Paying for your service connected injuries?

A friend of mine sent me a chain email this morning that had President Obama making outlandish statements on his rationale for service members paying for war wounds with private insurance. The comments, were inflammatory and drew the ire or dozens of veterans groups who believe the government has a moral and  legal obligation to pay for service connected wounds.

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"Look, it's an all volunteer force," Obama complained. "Nobody made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice? It doesn't compute.." "I thought these were people who were proud to sacrifice for their country, "Obama continued. "I wasn't asking for blood, just money. With the country facing the worst financial crisis in its history, I'd have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation's deficit. I guess I underestimated the selfishness of some of my fellow Americans."  

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The tone and derisive nature of the comments seemed to be out of character for a president who is known for his ability to nuance a phrase into something less than what it is. Using Google and the phrase,`obama "Look, it's an all volunteer force,"` shows a list of sites where the reference is made. Many of these sites are blogs that take what they are told and spew it back out like a .50 cal machine gun. A Snopes.com article points the source of the quote to a fictionalized President Obama back in March of this year as part of a satirical piece by John Semmons, an Arizona blogger who clearly states that the view is a satirical view on recent news.

Having cast this herring back to Red Sea from whence it came, I thought it bears some importance to talk about the underlying issue and what has been discussed with this highly charged issue. 

There can be no doubt that one of the most sacred obligations this country must perform is to care for those whom it sends into harms way if they are injured as a result of that action. In a effort to save money, a idea was floated around to have the government bill the private insurance of service members for the treatment of their combat related injuries and other service-connected problems. It didn't require them to buy insurance, but it would necessarily cut into benefit limits of those private plans. If such a proposal were to be made law, it would place service members into higher risk pools, thereby increasing premiums. These increases could realistically increase costs for service members beyond what they can afford on modest military salaries, or exhausting coverage limits, leaving their families unprotected.

Though the proposal was dropped after a firestorm of criticism from veteran's groups and major media outlets, one still must wonder how such an idea was ever breathed in public as a policy option. I would submit to you that those of you who voted Obama into office shouldn't be surprised by any outlandish proposal he or his cronies float out there. Things will get worse for the country in the next three years before you have a chance to undo your mistake of '08. One hopes that we will listen and research our options before believing unattributed quotes such as the focus of this story, but also, that we research our chosen candidate for President or any office holder before we cast our vote in their favor.

Michael Rowland