Cleland on the Veterans’ Health-Care Crisis

Cleland on the Veterans’ Health-Care Crisis

The military health-care system can’t keep pace with the flood of battlefield casualties. Max Cleland—Vietnam vet, triple amputee, and former U.S. senator—on the roots of the crisis, and what needs to be
March 5, 2007 - The controversy touched off by an investigative series in The Washington Post on the state of the military health-care system is growing. At a congressional hearing Monday, military officials said they were checking conditions at other hospitals—not just Washington’s Walter Reed, where the Post uncovered run-down living conditions for soldiers and mismanagement. Several congressmen also addressed the bureaucracy at the Department of Veterans Affairs, where a Newsweek investigation turned up long waits for veterans seeking medical care and disability payments.