Older Americans Act

Floor Speech

Mr. President, the Senator from Maine is about to speak I believe on the Older Americans Act.

While she is here on the floor, I wish to take a moment to express my personal appreciation to her and to Chairman Alexander for an issue that arose during the course of the Older Americans Act.

I have a very strong concern that older Americans, particularly as they approach the end of their lives, are not getting their wishes honored. In fact, very often nobody even knows what their wishes are about how they would like to be treated at the end of their lives. Do they want to be at home? Do they not particularly care about using all the medical apparatuses available to them? Do they want to be in the hospital and have everybody take every available measure? That should be their choice. It should be an informed choice and a choice that we should honor.

I sought language within the Older Americans Act to try to empower that. There were difficulties with it, and those difficulties were resolved by the willingness of Chairman Alexander to ask Chairman Collins to hold a hearing on this subject in the Select Committee on Aging and for all of the chairmen and ranking members on the two committees to send a letter to the Government Accountability Office to lay out the case and put a factual brief before us for that hearing.

This would not have happened without the courtesy of Senator Collins. This is an aging committee thing that she has been willing to do to resolve an issue that actually started in the HELP Committee. It was very gracious of her. She has been a leader on these end-of-life issues for a long time. I didn't want to miss this chance to express my appreciation.

I yield the floor.

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