[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 17 (Tuesday, January 30, 2024)]
[House]
[Pages H278-H279]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            END OF LIFE CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, one of our society's greatest failures 
is our inability to equip and inform our families at the time of 
greatest stress and vulnerability: the end of life.
  Even though Sarah Palin lied about ``death panels,'' I am proud to 
have been the foremost champion of protecting families and equipping 
them with the information they need to make those decisions before they 
are too late to inform those decisions and guarantee their wishes are 
respected and enforced.
  No one wants to die in a hospital room but, sadly, too many people do 
so. Separated from their loved ones, too many are isolated from family 
and friends in those final hours. It doesn't have to be that way.
  I fought for years to raise awareness to equip families to protect 
themselves and their loved ones, and to encourage doctors to have those 
often difficult conversations to do their part for those patients.
  I led the battle for the Federal Government to put a value on those 
discussions. The Federal Government would spend tens of thousands of 
dollars for a 96-year-old woman with terminal cancer, but wouldn't pay 
$150 for her doctor to have the discussion with her and her family to 
understand her choices, how to manage it, and how to make sure her 
choices, whatever they were, were respected and enforced.
  I led the battle for the Federal Government to put a value on that 
protection by adding end-of-life conversations to the list of services 
eligible for Medicare reimbursement. It took longer and was made more 
difficult by Sarah Palin's lies about death panels but, nonetheless, we 
won that fight.
  Now doctors have the opportunity to invest their time and energy to 
have those often difficult discussions. This work ultimately had 
bipartisan, bicameral support. I enjoyed my partnership with the late 
Senator Johnny Isakson and with Senator Mark Warner.
  We finally changed that policy for the Federal Government but, sadly, 
too few people today take advantage of it until it is too late and 
their loved ones face end of life at a hospital hooked up to some 
impersonal machine.
  There are great resources and protections, but only if we help people 
understand how to take advantage of them.

[[Page H279]]

For example, advanced directives capture the wishes of the patient and 
have an enforceable document, or hospice care, which is not just for 
the final hours of life.
  Hospice care often, today, is not just the final hours. It can be 
many days, even weeks. President Jimmy Carter is the best example of 
living with hospice, a higher quality of care. Actually, many people on 
hospice live longer and enjoy that higher quality of life with their 
families.
  I am proud of our progress, but so much more needs to be done to 
protect our families when they are most vulnerable and in need.
  One other item: We all need to do our part by filling out advanced 
directives and making our wishes known so people don't have to guess 
what our wishes are. It is the least we can do for our families and 
loved ones.

                          ____________________