{"id":36169,"date":"2013-06-11T13:45:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T17:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=36169"},"modified":"2013-06-11T13:45:36","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T17:45:36","slug":"hagel-dempsey-take-shots-at-your-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=36169","title":{"rendered":"Hagel & Dempsey take shots at your health care"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes<\/a> reports that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marty Dempsey went to bat for you and your health care today. Of course, I’m lying. There’s no way those two would do anything but screw veterans out of what they promised veterans because they don’t have the wherewithal to cut Pentagon spending where it needs to be cut.<\/p>\n

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., asked Hagel and Dempsey whether they have started communication efforts with veterans \u2014 a segment of society heavily invested in military success, he said \u2014 to explain that rising military benefit costs and falling defense budgets could leave future troops without adequate equipment or training.<\/p>\n

Both answered yes, and DOD Comptroller Robert Hale laid out an estimate of how much money DOD hopes to recoup from higher health care costs for Tricare members.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to keep Tricare generous,\u201d he said. \u201cBy 2018, our proposals save $2.5 billion in that year alone. If we don\u2019t do that, and we have to, say, cut forces to offset it, it\u2019s about 25,000 troops. We need to slow the growth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, see, they’re pitting the active duty force against veterans. Oh, the Military Times<\/a> reports that DoD is cutting their flag officers by a whopping 2%. Geez, we’ll be crippled without those 14 generals. Luckily, we’ll still have another 910 working their two-hour weeks.<\/p>\n

And if you’re thinking that Republicans are going to save veterans this time, think again;<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to fight our enemies with a good health care plan,\u201d said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, Graham folded like a Kmart lawn chair – quickly and without hesitation. Like a good little lap dog. I wonder how they think they’ll be able to retain an effective fighting force while they’re slashing every reason the troops have to stay. What are you going to fight our enemies with, Lindsay? Drones?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes reports that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, … Hagel & Dempsey take shots at your health care<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veteran-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36169\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}