[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 148 (Thursday, September 29, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6260-S6261]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           WILLSEYE HOSPITAL

  Mr. CASEY. Madam President, I wanted to come to the floor today, as I 
did last week, to speak once again about WillsEye Hospital in 
Philadelphia. When I was here last week, I was talking about the 
hospital itself and the truly excellent work that is done at that 
hospital and, unfortunately, to talk as well about the unfair treatment 
that hospital is receiving from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid 
Services. We know it by the acronym CMS.
  CMS is using an arbitrary ratio of the number of inpatients and 
outpatients to make the argument--faulty though it is--that WillsEye is 
not a hospital and should be an ambulatory surgery center, which could 
have drastic implications and ultimately force WillsEye Hospital to 
close down. This hospital is almost 200 years old.
  Last week, WillsEye Hospital started an online petition on change.org 
so people could show their support for the hospital. I wanted to share 
some of those comments today with Members of the Senate. These online 
postings, of course, don't just come from Philadelphia or Pennsylvania. 
They come from States across the Northeast and even beyond.
  Here are just a couple of examples. Jack Croft from Lansdale, PA, 
which is not too far from Philadelphia, said:

       I owe my life, my right eye, and my sight to Wills Eye 
     Hospital and its brilliant ocular oncology team. Losing 
     federal designation as a hospital would have a devastating 
     effect on the lives of thousands, many of them children, who 
     desperately need the specialized expertise of Wills.

  So said Jack Croft.
  Ayan Chatterjee from Philadelphia said the following:

       Wills Eye Hospital provides care to so many complex 
     patients from all across the world. It is not just a ``surgi-
     center.'' State regulators got it right but Federal 
     regulators should revisit this.

  We continue to hope they will do that--my words, in addition to the 
comments.
  Kathleen O'Brien from Vestal, NY--not from Pennsylvania--said:

       I've needed Wills since 2005 to treat and monitor my ocular 
     melanoma. They are the best in the world for my very rare 
     cancer. Medicare is my primary insurance provider. It makes 
     no logical sense to take away this vital institution to the 
     thousands of children and adults they not only treat but save 
     lives.

  Erica Roache from Cape May Court House, NJ, said:

       This hospital provides specialized care not available 
     anywhere else. Doctors at Wills Eye quickly diagnosed and 
     successfully treated my daughter's rare eye condition that 
     had been misdiagnosed for years by other less specialized 
     doctors. The possibility of closing this world class hospital 
     due to senseless bureaucracy is just unthinkable.

  So says Erica.
  Here are two more. This is Mike Stanley from Overland Park, KS--half 
a country away from Pennsylvania:

       We live in Overland Park, KS, and for the past 2 years have 
     been flying from Kansas City to Philly for treatment for the 
     retinoblastoma eye cancer you refer to.

  He is referring to comments I had made when I was at WillsEye 
Hospital.
  I continue on with Mike Stanley's comments:

       Thankfully, my daughter is now 4 and in remission and we 
     travel back to Philly next week and Wills. Please let us know 
     what we can do to support CMS changing how they classify 
     Wills Eye so we and others can continue to get the best care 
     in the world.

  Alexis Butler, from Chelsea, MI, said:

       I'm signing because as a volunteer at Camp Sunshine at 
     Sebago Lake I've met many children who have been saved by 
     Wills Eye Hospital. Their cases aren't handled much by other 
     hospitals as well as they are at Wills. It needs to survive.

  So said Alexis from the State of Michigan.
  I will do one more. The final comments come from Nancy Cotton from 
Marlton, NJ.

       Please do not be blinded by rubber stamp bureaucracy. Not 
     everything fits neatly into arbitrary slots--visit Wills Eye 
     and look in the faces of those whose vision was restored, 
     saved, as well as the parents whose children's very lives 
     were saved. This institution fills a desperate need for 
     highly specialized service! Save Wills Eye!!

  Notice she uses exclamation points--actually two exclamation points 
at the end. That is how Nancy Cotton from New Jersey ends her comments.
  So you can see from these comments that these are real people talking 
about their real lives or that of a family member--sometimes a child--
and commenting from the vantage point of what they had experienced in 
terms of the benefits that WillsEye Hospital has provided. I hope CMS 
is listening--and not just to these comments but to the many others 
that have been sent in.
  None of these comments are compulsory. None of these comments are 
part of some organized political effort. People are just responding in 
a very authentic and substantial way. This is very rare to have this 
kind of commentary that is so specific about how WillsEye Hospital has 
made life better for people across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 
people across the northeastern part of the United States and well 
beyond that, as we can document from the comments from Kansas.
  So what we are trying to do is to work with WillsEye and CMS to work 
this out and to remove a bureaucratic barrier or obstacle in the way of 
keeping WillsEye Hospital open as a hospital so that it can deliver the 
kind of eye care--the kind of lifesaving eye care--that not only these 
people experience but that I experienced myself as a father.
  My wife and I had a daughter, and, fortunately, she is doing very 
well now. She is out of college. But she had a moment in time when she 
was a little girl where she would have lost eyesight in one of her eyes 
were it not for WillsEye Hospital. That is a fact. That is documented. 
We know that. So I join in those comments we heard today, and I will 
continue to make them a part of the Record.
  We are working to save this hospital. To say it is a world-class 
institution is a vast understatement. It has affected so many lives, 
including my own.
  So CMS got this wrong. They have an obligation to get it right, to 
fix it, so that WillsEye Hospital can continue into the future.

[[Page S6261]]

  We are grateful so many people are taking the time to go to 
change.org and focus on all the benefits of WillsEye Hospital. I will 
continue to make this case a high priority for the work I do, the work 
our office does. Time is running short now for the hospital. CMS has 
some work to do to make sure we get the result not only that I want but 
one that I know people across our Commonwealth and our country want.
  Madam President, I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BROWN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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