Bush Names Seven to Veteran Care Panel

[Blue Belle]

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070310/D8NP0MOG0.html

<SNIP> President Bush on Friday named seven more members to the commission investigating the treatment of wounded veterans. Bush has ordered a comprehensive review of conditions at military and veterans hospitals, which have been overwhelmed by injured troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

<SNIP> The seven new members join the commission's co-chairs, former Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan., and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. They are:

- Marc Giammatteo, a former U.S. Army captain whose leg was severely injured during an attack in Iraq. He has undergone more than 30 surgeries at Walter Reed.

- Jose Ramos, a student at George Mason University. While in the Navy, he treated soldiers injured in Iraq. In 2004, during his second tour of duty in Iraq, he lost an arm in combat.

- Tammy Edwards, a research assistant at the Geneva Foundation. In 2005, her husband, a U.S. Army staff sergeant, was severely burned in Iraq when a 500-pound bomb exploded under his vehicle.

- Kenneth Fisher, chairman of the Fisher House Foundation, a nonprofit that builds "comfort homes" for families of hospitalized veterans.

- C. Martin Harris, a physician who has served on other government and private commissions that have examined health care problems.

- Edward Eckenhoff, a leader in rehabilitation medicine and president of the National Rehabilitation Hospital.

- Gail Wilensky, an economist and senior fellow at Project HOPE, an international health education foundation.



What are the odds that any of these seven will look at the problem without the rose colored reading glasses? The Project HOPE board of directors alone reads like a Who's Who of the Pharmaceutical CEO's. http://www.projecthope.org/ourmission/leadership.asp The Fisher House Foundation Builds houses at Walter Reid, so tell me they won't give a biased opinion. http://www.fisherhouse.org/aboutUs/history.shtml

My guess is that they'll come back with a recommendation of privatizing all VA Hospitals because the military is obviously doing such a poor job. I wonder what the Vegas odds on this are?

[Monkeyman]

1. Maybe they should talk to him

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogD4wqHzEjs

[chelsea0011]

2. Dopey, Sleepy, Grumpy....Oh. Not these seven?

[JohnnyLib2]

3. Assuming that they are good people, their recommendations

will be ignored or misused by *. That much, we have learned from his history. Congress must take the lead in this.

[onethatcares]

4. thier recommendations will be given to the next administration

which will have to come up with the financing. Then we'll hear, the "Dems want to raise taxes" shit, over and over and over.

[frogcycle]

5. you know, it doesn't take a commission to figure this out

insufficient budget, insufficient staff, lack of accountability, lack of leadership, political hacks running the show.

applies to everything this administration touches.

[JohnnyLib2]

6. my favorite new term applies: BUSHBUNGLE

[upi402]

7. bush can name my ass Jesus

and kiss it

[fooj]

8. Who cares who the rat bastard appoints?

The Congress will get to the bottom of this. The grown-ups are in charge now.

[Sherman A1]

9. If the Esteemed Mr. Bush wanted to show leadership

as soon as he learned of the issue he would have driven over to Walter Reed and some people would have been fired along with charges of dereliction of duty being preferred. However, as Mr. Bush is himself a shining example of dereliction of duty, we have the results we have.

[frogcycle]

10. I am reminded of an anecdote about RMN

his motorcade was traveling on Constitution Avenue and he looked out at the "Navy Annex" - a bunch of weatherbeaten WWII "temporary" buildings

He said "that's ugly - get rid of it"

The next day moving vans were there; within weeks demolition was under way.

That area now houses the VN Memorial, the WWII Memorial, and the open parkland along the Reflecting Pool.

Trivial, perhaps, but the point is "the Decider" has the power to do things. This one harps on having that power, puffs out his chest and struts around like a bantam rooster, but has never accomplished a frigging thing in his own recognizance. All he does is ask Rove what to do, rehearse his lines, and then screw up trying to recite them.