[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 106 (Tuesday, September 12, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H7376]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS HEALTH CARE PERSONNEL ACT OF 2000

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, in all deference to my colleague from 
Oregon, the zero rating that he cited for Secretary Cheney in his 
voting while in Congress was from a group that is really very 
socialistic and makes its decisions based upon emotion and not upon 
science. Governor Bush is dedicated to making decisions on the basis of 
science and economics and not just emotions when it comes to our 
environment.
  So I ask my colleague to review the record of Governor Bush and look 
carefully at the votes of Secretary Cheney with that in mind.
  Mr. Speaker, I came down here this afternoon to speak about a bill, 
H.R. 5109, which is a bipartisan bill. It is called the Veterans' 
Affairs Health Care Personnel Act of 2000.
  I chair the Subcommittee on Health and Veterans' Affairs, and we 
passed this bill. Tomorrow we are going to have a full markup. I want 
to bring this bill to the attention of my colleagues because I think 
all of them will want to cosponsor this.
  About 10 years ago, the professional nursing corps at the Department 
of Veterans Affairs' was in a crisis. VA was losing critical, even 
irreplaceable, assets from its clinical base. The Nation's hospitals in 
general were suffering acute shortages of trained nurses, and indeed 
the VA itself was viewed as a major recruitment source by these 
hospitals. Because of the nature of the payroll system for Federal 
employees, it is sort of a ponderous civil service system. VA was 
powerless to react in a highly competitive, volatile arena. The quality 
of care was in danger.
  In the 101st Congress, we went ahead and tried to correct that, but 
we did not quite complete the job. So we had a hearing in the 
subcommittee earlier this year on the status of VA's work with special 
focus on the pay situation of VA nurses.
  Mr. Speaker, what we found was very disappointing. In fact, we 
learned that many VA nurses had not received any increases in pay since 
our 1990 legislation 10 years ago. While those initial pay increases 
were in many cases substantial, in the course of time, other VA 
employee groups had caught up because of the annual comparability 
raises available to every Federal employee. So the nurses of the VA 
found themselves in a situation that they were not competitive, they 
were at a disadvantage, and some were leaving to go to the private 
sector. And this is again creating a crisis.
  We in the Veterans' Affairs cannot afford to lose these specialized 
individuals. Therefore, in addition to the guaranteed national pay 
raises for nurses that was put in our bill, the subcommittee has 
crafted necessary adjustments to the locality survey mechanism, which 
is a special formula that is set up to take care of nurses and their 
pay increases to ensure that data are available when needed and to 
specify that certain steps be taken when they were necessary that lead 
to these appropriate salary increases for their nurses.
  Mr. Speaker, this bill also addresses recommendations of the VA's 
Quadrennial Pay Report concerning VA dentists. Now, this is another 
area where we are losing specialized people. We want to bring their pay 
up to contemporary balance with compensation of hospital-based dentists 
in the private sector, or we are going to lose all the dentists in the 
VA system. This is the first change in 10 years in VA dentists special 
pay.
  Our bill also addresses a very important area dealing with Vietnam 
veterans. At the instigation of the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Evans), who is the ranking minority member of the full committee, he 
brought up the idea of reauthorizing the landmark 1988 study of 
posttraumatic stress disorder in Vietnam veterans. Our bill would 
reauthorize this study. I look forward to working with the gentleman 
from Illinois (Mr. Evans) on passage of this bill.
  The bill also requires the VA to record military service history when 
VA veterans come in to talk to physicians about their health care 
history. This will aid any veteran who subsequently files a claim of 
disability, especially given our newfound acquisition of knowledge with 
the Gulf War Syndrome, and that military combat causes stress, 
exposures may be associated with pesticides and other things, and all 
this might lead to disease later in life.
  So I want to commend the Vietnam Veterans of America for bringing 
this proposal to me. It is a valuable contribution to this bill.
  Finally, I want to talk about another very innovative idea that is 
crafted in this bill with the help of the gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Weldon). His proposal will set up a pilot program involving not more 
than four VA clinic service areas. Within these areas, enrolled 
veterans in need of uncomplicated hospital admissions would be referred 
to community hospitals rather than being sent to VA Hospitals.
  So if there are far distances from these hospitals, they will be able 
to go to a local hospital. We found out that this saves 15 percent in 
cost savings.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support my bill, and 
I look forward to its passage on the House floor.
  Our bill is bipartisan and major provisions of it are already 
endorsed by several organizations, including Vietnam Veterans of 
America, the Nursing Organization of Veterans Affairs and the American 
Dental Association, and the largest federal union, the American 
Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), among others.

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