a request; create a new section of Subtitle 12 of KRS Chapter 304 to establish provisions for insurance policies and beneficiaries of qualified patients; amend KRS 507.020 and 507.030 to create an affirmative defense to a charge of murder and manslaughter in the first degree; provide that the Act may be cited Rena's Law.

Sponsors (2)

Action history (3)

  1. Jan 15, 2026 introduced in House · lower
  2. Jan 15, 2026 to Committee on Committees (H) · lower
  3. Jan 23, 2026 to Health Services (H) · lower
Subjects
Administrative Regulations And ProceedingsCrimes And PunishmentsDeathsDrugs And MedicinesHealth And Medical ServicesHealth Care ProfessionalsInsuranceInsurance, HealthMental HealthNursesPharmacistsPublic HealthReports MandatedShort Titles And Popular Names

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