Congress funds study on national end-of-life document storage system
H.R. 5861 — Legacy Act of 2025 · Filed by Thomas Suozzi (D-NY) · 3 cosponsors · Introduced Oct 28, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to contract with the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to study whether the federal government should create a national system for securely storing and retrieving end-of-life documents (advance directives, organ donor registrations, healthcare proxies, powers of attorney, and living wills) at no cost to individuals. The study must report progress within 2 years and final results within 4 years.
Why we flagged it
The bill is a straightforward directive to commission research on a potential federal infrastructure for end-of-life document storage. It contains no regulatory change, appropriation, or private benefit — only a study contract.
What the text implies
- If the study recommends a national system, a follow-up bill would be needed to fund and implement it; this bill does not commit to that step.
- The system's design (centralized vs. federated, state vs. federal control, privacy safeguards) will be determined by the study; the bill does not prejudge those choices.
- Potential future implications: a national registry could improve end-of-life care coordination but also raises privacy and data-security questions that the study will need to address.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill authorizes a study into a system that could help ordinary people ensure their end-of-life wishes are accessible to family and healthcare providers, reducing confusion and conflict during medical crises. No costs are imposed on citizens, and the study itself is a low-risk information-gathering step with potential public health value.
Who stands to gain
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (study contract recipient)
Named in the bill
Secretary of Health and Human Services, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Congress
Where it stands
3 cosponsors: 2 Republicans, 1 Democrats.
- Oct 28, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Oct 28, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Energy and Commerce · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $10,943,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 103 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Thomas Suozzi, the sponsor, reported $1,663,155 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Medical Association — $5,643,000 on 2 filings
- AARP — $5,300,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,332 characters) on Aug 13, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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