Democrat Senator Hillary Clinton and Republican Senator Jim Talent have teamed up to spend more taxpayer dollars on a new military healthcare plan that will ultimately have over 563,000 additional beneficiaries in the National Guard and the Reserves.  That Senator Clinton would love to add military beneficiaries to her 1990s era HillaryCare/TRICARE scheme should come as no surprise. But the participation of Republican Senator Talent in this effort is puzzling.

On May 18, Newsday reported that Clinton and Talent were concerned that the pre—deployment health screenings weren't enough for Guardsmen and Reservists going overseas.  Their rationale included a rehash of the Gulf War Illness discussion, and how that made it 'so difficult to understand was a lack of adequate screenings before service men and women were deployed.'

Nothing could be further from the truth, but it's not until further in the piece that we begin to see an inkling of the real reason.  Senator Clinton remarked that 'in some units, as many as one—fifth or even one—fourth of service members lack health insurance.  In many cases, troops have conditions that need treatment before they can be sent overseas.'  And there is the crux of the problem that is so deftly covered up by Senator Clinton and Newsday.

Some people remember reading the 'horror' stories of a substantial number of 'medical holdovers' at stateside medical facilities, with the implication that these were wounded troops who had returned from overseas and who were not receiving timely medical care.  In reality, upwards of 60 percent of these troops were Reservists and Guardsmen who were held back from deployment because they had not met medical standards.

At what point in time at home station did these troops cease being non—deployable, and were their commanders fudging readiness reports?  The military draw—down of the 1990s was too drastic, and the consequences have included a lot of tinkering with numbers to make units look more ready than they are,  particularly in the reserve component units where maintaining personnel strength is a constant battle. These larger issues of integrity and unit readiness have not only affected our national security posture, but have now provided the opportunity for certain politicians to happily accept the 'challenge' of increasing the rolls of our federal healthcare system.

Posted by Doug  05 21 04