For All My Fans From IAP Worldwide

For the dozen or so visitors today to this humble blog from IAP Worldwide in Merritt Island, Florida; this post's for you:



Slate.com: It's Not Just Walter Reed
Still more ways Bush is screwing returning vets.

The Pentagon's Defense Health Program—which includes the Tricare health-insurance plan, used by 9.1 million veterans and involving 65 inpatient clinics, 414 medical and dental clinics, and 257 veterans centers—has actually had its budget cut the past two years. In fiscal year 2006, the program's budget for medical care went up from $15.9 billion to $21.2 billion. But since then, it's gone down slightly—to $20.8 billion in FY 2007 and a proposed $20.7 billion in FY 2008.

These numbers understate the magnitude of the cuts. To keep up with inflation in the cost of goods and payroll, the Defense Department actually had to cut medical-care programs by $1.6 and $1.4 billion in FY07 and FY08, respectively.

Money is similarly tight at the Department of Veterans Affairs. The VA's budget for medical care has risen in the past few years—from $28.8 billion in FY 2006 to $29.3 billion in FY 2007 to a request for $34.2 billion in FY 2008—but this hasn't been enough. In each of the past four years, according to a March 1 report by the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the VA has systematically underestimated the number of veterans applying for benefits in the coming fiscal year. The result is a shortfall of $2.8 billion in the FY08 budget, just to cover the current level of medical services.

The administration is trying to make up for some of this by raising deductibles on prescription drugs (from $8 to $15) and by imposing an annual enrollment fee (ranging from $250 to $750)—in short, by shifting costs to the veterans themselves. (Even so, these charges would make up only $450 million, or about one-sixth of the shortfall.)

Another instance of ignoring the wars: Despite a vast increase in the number of returning soldiers coming to the VA's veterans centers, the budget for these centers has remained flat. Similarly, despite a vast increase in the number of soldiers filing disability claims, the VA budget includes no money for additional claims processors. To justify the lack of money for trained processors, the VA's budgeteers assume that the number of new claims—and the backload of past claims—will drop in 2008. This is patently ridiculous: Elsewhere in the budget (see page 1-2), they state, "[W]e project that VA's patient caseload will peak in 2010" (emphasis added). In other words, they predict a rising caseload for another three years—but cut the money for the caseload this coming year.

An even grander sleight of hand comes in the section of the budget dealing with the "out-years"—FY 2009-12. The VA's budgeteers are projecting no increases in spending for medical care during that entire four-year period. They can't possibly believe this. (Again, they note elsewhere that the caseload won't peak until the middle of this period.) They are engaging in the political game of making the future appear less grim—and the president's budget more balanced, the need for tax hikes or cuts elsewhere less compelling—than is really the case.

unbossed.com: What doesn't IAP do?

It is amazing that a company that did not exist until recently has won so many contracts and in such diverse areas. A constant seems to be getting ice to hurricane Katrina damaged areas. One wonders what IAP will do for income when the damage is fixed. I did not include all of those contracts. You can find them on its newsroom archive page.

Here are a few more of its diverse contracts from recent years, all from IAP's press release page.

First, up the U.S. Geological Survey! From ice to WRAMC to the IRS to national wetlands research!

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA), The Hill Blog: Walter Reed Hearing Raises Serious Questions

The questions I have about the Walter Reed issue is they contracted out a lot of the work that was being done by employees of Walter Reed even though the employees had a lower bid, knew what they were doing and the Army wanted them to continue what they were doing.

It appears as if someone in the defense department wanted to make sure that this outside contractor had the job which ended up reducing the workforce from around 350 to less than 100 earlier this year.

We’re trying to get more information, but certainly the witnesses we’ve had at our hearing acted like they knew nothing about anything. They didn’t know about the contract particularly, they didn’t know what the impact was and they didn’t know there were problems in Building 18. They assumed there weren’t any problems because nobody brought it to their attention. I just find that quite an unacceptable response.

Verdict: Guilty

The ultimate verdict on Walter Reed Army Medical Center and this country's shameful treatment of wounded and maimed veterans:

There is something profoundly evil about a country encouraging young men and women to go off and fight its wars and then shortchanging them on medical care and other forms of assistance when they come back with wounds that will haunt them forever.

Bob Hebert, NYTimes: Lift the Curtain (TimesSelect wall; also here and here)

Privatizing Walter Reed: Rich Get Richer, Veterans Get Screwed

I've never understood the premise of privatization. Why does adding a profit motive to a third party improve government services? Answer: It doesn't. It just allows private companies to pay workers less and give them poorer benefits to do the same job, then transfers the cost savings into the pockets of the owners of the private company. And some of those companies also cut the numbers of workers doing the work. Like IAP Worldwide, which has replaced 300 federal support services workers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center with 50 private employees. The result? Dan Quayle, John Snow and Al Neffgen get richer. Who got poorer? The workers who now work for IAP don't make the wages of federal workers, and don't have equivalent benefits. But most horrifying, the maimed and brain-damaged soldiers at Walter Reed are suffering because our government chose to put money into the pockets of their rich friends rather than put money into caring for the veterans injured in their immoral, illegal war. Sickening.

Metrowest Daily News (Framingham, MA): Editorial: Privatizing Walter Reed

As a letter from the House committee investigating Walter Reed stated, "it would be reprehensible if the deplorable conditions were caused or aggravated by an ideological commitment to privatize government services regardless of the costs to taxpayers and the consequences for wounded soldiers.

The thread of privatization and cronyism runs through this administration's disasters: from Abu Ghraib, where private contractors had a role in intelligence-gathering, to New Orleans, where a major city paid the price after political appointees replaced experienced emergency service professionals at FEMA.

Palm Beach (FL) Post editorial: Failures at Walter Reed expose VA system failure

Incredibly, despite the rising numbers of those who will need care, the White House is proposing a VA budget that is essentially flat from last year. The administration wants to cut money for prosthetic research and provide inadequate financing for the backlog of cases that only will grow. Yet on Tuesday, Mr. Bush called on Congress to "fund our war fighters." Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, whose "qualification" was running the Republican National Committee, has compounded the administration's indifference with insulting rhetoric. Asked about the 200,000-plus who have tried to get care, Mr. Nicholson says, "A lot of them come in for dental problems."

YahooNews: Deborah Burger, HuffPo: We're All at Walter Reed

It starts with brutally substandard care and abandonment of tens of thousands of veterans, not just at Walter Reed, but at VA hospitals and clinics around the country, as the Washington Post has revealed in ghastly detail.

Second, starving the VA. Since 2001, as Paul Krugman reported in the New York Times, federal allocations for veterans medical care lag behind overall healthcare spending, rather stunning when you consider we have sent 1.5 million of our young men and women to Iraq and Afghanistan and over 184,000 have sought VA care after serving.

There's more. Due to funding cuts, some 263,257 veterans were denied enrollment for Veterans Administration health coverage in 2005. To cut costs, enrollment has been suspended for those deemed not having service-related injuries or illnesses. So much for the guarantee of lifetime healthcare. And, if all the other indignities were not enough, some Walter Reed patients had to buy their own meals.

The final piece of this unholy troika is privatization. As the Army Times notes, Walter Reed handed a five-year $120 million contract to a private company run by an ex-Halliburton executive. The contracting out of support services was followed by a mass exodus of support personnel.

Christian Science Monitor: How decay overtook Walter Reed
The problems at the US Army hospital show how strained military resources have become.

Walter Reed Is The Direct Result of Republican Policy Choices

It will be important to keep the media on track on this story. I heard Jim Miklaszewski on Imus this morning claiming this is just how things get done by the military bureaucracy. Not so. This is not a story about government incompetence. As Paul Krugman points out today, improvements in the Veterans Administration during the Clinton years made the VA one of the best health care systems in the country. Government did that. Good, responsible government dedicated to using the power of the purse wisely. Democrats in charge. People who believe that government works.

The problem with Walter Reed and military medical care is not government incompetence. It's the Bush Administration's Republican attack upon government, in their effort to fulfill Grover Norquist's desire to shrink the federal government until it can be drowned in a bathtub. These are deliberate policy choices, not just incompetence. They have attacked good government from within. The functioning system at Walter Reed and at Veterans Administration facilities around the country has been attacked with the weapon of privatization. Why? Partly, so rich corporations like Halliburton can continue to rake in billions in profits. But it is also part of their insidious attack upon government, to make government look as bad as they always claim it is. They are trying to destroy our government from within. This isn't just incompetence. It's their policy. Starve the federal government, then claim government itself doesn't work and privatize everything.

They must be stopped.

WaPo: 'It Is Just Not Walter Reed'
Soldiers Share Troubling Stories Of Military Health Care Across U.S.

Paul Krugman, NYTimes: Valor and Squalor (TimesSelect wall; also here and here).

AirForceTimes: Soldiers at Walter Reed Building 18 moved

Steve Young, OpEdNews: Johnny Gets His Gun Again: Walter Reed Reveals Right's Bloody Secret

WaPo: Walter Reed Hearing to Put Spotlight on Kiley's Leadership

Political Affairs Magazine: Privatization Behind Disaster at Walter Reed Hospital