Bush Pays Lip Service But Soldiers Still Broken
This made me so angry when I read it last night that I had to take a full day to calm down enough to write about it coherently. You be the judge of whether I accomplished that goal.
Meet Jimison Taylor Hutchinson, member of the Michigan Army National Guard. He joined the guard after completing a tour in the Air Force. While attending an “optional but highly recommended” training course, he seriously injured his back and lives now in constant, excruciating pain. Hutchinson is a broken soldier.
Broken Soldier, the blog, chronicles Hutchinson’s spurned efforts to get effective treatment for his back injury and relief from the pain. Now, as a voter who is against the war but fully for the soldiers who fight it, I’ve always assumed that injured soldiers (whether here or in combat) are entitled to receive full medical benefits. However:
I found out that National Guardsmen and Reservists do not have prescription benefits, even for the treatment of line of duty injuries. Guardsmen and Reservists are to pay for their prescriptions upfront, and submit forms and receipts for reimbursement from TriCare. The problems with this are obvious to those of us who’ve used this system. Prescriptions can be very expensive. What if one can’t afford the upfront costs? I’m guessing the government would say such a person has a choice: opt for a treatment you can afford (even if that treatment isn’t sufficient) or go untreated. As well, submitting a request for reimbursement doesn’t guarantee reimbursement. TriCare will deny requests for reimbursement justified by whole host of reasons, most as silly or sillier than those found in the worst insurance companies. The point of this is twofold. 1) When a person enlists in the Guard or Reserves they’re told they have medical coverage if injured in the line of duty. While one could make a legal argument this is true, de facto for those requiring prescription medicine to treat their injuries that statement isn’t true. This should be explained to those enlisting so as to allow them to make an informed decision based on their rights and responsibilities and those of the service in which they’re enlisting. 2) This is a matter the federal government should address. Our elected officials and the majority of their constituents in unison claim the troops deserve the best in medical coverage and treatment. The will of our government and of the people and the realities of coverage and treatment are at best disparate.
(Emphasis added by me)
Grasp this. We ask healthy young men and women to serve in the military reserves with the promise that they’ll receive medical coverage for injuries in the line of duty. Duty isn’t just overseas duty; it’s ANY active duty. Yet, if you are serving in the National Guard or Reserves (the vast majority of whom comprise our active-duty troops in Iraq), you can’t even get up-front coverage on prescriptions to treat pain from a undisputed on-duty injury.
WTF is that, Mr. Bush? How DARE you stand up in front of this country and beat your breast and speak for our soldiers’ morale when you’re slapping them with your backhand to their wallets and livelihoods? And lest we forget, if Hutchinson had been injured on the job in the private sector, he would be entitled to workers’ compensation and disability payments. Yet it took our government well over six months to officially classify his injury as a line-of-duty injury, and even after that, the promised treatment has not been coming.
Essentially, the Bush administration has told this young man and his family that while they’re grateful for his service to our country, they’re not THAT grateful. Not enough to act honorably. Meanwhile, Hutchinson cannot sleep, cannot work, cannot even walk because of the herniated disk that reminds him every second of every minute of every day that his country talks a lot about gratitude but has a funny and sick way of showing it.
If this is happening now, what on earth will happen to those injured and disabled veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan? Surely they shouldn’t come home only to wish they were dead.
Bonus link for those of us who are not in the military, and also struggling with health care issues.
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