[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 26084-26085]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                INDIAN HEALTH CARE--MEDICAL MALPRACTICE

  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. Mr. Speaker, it's nothing new for the Federal 
Government to try to run health care. The Federal Government has been 
committing medical malpractice against the Native American Indians for 
over 200 years. It's a miserable failure. Just ask those folks that 
live on Indian reservations. They are treated under a system called the 
Indian Health Service program, a universal government-run health care 
system for, specifically, Native American Indians. There are long 
waiting lines for service; doctors are scarce; the quality of medical 
care is poor; it costs too much, and it results in rationed health 
care. When the

[[Page 26085]]

government is running health care, people get inferior treatment.
  There has been a lot of talk lately about changing the name of 
``public option'' to call it ``Medicare part E'' so that will sell with 
the American public, or the ``consumer option'' is another new 
politically correct phrase. I would like to suggest that we call it the 
``Public Indian Health Care Option for Everybody.'' The Indians have no 
option. They're forced to take the public plan.
  Now let's look at the American government-run health care as it has 
worked out for them for 200 years. We have a lot of history taking care 
of the American Indians--or, shall I say, not taking care of them.
  When Stephanie Little Light took her daughter, Ta'Shon Rain, to an 
Indian health service clinic in Montana, which she is required to do 
since she is under the universal health care Indian program, the doctor 
said that her little 5-year-old girl was just depressed. She had 
stopped eating and stopped walking. The little girl kept complaining to 
her mother that her stomach hurt all the time. After going back to the 
government-run health care clinic 10 more times, Ta'Shon's lung 
collapsed. She was then airlifted to a private, nongovernment hospital 
in Denver where they told her mom she had terminal cancer. The little 
girl who loved to dance and sing and dress up in Indian costumes always 
wanted to see Disney World, specifically Cinderella's Castle. So a 
charity sent the whole family there, but Ta'Shon didn't get to see that 
castle when they got to Florida. The little girl had died in a hotel 
room. This is a tragic example of universal medical health care run by 
the United States Government.
  There is a big difference between good intentions and what really 
happens in the real world. When there are no doctors left and the 
taxpayer money is gone and when the bureaucrats control health care, 
people die. Is this what we are to expect under the new nationalized 
health care system?
  They're trying to tell us that this new, improved disaster on 
Americans is going to be different. Yeah, right.
  Mr. Speaker, they say on those Indian reservations, Don't get sick 
after June because that's when the Federal money runs out. So they 
ration health care. The Federal Indian Health Service agency calls 
itself--get this--a ``rationed health care system'' for Indians. How's 
that for truth about socialized medicine?
  On another Indian reservation, Ardel Baker went to the reservation 
government-run clinic. She had chest pains. They sent her to a private 
hospital in an ambulance and put a note on her chest. The note read, 
``Understand that Priority 1 care cannot be paid for by us at this time 
because of funding issues.'' So they put a note on her and sent her on 
her way to a private hospital because the government would not take 
care of her. Ardel managed to survive that ordeal, thanks to private 
medicine.
  Victor Brave Thunder was not so fortunate. He felt real bad and went 
to a government clinic on the reservation. They misdiagnosed the fact 
that he had heart failure and gave him Tylenol and cough syrup and 
said, Get better. He later died.
  Then there is Harriet Archambault. She tried five times to get an 
appointment on a reservation to get her hypertension medicine refilled, 
but government bureaucrats were nowhere to be found. So she died before 
she was able to get that sixth appointment at the government clinic for 
her medicine.
  Mr. Speaker, these are examples of government-run medical malpractice 
against American Indians right here in America. Government-run health 
care never works. It never has. Even in America, we've proven it 
doesn't work.
  The health care bill being pushed on the American people is not 
really about providing better quality at an affordable price. The 
government cannot do it better or cheaper. It's really about government 
control and intervention in the lives of the American people. It's 
about oppressive government.
  So let's address specific issues of health care and solve them, like 
being able to buy insurance across State lines, allow businesses and 
associations to pool employees to get a better insurance rate, provide 
for a safety net for preexisting conditions and catastrophic injuries 
and illnesses. But we should never turn our health over to the United 
States Government. Just ask the American Indians.
  And that's just the way it is.

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