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Without health care, the U.S. will lose the perpetual war

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Message Dominique Lord
  • Enhancing physiological capability is the ability to improve success of the warfighter within the physiological domain: neuroprotection (to decrease brain injury), manipulation of metabolic processes (related to water intake, nutrition, and waste production), enhanced ability to withstand trauma, and maintained/enhanced performance despite the stressors of military operations.

 

  • Providing/maintaining ability to operate across the full range of environments is the ability to perform in flight environments, kinetic and highly-explosive environments, extreme climates, space, underwater environments, chemical/biological/radiological/nuclear (CBRN) environments, and directed-energy environments.

 

  • Providing a healthy and fit force is the ability to provide and enhance a healthy and fit force throughout the continuum from accession to veteran. This includes optimizing health/fitness of peacetime forces, maintaining health/fitness of deployed forces, and ensuring the physical and mental health of redeployed Service members to original optimal levels.

 

If you take out the sci-fi movie vocabulary, the US government believes that providing cutting edge health care for military personnel around the world (their words) ensure the productivity of the members of the armed forces. Good idea.

And yet, this is the same US government that believes providing health care of any kind for the rest of the population--which would allow everyone the same opportunity to be as productive as a "warfighter"--would damage the country! What's up with that?

As I've discussed in previous posts, all other industrialized countries have understood that providing medical insurance to everyone improves the likelihood that everyone will be able to contribute to society. My colleagues in Scandinavia and Europe certainly attest to this, as do my relatives in Canada. And since the American military gets it, one would think that the government as a whole might catch a clue.

Given the fact that the US is now a country in a perpetual war, as some have recently claimed (see here, here, and here), how can we, as citizens (young and old), be prepared--or even able--to defend our country* when so many of us have inadequate health care or no health care at all?

*Some have proposed the re-introduction of the mandatory military service (aka draft). Would everybody be able to fulfill their duties in short order?

 

This article was originally posted at Open Salon.

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Dominique is an Associate Professor in the Zachry Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M University. His research work aims at reducing the negative effects associated with motor vehicle crashes. When he's not developing mathematical and (more...)
 
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