|
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Senate Approved of Walter Reed Privatization
GovExec has a good story today on how privatization may have made the situation at Walter Reed even worse. A prolonged public-private competition demoralized staff, nearly 100 of whom quit.
On Monday, Weightman said attrition reduced the number of employees affected by the competition from a high of 190 down to about 100 people. He said that despite being given authority to staff up to bridge the gap, he was unable to find more than 10 additional people to take positions not slated to last beyond four months.
If all this is true, last year's Congress had a hand in it. In September, the Senate voted to table, or kill, an amendment to the FY 07 Defense Appropriations bill that would have prevented the Army from privatizing those services. In effect, those voting "yea" were voting for privatization- for making the problem worse for injured veterans.
Take a look at the roll call vote. The vote was very close- 48-50. If one "yea" vote had switched to "nea," the amendment probably would not have been killed.
The House, in fact, approved the same amendment. But because of the Senate vote, it was not included in the enacted appropriations bill.
Posted by Matt Lewis
|