Panel to examine problems at Walter Reed(1st meeting)

[maddezmom]

Source: Associated Press

Panel to examine problems at Walter Reed 1 minute ago

WASHINGTON - Shoddy patient care and bureaucratic delays at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and throughout the veterans health care system are the targets of a commission appointed by President Bush.

Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala head the Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, holding its first meeting Saturday.

The commission was being briefed by Defense Department officials, health experts and veterans on the state of health care for veterans.

Bush said at the time he named Dole and Shalala to head the panel that the nation has "a moral obligation to provide the best possible care and treatment to the men and women who served our country


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070414/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/veterans_care

[Omaha Steve]

1. We owe so much to the men and women of the military

A foot soldier goes where he is ordered to go. They man the front lines among the horrors of war. We at home rarely know what they go through. Now we learn the horrors at home in the medical system may be the worse than what they went through over there. I would never question a tax increase to properly fund the VA. I know first hand of a Korean Veteran that had no health insurance. He had a heart attack at my office several years ago. I remember the story of how he pleaded not to be taken to Vets Hospital. How did we as a country ever let it come to this?

[loyalsister]

2. It's about priorities everywhere

This is one of the best editorials I have read about it. This problem is deeper than a problem that is related to care at Veterans Hospitals. It is about medical advancment and policy priorities in our country.

http://www.johnhockenberry.com/Blog/DEEA6E68-D0E8-4C64-A11F-A62F3D1A9155.html