Health care reform is coming.

During my career in Congress, we have achieved some success in expanding health insurance coverage and keeping services affordable, but the problem of 46 million uninsured and 25 million underinsured must be addressed. In February 2009, I introduced the Healthy Americans Act (S. 391/H.R. 1321; Wyden, 2009), a comprehensive bipartisan health care reform bill that covers all Americans without breaking the bank, by weaving together the Democratic idea that we need to give every single person in the country health care coverage and the Republican belief in a private-market approach. This bill would favorably affect providers in nonprofit institutions, public institutions, and school systems, by ending cost shifting from public program underpayments to the privately insured. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Steps to improve the quality of life for people who are dying.

Congress has largely ignored the public health crisis of pain and symptom management in the United States. However, the state of Oregon has taken several steps to improve quality of life for people who are dying. The author has also worked to improve the care provided to the terminally ill by introducing the Conquering Pain Act, by asking the General Accounting Office to explore why people do not receive their full hospice benefit, and by examining ways to respond to the mental health issues associated with dying. The author believes that quality end-of-life care is both a right and a responsibility and that it deserves immediate attention. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)