[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 95 (Tuesday, June 23, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H7114-H7115]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION AND GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Madam Speaker, as dangerous to the public's health 
and well-being as government-run health care is in Europe and Canada, 
we have our own American example that has some very serious problems. 
Last month there was a surprise inspection at Veterans Affairs clinics 
in the United States. The surprise inspections exposed that fewer than 
half of those clinics followed proper standards for colonoscopies.
  Some mistakes could have exposed veterans to HIV and other diseases. 
Let me repeat: Less than half followed proper medical standards for 
colonoscopies.
  Since February, the VA has informed 10,000 veterans in three States 
to get retested. More than 50 patients tested positive for infections, 
including some with HIV. But that's just the beginning of the medical 
malpractice by the VA.
  VA patients with prostate cancer were put through their own 
particular set of horrors. In Philadelphia, a patient received a common 
surgical procedure where a doctor implants dozens of radioactive seeds 
to attack the cancer.
  But the doctor's aim was more than a little off. Most of the 
radioactive seeds, 40 of them to be exact, ended up in the patient's 
healthy bladder instead of the prostate. The mistake was a serious one, 
and under Federal rules it was investigated by the bureaucrat 
regulators. The regulators allowed the doctor to rewrite his surgical 
plan to make his mistake just disappear.
  In the private sector, somebody would have been held accountable for 
this negligence, but not with government-run health care VA style. They 
cover up their errors.
  The patient had to undergo a second radiation implant. This time the 
unintended dose ended up in his rectum. Once again, more negligence. 
Two years later in 2005, the same doctor made the same mistake, putting 
more than half of the radioactive seeds in the wrong organ, and again 
the bureaucrat regulators did not object when he once again rewrote his 
surgical plan to cover up his mistake.
  Had the bureaucrat regulators actually done their jobs, they would 
have uncovered what the media calls a rogue cancer unit. This one 
Philadelphia VA hospital, botched 92 of 116 treatments over 6 years, 
then covered it up.
  Let me repeat, Madam Speaker, the VA government health care hospital 
in Philadelphia medically erred in 92 of 116 cancer treatments. The 
medical team continued to perform these radiation implants, even though 
for over a year the equipment that measured whether or not the patient 
had received proper radiation dosage was broken. Records proved that 
the radiation safety committee at the veterans hospital knew of this 
problem but took no action.
  In Philadelphia, 57 of the implants delivered too little radiation to 
the prostate, either because the seeds were planted in the wrong organ 
or were not distributed properly inside the prostate. Thirty-five other 
cases involve overdoses to other parts of the body. An unspecified 
number of patients were both underdosed in the prostate and overdosed 
somewhere else in their body. This is a horrible way to treat America's 
veterans.
  Another patient, 21-year veteran of the Air Force, had to remain in 
bed 6 months with pain so severe he couldn't even stand. He lost his 
job as a pastor at a local church and all of his income, thanks again 
to the incompetence of the Veterans Administration.
  Adding insult to injury, this 21-year veteran of the Air Force didn't 
learn of the radiation injury from the Philadelphia VA hospital. He 
found out when he sought treatment in Ohio at a hospital where he 
underwent major surgery to treat the damage.
  Because the bureaucrat regulators were covering up for the VA, it 
took a private hospital to not only diagnose but treat his injury. That 
is right, Madam Speaker, the good old private sector saved the veteran 
where the VA just took a pass.
  The New York Times conducted its own examinations. They found that 
none of the safeguards that were supposed to protect veterans from poor 
medical care had worked. They also found none of the botched implants 
in Philadelphia were reported properly. So the errors weren't 
investigated for weeks, months and sometimes years.
  During that time, many patients did not know their cancer treatments 
were flawed by our government-run health care. The regulators are now 
looking into the flawed implants in other government-run VA hospitals 
in Mississippi and Ohio. Who knows what they will find out there about 
the way government treats our veterans.

[[Page H7115]]

  Madam Speaker, the Veterans Administration is a government-run health 
care program that treats our veterans cavalierly in these examples. 
Veterans should be able to go to any doctor or any hospital to be 
treated and not bound and tied to VA hospitals. And, also, this is a 
prime example of how things will be when the government takes over the 
health care of all Americans. Do we really want the government to 
control our health care? Not a healthy idea for Americans or for 
veterans.
  And that's just the way it is.

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