Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to ask my colleagues to honor the life of Dr. Chris Kirkpatrick by passing a bill to strengthen whistleblower protections. Last year the Center for Investigative Reporting published an article that revealed allegations of opioid overprescription, whistleblower retaliation, and a culture of fear at the Tomah VA Medical Center in Tomah, WI. It also detailed the tragic story of Jason Simcakoski, who passed away at the Tomah VA in 2014 from mixed drug toxicity. Jason had over one dozen different drugs in his system when he died. Jason's life is honored by a bipartisan bill introduced by my colleague from Wisconsin that I am pleased to cosponsor: the Jason Simcakoski Memorial Opioid Safety Act. The bill aims to improve VA opioid prescribing guidelines and ensure greater coordination and oversight for patient treatments. When I learned of the problems at the Tomah VA, I immediately directed my Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee staff to investigate. They reviewed thousands of pages of documents and conducted 22 interviews. We held two hearings in Tomah and two in Washington, DC, to examine what happened at the facility and hear from whistleblowers across the country. On May 31 of this year, we released a 359-page report detailing the findings of our bipartisan investigation. The unfortunate conclusion of our investigation is that with proper disclosure, the tragedies of the Tomah VA could have been prevented.…”