[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 16360-16361]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   PERSONALIZE YOUR CARE ACT OF 2013

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I started my day with my friend and 
colleague Dr. Phil Roe, a Republican Congressman from Tennessee. We met 
with representatives from the American Academy of Hospice and 
Palliative Medicine. These dedicated professionals deal with helping 
patients and their families contend with some of the most difficult 
circumstances any of us will ever face: loved ones in pain with 
difficult medical conditions at the end of life.
  We were discussing legislation that Dr. Roe and I have cosponsored--
the Personalize Your Care Act of 2013, H.R. 1173.
  Despite widespread agreement in principle that individuals should be 
fully involved with decisions related to their health care, too often, 
this is not the reality. Most adults have not completed an advanced 
directive. If documents are completed, they are not regularly revisited 
and can be difficult to locate when needed. Because these issues are 
difficult to discuss, often surrogates feel ill-prepared to interpret 
their loved ones' written wishes. These shortcomings leave families and 
health care proxies faced with the burden of determining their loved 
ones' wishes in the midst of crisis, adding greater stress and anxiety.
  One of the great misconceptions about advanced care planning is that 
it is a onetime event. Attempting to plan for all of the possibilities 
in a single document or within a single conversation is both 
overwhelming and impossible. For advanced care planning to be

[[Page 16361]]

successful, it must become less about legal documentation and more 
about facilitating ongoing communication about the future care wishes 
among individuals, their health care providers and their families.
  This approach recognizes that documents like advance directives and 
physician orders for life-sustaining treatment are not the end but the 
means--the tools--for documenting care preferences based on informed 
decisions that incorporate an individual's values, personal goals and 
current circumstance. This process not only provides higher quality 
care but personalized care. This is the right time to embrace this 
simple, commonsense reform.
  I stepped out of a hearing going on in Ways and Means about the 
Affordable Care Act, which has basically become a contest, an ongoing 
soap opera, not an effort to fix the expensive health care system that 
too often delivers mediocre results. Instead, it is used as a political 
tug of war. The Personalize Your Care Act is a way out of this cul-de-
sac. It is a way that we can come together to empower families, to know 
what they face, to understand their choices, to make their wishes 
known, and to assure their wishes are respected.
  I strongly urge my colleagues to join Dr. Roe and me to cosponsor 
H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care Act, and to work with us to 
guarantee this important protection for all American families.

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