Army could close Moncrief hospital at Fort Jackson ( South Carolina )

The State ^ | October 3, 2014 | JEFF WILKINSON

[george76]

COLUMBIA, SC — The U.S. Army may close Moncrief Army Community Hospital at Fort Jackson, according to Maj. Gen. Bradley Becker, the fort’s commander.

Becker said that the Army medical command contacted him this week and told him that it is considering closing the hospital or drastically cutting back service at the facility, which is the main health care provider for the 72,000 soldiers who are trained there each year and the fort’s 7,000 military and civilian employees. The State reported a year ago that Moncrief had roughly 700 employees.

Medical care for the recruits would be transferred to local hospitals, the general said. Each recruit would be required to be accompanied to off-base hospitals by two drill sergeants, according to Army regulations.

“That would be good for the hospitals,” Becker told The State. “But it would cause me staffing issues. And of course there is the loss of jobs.”

...

Earlier in the week Becker told The State that the number of new soldiers trained at Fort Jackson, the nation’s largest basic training installation, would drop to about 17,000 a year from 45,000 if worst-case staffing cuts go forward.

Another 27,000 soldiers receiving advanced training in tenant missions such as the drill sergeant school and the chaplains school would also be heavily affected, Becker said.

The sequester would force the Army to shrink to 420,000 soldiers in 2019 from 518,000 today, Becker said. That would make it impossible for the Army to meet the nation’s strategic goal of winning a war in one theater while holding an enemy at bay in another,

[BwanaNdege]

This is insane!

I need to buy stock in a Fiddle Factory. All of Congress & the Press are fiddling while America burns.

[Slings and Arrows]

I am far from a military professional, but this strikes me as penny-wise and pound-foolish.

[Cen-Tejas]

Payback to Gowdy!

[DoughtyOne]

Yep. I agree with you.

[X Fretensis]

A new MOS for the Army, Drill Instructor Escort.

[upchuck]

Thanks for the ping, S&A. I agree. This doesn't make sense.

South Carolina Ping
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[elcid1970]

Well.....Trey Gowdy’s district is in the northwest part of S.C.

Fort Jackson is mostly in Congressthing-for-life James Clyburn’s amoebalike 6th District.

And what does Flimsey Tinkerbelle think about this?

South Carolina is on the Prez’s s***list for many things.

[GailA]

It is insane. When the Millington, TN Naval Base went from a training base to BUPERS paper pushers for the Navy, the hospital was closed, and the medical care was all off base. But the person needing care did not need an escort.

The air strip was sold to the city of Millington. But the Military still has use of it.

Now thanks to a 4/14/14 DOD MANDATE all Tricare Life Ret. over 65 must use Base or Express Scripts for all daily meds. It is hard enough to find a doctor to take Medicare now, but when you are also Tricare Life it is getting even harder. SLOW or LOW reimbursement.

Tricare Life (Ret, Military over 65)
DOD MANDATE 4/14/2014
For Daily Medicines
is forcing us to use either Base whose drugs are limited by size of base and is not wheel chair or handicap friendly or Express Scripts MANDATED Tricare Life. 4/14/14. Express Scripts is a sorry excuse of a provider. You never know if your order is right, what generic, what manufacture, or what country. All stuffed into your mail box UN PHOTO ID SIGNED FOR making them available to thieves and meth makers to steal. Or Neighborhood kids to access. It will take an act of congress to fix this issue. The meds come in a plastic sealed bag. Meds are temp and humidity sensitive. Every 3 Months there is Retail $3K worth of meds shoved in my unprotected mail box. Systems are all automated.

Script fills for base can be up to 24 hrs. Refills for the Base come out of Pensacola, FL 5 day wait time. ES is 3 weeks to fill first, 2 weeks to do refills.

Express Scripts Accused Of Defrauding State And Consumers Out Of Millions Of Dollars
http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/express-scripts-accused-defrauding-state-and-consumers-out-millions-dollars

NY attorney general sues Express Scripts, Benefits firm accused of inflating prices, keeping up to $100 Million
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/5601076/ns/business-corporate_scandals/t/ny-attorney-general-sues-express-scripts/#.U381ECh7SMQ

Express Scripts Extortion Scheme Widens
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2009/09/express_scripts_breach.html

Express Scripts complaints
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/rx/express_scripts.html

ES Customer Service ranking
http://www.customerservicescoreboard.com/Express+Scripts

Express Scripts RIP OFF
https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/directory/express-scripts

ES buys out Medco
29 Billion
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20120402/NEWS/304029961

[Cen-Tejas]

Thanks for educating me.

Tinkerbelle? That would be Obama?! Lol, too funny but very accurate judging from certain photographs.

[elcid1970]

Uh, no, actually. In South Carolina it’s Sen. Lindsey Graham who is known as Flimsey, Grahamesty, Tinkerbelle, Light in the Loafers, etc.

He ran in 2002 to fill the giant shoes of the late great Strom Thurmond. Graham leans right or leans left as it suits him & he is regarded as a calculating opportunist whom conservatives here cannot stand. I’ll be voting against him for the third time next month.

Would love to see Trey Gowdy unseat him in the Senate. But we want Trey Gowdy for President some day. Or at least as attorney general under President Ted Cruz.

[Jet Jaguar]

Active Duty/Retiree ping.

[Cen-Tejas]

I surely agree with you on Cruz and Gowdy.

Graham has always seemed a little bath house oriented to me. But, if the only option is a fn Democrat, I would vote for the devil!!!

[Redleg Duke]

I went through basic and AIT at Jackson back in '65. Spent a week in the infection ward with a serious case of the "Monkey Bars". Of course, it was the WWII era hospital at that time.

This is all part of Obola's plan to defang the US military.

[NorthMountain]

It’s not even penny-wise.

Neither is it foolish ...

It’s part of the 0bama Regime’s deliberate agenda of destruction.