Current Events > Esper eyes $2.2 billion cut to military health care

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https://www.politico.com/amp/news/2020/08/16/esper-eyes-22-billion-cut-military-health-care-395578

(Some excerpts)

Pentagon officials working on Defense Secretary Mark Esper's cost-cutting review of the department haveproposed slashing military health care by $2.2 billion, a reduction thatsomedefense officials say could effectively gut the Pentagons health care system during a nationwide pandemic.

The proposed cut to the military health system over the next five years is part of a sweeping effort Esper initiated last year to eliminate inefficiencies within the Pentagons coffers. But two senior defense officials say the effort has been rushed and driven by an arbitrary cost-savings goal, and argue that the cuts to the system will imperil the health care of millions of military personnel and their families as the nation grapples with Covid-19.

Under the proposal in the latest version of Esper's defense-wide review, the armed services, the defense health system and officials at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness would be tasked to find savings in their budgets to the tune of $2.2 billion for military health. Officials arrived at that number recently after months of discussions with the impacted offices during the review, said a third defense official. A fourth added that the cuts will be "conditions-based and will only be implemented to the extent that the [military health system] can continue to maintain our beneficiaries access to quality care, be it through our military health care facilities or with our civilian health care provider partners."

A lot of the decisions were made in dark, smoky rooms, and it was driven by arbitrary numbers of cuts, said one senior defense official with knowledge of the process. They wanted to book the savings to be able to report it.

However, the first two senior defense officialssaid the cuts are not supported by program analysis nor by warfighter requirements.
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But the proposed health cuts, in the second iteration of the defense-wide review, would degrade military hospitals to the point that they will no longer be able to sustain the current training pipeline for the militarys medical force, potentially necessitating something akin to a draft of civilian medical workers into the military, the two defense officials said.

The second official noted the challenge in finding outside doctors given longstanding complaints from some U.S. hospitals and researchers that there arent enough physicians to serve civilians.

Hows a 'draft' even going to work? the official said The U.S. is dealing with a doctor shortage.
As a result, the proposed reductions would hurt combat medical capability without actually saving money, the officials argued. The Pentagon is already significantly overspending on private sector care and TRICARE because patients are being pushed out of undermanned military health facilities to the private health care network, they said. The cuts also would follow nearly a decade of the Pentagon holding military health spending flat, even as spending on care for veterans and civilians has ballooned.

Last fall, Whitley and CAPE also sought to close the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, which prepares graduates for the medical corps, as part of the defense-wide review, the people said. Although at the time Esper denied the proposal, CAPE is now seeking major cuts to USU as part of the $2.2 billion. The reductions include eliminating all basic research dollars for combat casualty care, infectious disease and military medicine for USU, as well as slicing operational funds.

Whats been proposed would be devastating, and its coming right out of Whitleys shop, said the senior official. Instead of a clean execution, USU would be bled to death.

The officials pointed out that USU has contributed to the Covid-19 response in recent months by graduating 230 medical officers and Nurse Corps officers early from the class of 2020 School of Medicine, leading and participating in research clinical trials for virus countermeasures and contributing to the Operation Warp Speed effort to develop a vaccine.

The cuts to USU will leave the department ill-prepared for the next pandemic, the first defense official said.

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Good job Esper, military health care is already sub par and is arguably where service members and veterans need the most support.

Dumb bitch.

I'm all for cutting military budgets, but the health care area is absolutely not where we need the cuts.

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Which Esper?

Odin? Bahamut?

..Don't tell me it was Carbuncle

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gamer167 posted...

Good job Esper, military health care is already sub par and is arguably where service members and veterans need the most support.

Dumb bitch.

Sub par compared to what? You can literally just show up at a clinic and get treated or checked up without paying a cent.

Atralis posted...

Sub par compared to what? You can literally just show up at a clinic and get treated or checked up without paying a cent.

Eh, it depends on the service/clinic. Some dental offices get really backed up and then you wind up having to wait 30+ days or getting an appointment at a civilian office.

edit: I don't deny that it's generally easier than for civilians I think but there are still bureaucratic hoops to jump through. Like if you're stick or injured but it's past sick call hours, then you have to call the nurse hotline and get a referral to a civilian clinic/urgent care place anyway.

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*can't determine whether this impacts my health insurance*

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Hexenherz posted...

Eh, it depends on the service/clinic. Some dental offices get really backed up and then you wind up having to wait 30+ days or getting an appointment at a civilian office.

The people complaining are still insulated from the real world. You see people griping about getting an appointment when they are seeing doctors and dentists dozens of times a year for free for every little ache and pain or sometimes just when they dont want to do PT that morning that dont realizes that would cost them tens of thousands of dollars a year as a civilian.

Oh yeah I don't disagree that our health care is generally more convenient and comfortable than what civilians have to deal with, but that doesn't mean it's not going to suffer from budget cuts.

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"Herp see we cut the military budget! Support our troops!"


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Atralis posted...

Sub par compared to what? You can literally just show up at a clinic and get treated or checked up without paying a cent.

Sure its convenient, but the trade off for free it being free is a sub standard quality of care. Yeah if you want to your local aid station and get your ankle sprain looked at, or a free teeth cleaning its awesome.

But like the article says anyone with half a brain uses Tricare and gets a referral out in town for anything serious.

Is it bad? No, but its not great. And Its only going to get worse with a budget cut when theres SO MANY other places they could cut funding in the military.

hockeybub89 posted...

"Herp see we cut the military budget! Support our troops!"

Somebody has to support them. It's clear the government doesn't want to. They're just using people then discarding them like trash so Private Health can squeeze more of that sweet government money out of them.
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Bad idea, we're about to go to war with China at anytime, if anything more money should be going to military health care as with the rest of MICOM.
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That fucker better be locked up in the Magitech Research Facility soon.

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All military and police spending need to looked at, overhauled, and cut. This is fair. Everyone else is having to adjust to the new normal, they need to as well.

uwa ej posted...

All military and police spending need to looked at, overhauled, and cut. This is fair. Everyone else is having to adjust to the new normal, they need to as well.

Most people, including those in the military, wouldnt disagree. Its the fact that they would choose health care over so many other things to do large budget cuts.

I want to see an article where we stop pumping money into Lockheed, Raytheon, BAE, Northrop, etc. before cutting money from health care. But due to the military contract mafia thatll probably never happen.

Oh, man, are they really going to cut back on prescriptions for Motrin and water?

AlCalavicci posted...

Which Esper?

Odin? Bahamut?

..Don't tell me it was Carbuncle

Probably Shiva. It takes a really cold heart to do something like that.