Walter Reed and Beyond

Recommendations on how to fix the military health care system came out earlier this week.

This is in the wake of the Walter Reed scandal and a whole host of reports on how badly returning soldiers are being treated. I like this comment from Tony Snow:

White House press secretary Tony Snow initially told reporters yesterday that Bush would not act immediately on the panel’s advice. “He’s not going to be making recommendations; he’s not going to be issuing calls for actions,” Snow said.

Bush later said that he would implement the recommendations as quickly as possible. Bush had a great great phot-op with two soldiers who had lost legs in combat.

I think this sums the whole situation rather nicely:

“First, President Bush shorted the VA by $1 billion, then he allowed the shameful disaster of Walter Reed and now the White House is pledging more inaction in the face of yet another report on the poor standard of care for our veterans. I proudly supported a $6.7 billion boost to the VA, but what this report is really calling for is strong leadership and that has been missing for six years now.” -- Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., an Iraq War veteran.