Close this Advertisement
EmbedEmbed

Federal Daily News

DOD says military health care will feel effects of sequester


A Defense Department official this week told a House Armed Services Committee panel that while DOD will not allow sequester cuts to compromise the quality of care provided through the defense health program, those cuts nonetheless will have other effects on the health care system's patients, staff and facilities.

Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, provided the details on those effects in testimony before the committee's Military Personnel Subcommittee at a March 13 hearing held to examine the impact of the sequester, the continuing resolution and declining budgets.

Shifting funds more to patient care will mean dramatic cuts in other areas, Woodson said. To continue day-to-day health care operations, the department will have to slash equipment purchases and make do with existing equipment, he told the panel. DOD also will have to cut back on research and development so it can redirect those funds to patient care.

Perhaps most worrisome is the sequester's potential effect on access to care. Woodson said that while the department will prioritize health care service spending to ensure that the current level of "warrior care" is maintained unchanged, other areas could suffer.

"In patient care areas, nearly 40 percent of our medical staff in military hospitals and clinics is civilian," he stated in prepared testimony submitted jointly with acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Jessica Wright. "With some exceptions, these civilians will be furloughed. We can expect the furlough of medical staff will impact access to care—causing inconvenience and dissatisfaction among those patients accustomed to getting their care in military treatment facilities.

"Furthermore," the testimony continued, "patients who formerly received care in a military treatment facility may seek to obtain care in the private sector at an increased cost to the department and the American taxpayer."

According to testimony, current calculations show that sequestration will dock about $3 billion in resources from the Defense health program in the second half of the year—a cut that will produce "negative consequences" in the military health system.

"We are actively looking at plans to mitigate these problems," Woodson stated, "but we do not yet have a plan to avoid all problems unless Congress acts to de-trigger sequestration."


 

Reader comments

Thu, Apr 4, 2013 Frances Norfolk

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will voluntarily subject his own pay to furlough levels, according to a Pentagon spokesman. How about the folks in Congress, since they have decided its a good idea to furlough government workers. If Congress did the same furlough themselves look at the $$$$$$ that would be added. They can say, oh we are needed every day but that's not the case as an example the nice Easter break. Look how little they accomplish with all the long timeframes they have. No one should be untouchable, President Obama should tell Congress they need to follow the same rules in this case as the Federal Government workers. They also seem to favor contractors, is it becasue they have so many investments in those compaines.

Mon, Mar 18, 2013 Paul

What's not being addressed is the impact on the entire patient population. As one of a small handful of people responsible for ensuring the health and lives the entire Tricare population, we have always worked beyond capacity and sequester will only make this worse. Since we are not in the public eye, we get missed in the discussion but we ultimately make the difference between a few of deaths compared to the hundreds we prevent every year. And that doesn't include the suicides that we still struggle to control. Hopefully the impact is minimal but Congress is playing Russian roulette with our Soldier's lives and if the chamber is live then the consequences will fall squarely on their shoulders.

Fri, Mar 15, 2013 dufus

Congress seems to be worried about impact to the DOD contractor community, not its own internal workforce. Anyone with a brain knows that sequestration will impact across the board. Its slices into the good programs and people as well as the less than desirable. Congress has never bothered to control pork-barrel spending, addition of unrequested items/programs into various budgets. No-one questions the need to control costs or reduce budgets, Its all in the magic as to how you do it. I would bet half the federal budget that at the end of the day, whenever we get a 2013 budget or even a 2014 budget, one will find millions if not billions of unrequested pork-barrel spending that has nothing to do with cost control.

Fri, Mar 15, 2013

As a current DoD civilian nurse working in an MTF, I can assure you that we are dedicated to insuring the most outstanding patient care possible. We have been "donating" many hours of overtime to our military members and their families at top mission readiness levels. The expectation from our senior leadership is that we will continue to donate this time, even as our hours will be decreased and our pay will be cut. I challenge every conversation and pain center to take a pay cut for the amount of work they have been doing. Obviously over the past 5 years they have not been able to accomplish the task of having a budget for her garment to operate under.

Please post your comments here. Comments are moderated, so they may not appear immediately after submitting. We will not post comments that we consider abusive or off-topic.

Your Name:(optional)
Your Email:(optional)
Your Location:(optional)
Comment:
Please type the letters/numbers you see above