Speaker of the House silent on cuts at Military Hospitals

Speaker of the House silent on cuts at Military Hospitals
by Kathie Costos
Wounded Times Blog
June 1, 2013

When John Boehner said "I got 98 percent of what I wanted." with sequestration no one asked him how he dared be so happy when it meant so much harm to the American people. Congress hadn't managed to pass a budge that had a chance of passing for the simple reason it helped the wealthy but harmed the rest of the American people. We're used to it. We're used to people like him always shooting his mouth off about what he thinks the people want when he doesn't seem to care about what we need.

As most of us were reading how Meals on Wheels would no longer be able to deliver hot meals to thousands of elderly people and the disabled, he was whining about the Air Traffic Controllers and how cutting their hours made it hard on members of congress to have to wait in line with the rest of us. They acted fast to fix that problem.

Bridges and roads fall apart but instead of putting thousands to work fixing them, he approved of so many public workers losing their jobs.

Cops and firefighters lost jobs after most of these jobs are done by veterans coming home from combat and still wanting to serve their communities.

When he pushed and pushed to blame someone over what happened in Benghazi, he didn't seem too interested that Congress cut the budget for security. Boehner doesn't seem too interested in the outcome of the 98% of what he wanted would do unless it directly affected members of Congress.

We've heard speech after speech and hearing after hearing on the backlog of claims at the VA but what we didn't hear was that there has been a history of congressional ambivalence to what disabled veterans face when they come home. The VA claims were higher during other administrations simply because Congress never really got their act together on making sure veterans didn't have to wait in long lines to be treated and compensated for what their service did to them. Reporters failed to inform the American people that when troops were sent to fight in two wars there were less people working on taking care of them than after the Gulf War. That is how we ended up in the mess in 2009 when the backlogs hit 915,000.

Now it seems we have the ultimate betrayal. Workers at Military Hospitals are being cut. Yes, that is the truth but it is doubtful Boehner will do a damn thing about it.

Walter Reed hospital workers receive furlough notices
May 30, 2013

ABC7 has confirmed the region’s two military hospitals are furloughing more than 3,500 civilian employees who care for the nation’s wounded warriors, nearly their entire civilian staffs.

The impacted employees are from departments across the board at both hospitals, including members of the trauma team, physical therapists and nurses. They will be forced to take 11 unpaid furlough days starting in July.

Hospital officials say the furloughs affect 2,392 caregivers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. That’s 94% of the civilian staff there.

Officials say 1,163 caregivers at Fort Belvoir’s hospital in Virginia are being furloughed, affecting 85% of its civilian staff.
read more here