Some Gratitude: Bush lies about health-care coverage to the National Guard

[Dems Will Win]

Bush lies about health-care coverage to the National Guard soldiers he’s been putting in harm’s way.

By Mark Goldberg
Web Exclusive: 09.28.04

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In 2002, a General Accounting Office report found that as many as one-fifth of the nation’s 1.2 million part-time soldiers lacked health insurance. This startled many lawmakers into action, and, in May 2003, Senators Tom Daschle and Lindsay Graham successfully pushed for an amendment to the Senate’s version of the fiscal year 2004 Defense Authorization bill that would protect reservists from going uninsured by allowing them to buy into TRICARE when not on active duty.


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The temporary expansion of TRICARE that President Bush referred to in his speech is set to expire in December (that is, a month after the election). The president’s calculated remarks to the National Guard Association were meant to give rhetorical support to “expanding” health-care availability to reservists, while still opposing legislation that addresses the health-care crisis facing uninsured reservists in a meaningful way.

For his part, John Kerry is much less ambiguous about his intentions to expand TRICARE to reservists. Though he missed the Graham-Daschle votes while on the campaign trail, he’s supported the amendment’s intentions. In his speech to the same association two days later, John Kerry offered the kind of clarity on this issue that his campaign has been so sorely lacking in other areas. “When you sign up for the Guard,” he said, “you should be eligible for TRICARE every day that you serve -- before, during, and after mobilization. End of story.”

Once again, the Graham-Daschle amendment will likely be held up in conference committee later this legislative session, and given the administration’s opposition, its fate remains unclear. As casualty rates mount in Iraq, and with part-time soldiers taking on more and more of the burden of defending our country, the president ought to make it a priority that no citizen-soldier goes uninsured.

Mark Goldberg is a Prospect writing fellow.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8678

THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE! GET THE WORD OUT ON THIS ONE!!

[struggle4progress]

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