After 102 years, Walter Reed is being closed for budgetary reasons. The hospital, which has treated 18,000 vets from Iraq and Afghanistan alone will be closed and operations consolidated with the Navy’s hospital in Bethesda and the hospital at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. It has been in operation for over a century and in that time has treated hundreds of thousands. Perhaps, if we’re really interested in cutting costs in the military sector, we should consider not pouring billions of dollars into unsuccessful attempts to deal with IEDs, allowing Boeing to overcharge us up to 177,000 percent on helicopter parts or spending over $7 million a year on NASCAR sponsorships. Story via the Associated Press (thanks to Sam Rubenfeld for alerting me).
Picture: 1930’s era postcard of Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Via.
This is huge news for the DC area. This building is very well-known, especially in the area.
I was almost shocked until I realized “Well, America cutting costs by putting citizens’ health on the line isn’t too surprising.”
(via socialistexan)
