The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Commander, for a very fine statement, and good luck to you for what you are doing. Do you think you can come back to us later? Mr. MING. Oh, yes. Let us know, and we will be glad to come back at your convenience. Thank you very much. The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Ohio has a very pleasant duty. Mr. AYRES. Madam Chairman, members of the committee, and citizens, I assure you it is an extreme pleasure to introduce a commander of the AMVETS who is not from my district. A year ago the man who had the honor of serving in that capacity was from my district, and he learned so much from the AMVETS he thinks he should be in Congress. The present national commander of AMVETS, Commander Marshall E. Miller, comes from Mr. Springer's district in Illinois. He has a background of being a lawyer, a leader in the community and the Nation, and judging from the background he has presented to me and knowing of the kind things Congressman Springer has had to say about him, I have felt that the greater the leader, the briefer the introduction need be. I give you Commander Miller. The CHAIRMAN. We are delighted to have you here, Commander Miller. Mr. MILLER. Thank you. It is a pleasure to be here. The CHAIRMAN. Please be seated. STATEMENT OF MARSHALL E. MILLER, NATIONAL COMMANDER OF AMVETS Mr. MILLER. I would like to thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before your committee to present our legislative program for 1953. I would like, with your permission, to insert a digest of our resolutions so that I would not take up the time of a busy committee to read them. The CHAIRMAN. Without objection it is so ordered and will appear at the end of your statement. Mr. MILLER. Before proceeding with our statement, we desire to express sincere gratitude to the members and staff of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs for the excellent cooperation and assistance rendered to AMVETS during the past year. Our organization long ago became aware that the present veterans program is the direct result of the efforts of this group and its predecessors. We are certain that your continued careful study, nonpartisan approach, and constructive criticism on all matters affecting veterans will maintain and preserve the great rehabilitation programs provided by a grateful people to their war veterans-thus assuring a program which will always be a credit to the Nation. AMVETS have made a careful study of many matters affecting veterans and their dependents. Our national convention resolutions cover in some manner every major program of the Veterans' Administration. They are concerned with compenastion, pensions, education, housing, rehabilitation, insurance, veterans preference in public employment, and Veterans' Veterans' Administration medical services. Because of its extreme importance, we desire to dwell on the latter subject and touch only briefly on the remainder of our resolutions. Among our resolutions are recommendations calling for: A fair test for the Korean GI bill with no amendments to that act until such time as it has been given a chance. An amendment to Public Law 23 of the 82d Congress to give veterans a reasonable time to come back into the national service life insurance program. Elimination of legislation which permits service-connected disability to be a deterrent in the obtainment of national service life insurance. Amendment to Public Law 23 of the 82d Congress which would give veterans of service since June 27, 1950, more time to take out contract insurance. We think a most important matter is the retention of the 4-percent interest rate on GI home loans. If it is increased, you are taking away, actually, a benefit, and putting veterans on a par with the balance of the public who did not render the service to their country that they did. There has been what amounts to a sit-down strike on the part of moneylenders who are requesting an increase in interest rate. The demand for the higher priced homes of $20,000 and over has been satisfied, and the veterans who have been waiting to purchase their homes are going to be prejudiced by virtue of being prudent if the rate goes higher. We think there should be additional legislative authority for Veterans' Administration supervision of contractual relationships between veteran purchasers and sellers in order that veterans might get a full dollar's value for a dollar spent. We think there should be a 1-year guaranty on homes built under the GI loan program. This would give the veteran some assurance that he is buying a sound house, and he would have some recourse if a leaky basement or other defects due to faulty construction should develop within a year. And we think there should be an extension of the direct VA loan program with sufficient funds for successful operation. There should be a continuation of the Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. We feel there should be restrictions on veterans preference so as to require a passing grade and 10 percent disability before preference is granted. We will be prepared to offer testimony on these and related issues at the call of the chairman. With reference to Veterans' Administration reorganization, AMVETS believe that the Veterans' Administration can be operated with economy, efficiency, and wisdom. However, the present system of management within the Veterans' Administration has failed to divide staff and line responsibility. This outmoded management plan has created voluminous instructions, too many organizational units, lack of delegation of authority, lack of initiative, and a multitude of misunderstandings. After repeated congressional inquiry, repeated private management recommendations, and repeated public demand, the Veterans Administration now proposes to change its system. While this is commendable, it demonstrates most clearly that the Veterans' Administration itself in the past has had very little long-range planning. It has been operating too much from crisis to crisis. We are very hopeful that the recent action of the Veterans' Administration in deciding to change its organizational pattern to a major product system will be the forerunner of administrative decisions designed to make the Veterans' Administration a greatly respected Government agency. Certainly an agency administering benefits for 19 million veterans and their dependents-almost one-third of our population-requires the most up-to-date administrative methods and procedures. We are pleased that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs has planned hearings on this subject. When those hearings are held, AMVETS would appreciate the opportunity to appear and present detailed testimony on Veterans' Administration reorganization. The Veterans' Administration's medical program is of major concern to our organization. We have established as a major legislative priority, adequate appropriations for the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the Veterans' Administration. Never in our history have we been so alarmed by any situation as that now existing within the Veterans' Administration Medical Service. In the face of repeated public statements that veterans will receive "second to none" medical care, we have seen the finest medical program in the world become diluted, stagnated, and tottering on the brink of disaster. This deplorable situation is a direct result of unrealistic, hasty and ill-conceived economy attempts attempts which on one hand provide funds for new Veterans' Administration hospitals and on the other hand take away funds to properly operate existing facilities. And even more important, we are deeply concerned at the whittling away of the veterans medical program without even taking into account congressional investigations and consideration by this committee, the Veterans' Committee. Last year we witnessed legislation by appropriation which has greatly weakened a program that has been established, nourished, and maintained by this committee for many years. AMVETS have made a nationwide survey to determine the effects of this action. Briefly this is what we found: Very low morale in Veterans' Administration hospitals. Resignations of well-trained technicians and rumors of more to come. Reductions of operating room space. Reductions in funds for vitally needed new equipment. Breakdown of the consultant services. Curtailment of the Veterans' Administration medical research pro grams. Loss of 2,800 beds at a time when Korean war veterans demand more and more beds. Prolonged hospitalization; a delay of surgical operations; and fewer veterans treated. The cost of veterans hospital care increased. Curtailment of laboratory and diagnostic tests. Entire new wards in Veterans' Administration hospitals unopened because of lack of funds. Extensive medical equipment lying dormant and unused. Hometown medical treatment programs for service-connected disabilities severely curtailed. Dental-care program on the verge of elimination. Neuropsychiatric patients having longer periods of hospitalization. Admission to Veterans' Administration neuropsychiatric hospitals virtually stopped. Qualified scientists, surgeons, outstanding physicians, and consultants in the Veterans' Administration drifting away. Evidence of very little planning in the placement of Veterans' Administration hospitals. Teaching and residency program of physicians curtailed to such an extent that it is either eliminated or not effective in many hospitals throughout the country. Equal adverse effects on service-connected and non-service-connected veterans alike. And public demand for a clear-cut congressional policy decision on this matter for the future. The findings brought out in AMVETS survey become much more significant when dovetailed with specific examples from specific areas of the country. I have seen a large number of them in traveling over the country. I would like to call your attention to one particular State. In New York, a report made by the senior medical consultants group to the deans committee to the Veterans' Administration hospital in the Bronx established conclusively that a cut of 105 personnel has resulted in serious curtailment of medical services which the hospital had been rendering. We feel this report to be typical in varying degrees of a nationwide situation. We believe it clearly indicates the present position of the Veterans' Administration Medical Service. Briefly, it states that 125 beds were closed. The surgical service suffered the loss of 3 out of 8 operating rooms which could not be staffed. Orthopedic surgery was reduced by 50 percent; plastic surgery by 60 percent. The backlog of patients awaiting operation in the surgical service has shown a definite increase. Curtailment of valuable laboratory and diagnostic tests cut down on care of medical patients. The psychiatric service was formed to reduce its facilities for shock treatment by 33 percent, and its bed capacity for the care of new acutely disturbed mental patients, including Korean battle casualties, by 50 percent, or half. As an example of false economy, an X-ray therapy machine costing $350,000 stands idle because no funds are available to hire personnel for its operation. Only 6 of the 8 available X-ray diagnostic rooms can now be used, resulting in delay in diagnosis, increase in bed-days, and cost for each patient. Four hundred-odd paraplegics in the area who depend on this hospital for surgical treatment for recurrent pain, urinary infections, skin ulcers, and so forth, are all "seriously and dangerously affected." A special tuberculosis service just completed at a cost of $100,000 is not in use because of lack of funds and personnel intended for its operation. We are well aware that a controversy exists on the subject of nonservice-connected hospitalization and perhaps this fact has had much to do with cuts in the VA medical services. However, it must be realized that a blanket reduction in funds without a change in basic 29707-53-6 policy has equally adverse effect on service-connected and non-serviceconnected patients alike. I think there can be no question but that this survey shows the dire results of the cut in the VA program. The followup clinic for the purpose of continuing treatment of veterans, initiated while they were bed patients, had to be closed, thus depriving many cancer patients, for instance, of followup X-ray treatments, some of which were terminated when only half finished. Patients with heart trouble have been deprived of the opportunity to have frequent important adjustments of their medications. Other patients have been deprived of periodic examinations for signs of reactivity of tuberculosis. Supervision following brain operations, so important during convalescence, has been curtailed. Finally, the mandatory curtailment of 40 percent of the visits by consultants and attendant physicians means that a patient who formerly was seen each weekday by one or more senior physicians will receive less care from older and more experienced members of the staff. The senior medical consultants in New York have thus concluded that the effect of dismissing the 105 full-time employees from that hospital has, and I quote, "inevitably diluted the quality of medical care," "prolonged hospitalization," "delayed treatment," and "increased cost of patient care." In consideration of this question, we would like to point out that, of 107,000 patients in all VA hospitals, 35 percent, or approximately 37,000 patients, are service connected. Another 10,000 are non-serviceconnected tuberculosis patients. Another 27,000 have non-serviceconnected mental or neurological disabilities; another 32,000 have non-service-connected general medical and surgical conditions, and of this number it should be assumed that at least 10,000 have chronic diseases such as cancer, heart trouble, and so forth. We believe it to be self-evident that very few, if any, of these individuals who are on the non-service-connected rolls would be financially able to pay for their own long-term hospitalization. While AMVETS favor hospitalization benefits for all needy war veterans, we believe the controversy of service-connected versus nonservice-connected hospitalization to be dwarfed by an overriding necessity to eliminate inferior medical care to any veteran. When this basic principle is endangered and affects men disabled in war, AMVETS feel that this committee, which is charged with the protection of veterans' benefits, should lead the way to a solution of the problem. To this end we earnestly request that the Congress immediately restore $15,000,000 into the appropriation for the Department of Medicine and Surgery of the Veterans' Administration. To do less will permit the continued deterioration of the Veterans' Administration medical program. In addition to this action we further request this committee to undertake an immediate detailed investigation of the status of VA medicine. We urge you to call public hearings and to go into the overall subject of VA medical care, requirements for admission to VA hospitals, need clauses, non-service-connected hospitalization, and in fact every possible avenue of approach. AMVETS stand ready to offer testimony if such hearings are held. Upon the conclusion of an investigation of this nature, we are certain |