The SOAR Act

Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform (SOAR)

SOAR Act Reintroduced

On April 10, 2025, the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform (SOAR) Act was reintroduced in both Houses of Congress with bipartisan support.

H.R.2902 was introduced in the House by Representative Valadao of California and cosponsored by Representatives Brownly of California.

S.1406 was introduced in the Senate by Senator Cassidy of Louisiana, Senator Warner of Virginia, and Senator Klobuchar of Minnesota.

We want to thank everyone who called, emailed or visited their members of Congress last year, asking them to cosponsor the previous bills. Because the bills introduced last year weren’t passed, they had to be reintroduced into the new Congress. This means new bill numbers, and, unfortunately, cosponsors don’t carry over.

We need YOU to contact your members of Congress and ask them to cosponsor these bills. You can click here to see if any of your members has already sponsored this year’s bill. If not, click here to see if any of your members cosponsored last year. If they did, you can remind them that they cosponsored last year’s bill when you ask them to cosponsor this year’s bill.

The Easy Way

If you’ve heard enough, your time is limited, and you just want to support the bill, the easiest way is to click here. This will take you to the American Lung Association’s website to generate an automated letter to all three of your members. While this way is the easiest, it isn’t necessarily the most effective, though anything is better than nothing.

Sharing Your Story

Whether you’re on supplemental oxygen, have had a family member on oxygen, know someone on oxygen or want to support people getting the oxygen they need, sharing your story and why this is important goes a long way with your members of Congress. It helps to make this issue more personal and helps them understand the impact lack of liquid oxygen has on their constituents and how the burden of heavy tanks can create barriers for some even leaving their homes. We provide instructions below on how to find phone numbers and email addresses for each of your members, and provide suggested text that you use and add your story to.

What is the SOAR Act?

This bill is based on 4 pillars of oxygen reform:

Ensure supplemental oxygen is patient-centric. Change “home oxygen” to “supplemental oxygen” to ensure people requiring oxygen can live full lives outside their primary residence. Create a patients’ bill of rights to ensure care is focused on patient needs.
Ensure access to liquid oxygen for patients for whom it is medically necessary.
Create a statutory service element to provide adequate reimbursement for respiratory therapists to ensure patients have access to their expertise.
To ensure predictable and adequate reimbursement and to protect against fraud and abuse, establish national standardized documentation requirements that rely upon a template rather than prescriber medical records to support claims for supplemental oxygen suppliers.

Why Is the SOAR Act Needed?

Liquid oxygen has mostly disappeared across the United States. It is the best form of oxygen for those with high flow needs. High flow is considered 4 liters per minute or more. Liquid oxygen is lighter and lasts longer than the tanks we commonly see people using. Because of Medicare reimbursement policies that were initiated in 2011 there has been an 89% decline in patients receiving liquid oxygen. You can read more here: Medicare policy on supplemental oxygen has forced some patients to retreat from life.

You can also read about Colleen, a 55-year old mother who has been on supplemental oxygen since 2007. Not only has she lost access to liquid oxygen, she is now limited to only being able to leave her house for 14 hours a week because her oxygen supply company won’t give her the number of tanks she needs here: Patients Seek Reforms to Supplemental Oxygen Access and Regulations

Please note that both articles are from 2024 and have the old bill numbers.

How do you contact your members of Congress?

Click here to open Congress.gov‘s page to search for your members of Congress. Enter your address into the box below “Find Your Members” (see image below) and select your address.

Your three members will then be listed. It is possible, based on your address, that two Representatives are listed. If you are unsure which one is yours you can contact both. Most Representatives have an address lookup to limit emails only to their constituents.

Click here to see if any of your members of Congress have already cosponsored this year’s bills.

What’s the best way to contact my representatives?

We suggest that you both call and email.

Emailing is the easiest. See below for suggested language that you can use in your emails.

You can also call, or request a meeting. Sometimes meetings are with staff members, but they are still useful and show your concern about the issue.

Of course you can do all three.

You may need to reach out to your members’ offices multiple times.

Sending an email

See the sample emails below. Bolded brackets [ ] indicate places to add your specific information, like your member’s name, your story with supplemental oxygen, if applicable, and your name at the end.

Sample letter to your Senator:

In the subject line put: Cosponsor the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform bill number S. 1406

Dear Senator [Senator’s last name],

I’m writing to you today to ask you to cosponsor the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform (SOAR) Act, bill number S. 1406, which was introduced with bipartisan support by Senator Cassidy, Senator Warren and Senator Klobuchar.

[Enter your story, here, if applicable]

This bill is based on 4 pillars of oxygen reform and most importantly, will help those on supplemental oxygen get the type of oxygen they need. The 4 pillars are:
1. Ensure supplemental oxygen is patient-centric
Change “home oxygen” to “supplemental oxygen” to ensure people requiring oxygen can live full lives outside their primary residence
Create a patients’ bill of rights to ensure care is focused on patient needs
     2. Ensure access to liquid oxygen for patients for whom it is medically necessary
     3. Create a statutory service element to provide adequate reimbursement for respiratory therapists to ensure patients have access to their expertise
     4. To ensure predictable and adequate reimbursement and to protect against fraud and abuse, establish national standardized documentation requirements that rely upon a template rather than prescriber medical records to support claims for supplemental oxygen suppliers.

To cosponsor this critical bill, please contact Parker Reynolds (parker_reynolds@cassidy.senate.gov) with Senator Bill Cassidy or Colleen Nguyen (colleen_nguyen@warner.senate.gov) with Senator Mark Warner.

Between 2013 and 2019 supplemental oxygen durable medical equipment (DME) suppliers decreased by 38% for a home concentrator and 39% for compressed gas tanks. What is even more concerning though DMEs supplying liquid oxygen decreased by 73%. (from the August 15, 2022 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine Volume 206 Number 4, pages 509-510).

Liquid oxygen is considered safer than compressed air tanks (see this link from NIH: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6876135/ ). Liquid oxygen can last longer, and weigh less than compressed air tanks. For example, one type of liquid oxygen canister, which is roughly the same weight and height as a compressed air D tank, will last a little more than twice as long (7.7 hours versus 3.5 hours) when set at 2 liters per minute continuous flow. Another example is the same liquid oxygen canister, which lasts about as long as an E tank when on the same setting and liter flow, weighs about 10 pounds less.

Despite the benefits of liquid oxygen for patients, many DMEs have stopped supplying it. Many patients who had been using liquid oxygen prior to competitive bidding have had it taken away, leaving many of them homebound, since they are unable to manage the extra weight of compressed air tanks.

Thank you for your consideration,

[your name]

Sample letter to your Representative/Congressman

In the subject line put: Cosponsor the emerging Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform bill number H.R.2902

Dear Representative [Representative’s last name],

I’m writing to you today to ask you to cosponsor the Supplemental Oxygen Access Reform (SOAR) Act, bill number H.R. 2902, which was introduced with bipartisan support by Representatives Valadao, Brownley, Adrian Smith and Gabe Evans.

[Enter your story, here, if applicable]

This bill is based on 4 pillars of oxygen reform and most importantly, will help those on supplemental oxygen get the type of oxygen they need. The 4 pillars are:

1. Ensure supplemental oxygen is patient-centric

Change “home oxygen” to “supplemental oxygen” to ensure people requiring oxygen can live full lives outside their primary residence

Create a patients’ bill of rights to ensure care is focused on patient needs

2. Ensure access to liquid oxygen for patients for whom it is medically necessary

3. Create a statutory service element to provide adequate reimbursement for respiratory therapists to ensure patients have access to their expertise

4. To ensure predictable and adequate reimbursement and to protect against fraud and abuse, establish national standardized documentation requirements that rely upon a template rather than prescriber medical records to support claims for supplemental oxygen suppliers.

To cosponsor this critical bill, please contact Olivia Speno (olivia.speno@mail.house.gov) with Representative Valadao or Hannah Singer (hannah.singer@mail.house.gov) with Representative Brownley.

Thank you for your consideration,

[your name]

Why are these reforms needed?

Access to appropriate supplemental oxygen has been a problem for years. In 2011 the Durable Medical Equipment and Prosthetic Supply Program implemented a completive bidding program for Medicare. Previous to this, liquid oxygen was widely available to patients with high flow needs. High flow is considered 4 liters of oxygen or more. Liquid oxygen can be a better option than gas oxygen because the patient can receive more oxygen from a similarly sized tank, at the same flow rate. This means carrying a lighter weight tank, which will last longer.

Once the competitive bidding process was implemented though, cost effectiveness replaced patients’ needs. Many patients who had been using liquid oxygen for years had the liquid oxygen removed. They instead received large, cumbersome tanks. Unfortunately, for many patients, this meant they were not able to continue living their lives the way they had. Many have become homebound.

If you are familiar with supplemental oxygen and portable oxygen concentrators (POC), you may ask “Why not use a POC like the ones advertised on TV?” This is because these lightweight units do not meet high flow needs. In fact, most of the models under 5 pounds don’t even give 2 liters of oxygen.

The video below, made by the COPD Foundation, is very informative about the impact on patients.

Below are a few statistics mentioned in the video:

According to Medicare data (which means this is only for supplemental oxygen users 65 and up) between 2013 and 2019

Standard tank usage increased 22%
The companies supplying supplemental oxygen decreased by 39%
Liquid oxygen user decreased by 89%
The companies supplying liquid oxygen decreased by 73%

Letter to Congress

Click the image to see the whole letter that was sent to every member of Congress

SOAR Info Sheets

Click the images to download