Private insurance for combat injuries

President Obama wants to shift the burden of medical insurance and payment for treatment of injuries to our military personnel to private insurers. This would mean that treatment for the veteran would pay for injuries incurred in combat at least in part.

While a soldier is in the employ of the U.S. government, they are not people. They are the property of the government. And we will not be paying the full amount for treatment of any injury that they do not have the right of refusal? This is a VERY poor method of repayment. I cannot see how this will do anything but harm our ability to recruit and retain the best people to risk their very lives on our behalf.

Even if this does not come about, it does demonstrate the length that our President will go in the cutbacks in our military. President Clinton made large reductions that cut in half the number of active divisions the army had available as active units. This made our invasion of Iraq a much riskier proposition. Even though the actual invasion turned out all right, many problems might have been averted if we had twice as many units to deploy in the first place. Our military has not fully recovered from the cuts that President Clinton implemented and now we can expect draconian reductions on top of everything else. This cannot do anything but increase the risk of over extension of our military. And we thought our army was stretched already? All we need now is a REAL emergency, and our armed forces will only be able to respond inadequately. This is another step toward the large war that I fear is heading our way. This is a recipe for disaster.