Col. Jeff Bearor: Walter Reed Army Hospital: You Get What You Pay For

[babylonsister]

http://www.aim.org/guest_column/5292_0_6_0_C/

Walter Reed Army Hospital: You Get What You Pay For
By Col. Jeff Bearor | March 12, 2007
The bottom line is that the government eliminated the military health care system's ability to flex for war.


The recent revelations about Walter Reed Army Hospital are disturbing and disheartening on many levels, and we are all quite rightly surprised and shocked.

Well, maybe some of us aren't all that surprised. In fact, some of us who are probably least surprised, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, are the ones acting most aggrieved. The facts are that succeeding administrations and Congresses, Republican and Democrat, consistently have been cutting health care and other quality-of-life support to military members and their families for at least 30 years. So, forgive me if it escapes me why Congress is acting so surprised. Congress got exactly what they always get: just what they paid for.

Since the end of the Viet Nam War, the sections of the military budgets that pay for things like service member and family health care, military family housing, after-service and in-service education assistance, and even military retirement, have been cut and cut. I can't count the number of military hospitals that have been closed over the past 20 years forcing more and more military families to go off-base for medical support and concentrate what was left into a few impersonal "mega" military health centers.

The military hospitals cut from the inventory are the very same ones that, during a time of war, were to care for the combat wounded. The bottom line is that the government eliminated the military health care system's ability to flex for war. Congresses and administrations were betting on-the-come that big war with big casualty counts weren't in our future. Worse than that, military health care, among other direct service member and family-related support, was sold out to pay for outmoded, overpriced military hardware that has been of dubious utility in the current fight.

Take military retirement: during the 30 years I served, the retirement package was reduced at least three times. Military members joining the services now, during a time of war, have less incentive to remain than ever before. The GI Bill for after-service education and training benefits set up after World War II gave America the best-trained and -educated workforce in the world. Ask a soldier about his or her current education benefits and whether they've signed up. The package is so complicated that many of these young men and women aren't aware of the benefits to which they are entitled. Under the old GI Bill, education benefits were "there," soldiers didn't opt-in or opt-out, the benefit was theirs for the taking.

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[hedgehog]

1. Who determines how the military budget is spent?

I have the idea that there is an unholy alliance between officers opting to spend money on new hardware and congressmen who want that hardware built in their districts. Of course, many officers retire to become consultants for the companies supplying the hardware. Taking care of the people in the military comes in last.

[qwlauren35]

2. The more I think about it...

the more I begin to see what really occurred.

NO ONE budgeted for the costs of the wounded, or the needs of military families... because no one thought the war would last this d*mned long.

The war came as a major surprise to most of us. The length of the war, and the number of wounded and casualties is still a shock.

When one looks at the readiness issues that we heard of in the war zone, with insufficient equipment and armor, it shouldn't be such a surprise that there was no plan for the wounded and maimed.

I think it makes sense in the future to have a more comprehensive plan for dealing with the cost of war... but THIS war, that wasn't supposed to be a war, is going to leave behind a stinky trail of embarrassment for years to come.