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EDITORIAL: WOUNDS, REAL AND POLITICAL --
From The Washington Times.
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http://washingtontimes.
com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20
070702/EDITORIAL/107020002
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Wounds, real and political
The flurry of media attention directed at the Walter Reed Army Medical
Center scandal has subsided, but not for lack of activity. It is time
for exhaustive work to improve the nation's complicated military medical
system and veterans' health care inside the departments of Defense and
Veterans Affairs. Meanwhile, though, a kind of farce of Washington
politics is underway in which the scandal is used by some for political
effect, who are then opposed by others who fail to understand the
magnitude of the problem and thus sound rather callous.
In April, the Independent Review Group appointed by Secretary of Defense
Robert Gates to investigate the Walter Reed scandal and system-wide
issues handed down what the New York Times called "a sweeping
indictment" of a breakdown in health services. The review, headed by
John O. Marsh and Togo West, two former secretaries of the Army, called
the Walter Reed scandal a "perfect storm" of harmful factors resulting
from the Base Realignment and Closure Commission's recommendations;
pressure to outsource work from the administration's "A-76" contracting
requirements which caused serious staffing problems; and the sharp rise
in the number of casualties, many with very complicated and
little-understood traumatic brain injuries or polytrauma and
amputations.
Among the review's recommendations: Focus on shoddy outpatient care;
create centers of excellence for brain injury and post-traumatic stress
disorder; remedy the "systemic breakdown of a seamless and smooth
transition from Department of Defense to the Department of Veterans
Affairs"; pay particular attention to the appalling failure to achieve,
"seamless" transitions; remedy serious problems in the physical
disability evaluation system; and lift A-76 requirements.
There is a danger in this climate of a rush to change systems which are
not fully understood, owing to the fact that the
government-political-media timetable to reach conclusions and make
public reports is still wildly ahead of the hard analytical process
necessary to reach sound long-term conclusions.
In these debates one sees the reality clash with the theatrics of war
and war casualties. Last week, in a hearing at the military personnel
subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, ample doses of
reality included this statement from a senior recently retired service
member: "[W]hen you look at the evaluation systems, they are so
convoluted, so complicated, that there's only probably a handful of
folks in the military that understand it. I just retired from the
military after 37 years, and do not ask me a question about them,
because I have no idea."
Outside such hearings, one hears two kinds of ill-advised thinking which
seem to take such facts less seriously than they should, one frequently
heard on the left, the other on the right. On the left is the use of the
military-health-care mess as a political cudgel whose real aim seems to
be to remind listeners of the decision by President Bush to enter Iraq.
The most egregious, later retracted, was Sen. Barack Obama's February
"wasted lives" remark which the senator said he came to regret, and for
which he apologized repeatedly.
The other, from the right, is a kind of misguided fiscal prudence which
opposes typically reasonable legislation designed to improve
circumstances for wounded war veterans. Most egregious was Mr. Bush's
"pork" remark and his veto threat regarding recent Democratic proposals.
But last week in a contentious Senate Veterans Affairs Committee
meeting, Sen. Larry Craig, Idaho Republican, warned against the fiscal
consequences of a hybrid-benefits proposal by Sen. Bernie Sanders,
Vermont Independent, in the wake of an Institute of Medicine
determination that the VA's means of judging disability is "hopelessly
outdated."
Here's how the Air Force Times was able to characterize his position:
Mr. Craig "was trying to block Sanders' amendments to increase veterans'
burial benefits and grants for autos and homes that are equipped for the
handicapped. Craig also opposed a committee plan that would restore the
right to enroll in the veterans' health care system to veterans with
modest incomes and no service-related disabilities, who are in the
lowest priority group for care." He was quoted: "I am concerned that if
we flood the system and don't fund it, we are in for consequences."
We wonder how many members of Congress are aware of a January working
paper by Linda Bilmes of Harvard University which concluded that "the
budgetary costs of providing disability compensation benefits and
medical care to the veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan over the course
of their lives will be from $350-700 billion," depending on factors like
future deployments, recipient lifespans and health-care inflation. A
sense of realism on all of this is sorely needed, as is an understanding
from our elected leaders that politics should be marginal when it comes
to wounded soldiers.
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Larry Scott --
