Much media coverage of Pete Hegseth’s nomination as secretary of defense has focused, understandably, on controversial things he has said or done, along with his complete lack of administrative experience relevant to running a federal government department with a $920 billion budget and a workforce of three million. Though Hegseth’s confirmation appears less likely by the minute, as Donald Trump is reportedly now considering alternative choices, it’s worth taking a closer look into Hegseth’s past when it comes to his approach to health care for veterans and service members.
Anyone in charge of the Pentagon also gets to oversee the Military Health System (MHS), which provides either private health insurance coverage or direct care for over 9.5 million service members, military retirees, and their families. As Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted in a recent Department of Defense (DOD) National Defense Strategy report, the MHS mission is to ensure that active-duty personnel and their dependents are well served by a skilled cadre of “medical personnel in uniform,” who number nearly 170,000.
Hegseth served as an Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC)–trained Army officer deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay and is a longtime critic of “government health care,” claiming that it “doesn’t work.” So if Hegseth succeeds Austin, Pentagon officials trying to end a failed experiment with MHS privatization may find themselves ordered to march backward.
Rather than being upgraded and improved, the DOD’s network of military hospitals and clinics would remain under-resourced. And more of the MHS’s $61 billion annual budget would be spent on private insurance coverage that has failed to meet the needs of many…
Auteur: Steve Early
