Political Quotes

“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.…”