During a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) questioned witnesses about the Military Health System, and care for US servicemembers and veterans at military treatment facilities.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Senator Reed, you're next.
00:02Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen.
00:04Thank you for your excellent testimony.
00:07In the 2023 memorandum by the Deputy Secretary of Defense, one of the key points, I believe,
00:14is the direction to reattract beneficiaries to the MTFs, which would increase the patient
00:24flow, increase the demands on physicians, et cetera, and also save money, they believe.
00:32Dr. Frederick, your response to this approach?
00:37I strongly support the vision that Deputy Secretary Hicks laid out, which is very similar
00:42to the vision that Deputy Secretary Norquist laid out in the previous administration and
00:47almost every administration prior to that.
00:50Again, to do that, we must have resources.
00:52I'll offer one other option, which I think you've heard all three of us touch on briefly.
00:58Every single patient in the Veterans Health Administration started in DOD.
01:03I had the great privilege of commanding the DOD VA Joint Venture Facility in Anchorage,
01:08and I can tell you that when the patient walked in the door, they were taken care of by a
01:13joint team.
01:14It was far more efficient than building duplicative adjacent facilities.
01:19Instead, we built integrated adjacent facilities.
01:23There's a $10 billion unfunded recapitalization bill in the DOD, $100 billion unfunded recapitalization
01:30bill in the VA.
01:32There are real opportunities to bring those higher acuity patients from the VA into the
01:37DOD facilities or bring DOD medical personnel into the VA facilities so that we are not
01:44wasting money on duplicative buildings and instead focusing our resources on the patients
01:49who need our care.
01:51General Robb or Dr. Robb or both, do you think the military healthcare system is adequately
02:01focused on the combat-related medical capabilities?
02:05I've heard comments by all the panels suggesting that they're diverted into things that are
02:10not effective in the combat situation.
02:14Well, I think, in fact, I would kind of like to challenge the misnomer that there's a separation
02:23between care beneficiaries and medical readiness.
02:29And I would argue the way that we get our skills, primary care, specialty care, and
02:37just as important, our allied health, pharmacy, x-ray techs, logistics.
02:43We get that by taking care of our beneficiaries.
02:47And so what I think is so, so important is that we use our, not use, but we care for
02:54our patient population to best achieve a medically ready and a ready medical force.
03:01And what I think is really important is that, again, we have to create a capability, it
03:05has to be an enterprise approach.
03:08And when we talked about, again, I'll go back to the point of follow the casualty flow,
03:12and you look at those critical hospitals that we believe are important, we must staff those.
03:16And we must staff those to the fullest extent possible.
03:20You can't reattract patient care into our MTFs unless you staff them.
03:26And I think that is what is key.
03:27If I can't get an appointment, then I can't get an appointment.
03:31So that's what is key.
03:33And so if you talk with Walter Reed, for example, they may have enough surgeons, but
03:38for various reasons, the support staff doesn't exist.
03:40So they don't have the throughput that they need for surgical cases.
03:44The caseload is there.
03:46So what I think we need is an enterprise approach on how do we resource, okay, the full spectrum
03:51of support for our critical care hospitals, and then make up the delta with our military
03:56VA partners and with our military civilian partnerships.
04:00Dr. Bannon, your comments, please.
04:03Senator, I think it's vitally important to have highly functioning premier medical centers
04:09that we can be proud of, that our surgeons and other specialists and allied health members
04:14want to be a part of.
04:16Right now, many of these facilities are shells of what they used to be.
04:20You heard about Wilford Hall.
04:22That was an amazing facility that did so much good for so many decades.
04:27The new incarnation, Brooke Army Medical Center, the San Antonio Military Medical Center,
04:33is also amazing, but it's sort of out on the vanguard by itself.
04:37We need other premier flagship centers.
04:41And I think we can do it.
04:43We've got the pieces in place, but we've got to commit to keeping the combat casualty at
04:48the center of our focus and make it happen.
04:52My time has just about expired, but a yes, no, or perhaps answer.
04:58I am concerned about the ability to mobilize medical professionals for a all-out fight.
05:06Is that a valid concern?
05:07Yes or no, please.
05:10Yes.
05:11It is the billion-dollar concern.
05:14The Israelis have proved that.
05:16And we have a shell game right now with our Guard and Reserve and civilian facilities.
05:21We're going to pull them out, deploy them, and assume that civilian facilities, which
05:26during COVID required 70,000 military medics to take care of a surge in demand, instead
05:34lower their staff and then take care of a surge in demand.
05:38The math doesn't work, even for a Louisiana public school grad.
05:41Dr. Kennedy, go ahead and answer the question.
05:43Yes, I will.
05:44Take the time.
05:45I agree.
05:46It's a concern.
05:47Thank you, sir.
05:48All right.