[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 15]
[House]
[Pages 20395-20396]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              THE BRITISH HEALTH CARE SYSTEM IS UNHEALTHY

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, government-run health care has been 
around in England for over 60 years. In those years, the government 
still hasn't gotten it right.
  In March, Britain's Health Care Commission, which has ironically been 
renamed the Care Quality Commission, reported that 1,200 people have 
died needlessly at two British hospitals over the past 3 years.
  The government report said that Stafford Hospital and Cannock Chase 
Hospital have filthy conditions and

[[Page 20396]]

unhygienic practices. The government report says government-run 
hospitals don't have enough doctors and nurses and the doctors and 
nurses are poorly trained. They don't know how to use the cardiac 
monitors, and the hospitals don't even have enough of the cardiac 
monitors that they don't know how to operate. The British Government 
report also says that these two government-run hospitals have left 
patients with no food, no water and no medicine for up to 4 days.
  Mr. Speaker, this is just another example that government-run health 
care has not worked. Doctors and nurses are rationed; care is rationed; 
medicine, food and water are rationed. The British health care plan is: 
``Just don't get sick'' because the government-run system can't help 
you.
  And that's just the way it is.

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