WASHINGTON — A wave of tragic deaths, illnesses and absences in Congress is fueling calls for major reforms — such as basic fitness-for-office standards and transparency requirements for lawmakers who take medical leave.
During the current term of Congress, there have been six deaths, numerous health scares, and sudden health-related disappearances of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), 84, and Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), 57, with minimal public explanation for weeks on end.
Members of Congress have access to on-demand healthcare through the Office of the Attending Physician, but they aren’t required to undergo annual physical exams or to disclose that information publicly.
“I think it’s a good idea,” Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.) told The Post about lawmakers getting annual physicals and sharing details with the public, though he was hesitant about whether that should be put into law. “I mean, we’ve had this debate on the presidential stage for a long time now.”
Although there’s no legal requirement to do so, presidents regularly get physical exams and share results with the public, though how much they share varies.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) similarly called it a “good idea” for lawmakers to provide more disclosures about their health to the public, though he noted there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about doing that in the upper chamber behind the scenes.
“This job is a very stressful job in which you are in many cases probably not eating the most healthy, nutritious diet and maybe in some cases don’t have time to exercise,” he said. “Some of these recent experiences shine a light on [the fact that] you need to be taking care of yourself in every way.”
Capitol Hill was rocked this week by the shock death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), 71, due to heart problems, something that helped rekindle the debate about congressional transparency on lawmakers’ health.
The calls for health transparency dovetail with popular demands for term limits and age limits.
“Congress was never supposed to be an assisted living facility,” Nick Tomboulides, chief executive officer for US Term Limits, bluntly told The Post. “Right now, it is the most overpaid and underperforming institution in America.”
Congress hasn’t gone a single day this year when all 535 voting members of both the House and the Senate showed up for roll call votes, though some of that is the result of early resignations in addition to unexpected deaths and health scares.
On Sunday, McConnell, who has been on the sidelines since June 14, finally gave the public key details of that health scare after weeks of wild rumors flying around online that he might not even be alive.
That came on the heels of the months-long disappearance of Kean, who went from March 5 until late June without voting and with no explanation from his office other than “health issues” during that time. He later told the public he was battling depression.
“If you went missing from a company and you just didn’t show up for your job for weeks on end, I believe they just call it a job abandonment, and they effectively terminate you,” Dr. Sara Rosenthal, the founding director of the Program for Bioethics at the University of Kentucky, told The Post.
“We don’t have rules like Congress, so that might be important.”
The issue has plagued Capitol Hill for years. In 2024, for example, then-Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) was found in an assisted living facility that specializes in memory care while she was still a member of Congress.
Rosenthal underscored that while McConnell and Kean eventually divulged more details to the public about what was going on with them, they weren’t legally required to do so.
She advocates for having politicians submit to an independent health assessment and believes that there should be an age cap preventing pols over 70 on Inauguration Day from seeking the presidency. Rosenthal also cautioned that forcing lawmakers to disclose health information won’t be a perfect system.
“If [doctors] have a very famous, very important patient, they may be more hesitant to do certain tests, and they may be reluctant to refer patients when they need to be referred because they don’t want to lose the patient,” she added.
One example of this is former President Joe Biden, who didn’t take a Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) test during his presidency and later discovered he had prostate cancer after his White House departure.
Some lawmakers have seized on these concerns, with Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) drafting legislation dubbed the “Duty of Transparency Act,” which would compel lawmakers to make a “disclosure statement” if they are going to be absent for several weeks.
“I think it’s good to have transparency,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) told The Post. “At the same time, I understand the privacy that people want. I think the constituents want to know you can do the job.”
Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), patients have strong privacy protections regarding their medical situations. But this can clash with the public’s interest in understanding what’s going on with the politicians running the country.
Some lawmakers, such as District of Columbia Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), 89, have faced scrutiny over their performance in public hearings as they get older. Norton was scammed last year by a group claiming to be a cleaning crew that charged her some $4,400 for work her team claims it didn’t do.
Police later concluded she showed “early stages of dementia,” an assertion she has firmly disputed.
Ten sitting lawmakers in Congress have died while serving since 2023. Graham’s death was the most recent, and it was sudden.
But other lawmakers who died were older in age or had underlying conditions. For example, late former Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) ran for reelection in 2024 despite being diagnosed with esophageal cancer.
He briefly helmed the powerful House Oversight Committee before dying in May of last year, less than five months into his new term in office.
Connolly’s late former colleague, Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), also announced a cancer diagnosis in 2024 but continued to pursue another term nonetheless. Grijalva died in March of last year.
A whopping 80% of Americans back some sort of maximum age cap on aspiring members of the House and Senate, according to a poll from NPR/PBS News/Marist.
Of those respondents, 83% backed term limits.
So far, efforts to impose term limits or age caps have failed to gain traction in Congress.
