The American Spectator

Reader Mail

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I suggest that Mr. Reiland and readers of his article spend a few minutes listening to Maj. Gen. Edison E Scholes, USA (ret.) and read his "Don't Paint the Medical Corps with One Brush" published by American Thinker on Wednesday.

Originally it circulated around the Internet in the form of a letter written to Fox News online in response to an opinion piece written by a military officer that was highly critical of the medical corps. A copy ended up in my email Monday as part of a weekly newsletter I receive as a member of an organization whose members are former military aircrew members. When I read it, my suspicion that the Walter Reed brouhaha was overblown and being used as a political bludgeon was confirmed. So I decided to contact General Scholes and ask his permission to let American Thinker publish it and the publisher, Thomas Lifson, was happy to do so.

p>Problems do exist at Walter Reed. Try to find any medical facility where zero patients fall through the cracks. Good luck. However, Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon's experience may just be quite atypical and quite far from that of most Walter Reed patients. Not that there is any excuse for it. And once again, the politicos are having themselves a field day at the expense of the military. Will our Congressmen ever take personal responsibility for anything? Other than contributions, perks, and earmarks, that is. Now there are some things that aren't underfunded! br> -- Dennis Sevakis br> Bloomfield, Michigan br> P.S. Hmmm, this is interesting . Guess General Scholes knows whereof he speaks... /p>

As distressing as the recent situation is for seriously injured military personnel and their families, their care is obviously going to extend over decades, long after the Walter Reed problem is dealt with. So the larger issues demanding attention are 1.) the care that these veterans will receive in the VA system; and 2.) how best to manage short-lived increases in demand for complex care when many injured active duty personnel are brought back home at once.

First topic: There is no better time than the present to think about the long-term viability of the Veterans Administration's network of hospitals and outpatient centers. Anyone who has worked in or been a patient in one of these centers is impressed with how cumbersome the system is and how unimpressive the care is for the amount of money spent for it. The reality is that the VA hospital system is a sort of patronage system for those who administer it: Yes, of course they try their best to care for the patients but such concerns are on an equal footing with their own worries about their fiefdoms, their benefits, etc. This is not an indictment of the individuals who work for the VA but just a fair appraisal of what happens in a big government operation over time. Nothing new to report in this regard.

Let us crunch a number or two: Simply take the entire amount of the VA budget for health care ($ 31.5 billion in 2007) and divide by the number of patients covered (about 5.5 million) and you get something like $5,700 per year, certainly enough for a top-drawer individual health care policy. My figures here come from a site for military families and their concerns.

In fact, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program administers a lot of health care plans for federal employees, a number roughly twice the number of veterans currently cared for by the VA. Some 56 percent of FEHBP enrollees (this represents perhaps three million or more federal employees) are in two plans provided by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, and their premiums are exactly $134.30 biweekly for a whole family's (not just an individual's) coverage ($3491.80 per annum approximately). My source for this is a recent article at a site advocating health savings accounts. Way less than our first estimate, and the entire family gets care too, not just the individual policyholder.

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