[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 9, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S4732]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. YOUNG:
  S. 2063. A bill to amend title XI of the Social Security Act with 
respect to organ procurement organizations; to the Committee on 
Finance.
  Mr. YOUNG. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss an issue that is 
very important to me and to the 1,300 Hoosiers currently in need of an 
organ transplant. That issue is the lack of organs for patients in need 
and our broken organ donation system.
  For more than 30 years, our Nation's organ donation system has 
operated in complete darkness. Groups known as organ procurement 
organizations, or OPOs, are responsible for getting organs from the 
donors to the patients who actually need them, but questions surround 
the effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of these 
organizations.
  OPOs are the main link between donor hospitals and organ recipients, 
and their performance can be a limiting factor for all stakeholders in 
the organ donation system.
  In the last 20 years, no OPO has been decertified despite serious 
issues of underperformance. For example, CMS recently recertified the 
New York City OPO despite persistent underperformance for nearly a 
decade. This problem exists throughout the country.
  Currently, OPO performance is measured by data that is self-reported, 
unaudited, and fraught with errors. Many of these errors have been 
documented by Lenny Bernstein and Kimberly Kindy at the Washington 
Post.
  That is why today I introduced legislation that would require organ 
procurement organizations to be held to metrics that are objective, 
verifiable, and not subject to self-interpretation. This way, there can 
be meaningful transparency, evaluation, and accountability. Updating 
these metrics will also enable geographic-level donation rates to be 
evaluated and improved. This is desperately needed for the more than 
113,000 Americans currently waiting for a lifesaving transplant. The 
legislation I introduced today is supported by the American Society of 
Nephrology, Dialysis Patient Citizens, and the nonprofit group 
ORGANIZE. Additionally, in April of this year, I wrote to CMS 
Administrator Seema Verma urging CMS to update OPO metrics to be 
objective and verifiable.
  I am hopeful that we will soon see action from the White House and 
the Department of Health and Human Services. You see, this issue is 
very personal to me. My friend Dave ``Gunny'' McFarland from 
Jeffersonville, IN, died because his heart transplant never came. We 
served together in the U.S. Marine Corps, and over the years, I have 
gotten to know his widow, Jennifer McFarland Kern. Jen has made it her 
mission to raise awareness about the organ transplant process and to 
help prevent others from facing a similar situation.
  Because the system is so complex, most people don't know how it works 
or if patients are actually being protected. It is time to change that. 
Today's legislation is the first in a series of bills I am working on 
to reform our organ donation system once and for all and help save 
precious lives. I will not stop until we increase the availability of 
organs for patients in need.
  Semper fidelis.

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