Letter: American troops deserve the best

Thursday, June 14, 2007 | 8:04 a.m.

Despite the rhetoric from both Republicans and Democrats, and little if any concrete action, much needs to be done to ensure that our troops obtain the best medical and health care.

A recent Associated Press story detailed some of the problems. The opening sentence of the story states: "Soldiers returning from war are finding it more difficult to get mental health treatment because military insurance is cutting payments to therapists on top of already low reimbursement rates and a tangle of red tape."

It is a shameful example of how Washington supports the troops. I must admire and commend the actions of Barbara Romberg, a clinical psychologist in the Washington, D.C., area who was reported in the article as providing a free hour of time a week to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. She has also started a group that encourages other therapists to do the same. Now that is supporting the troops .

Instead of pounding relentlessly on the desks of his minions in the White House budget office and on the lectern in Congress demanding immediate action to resolve the ongoing problems faced by veterans as soon as possible, their commander in chief traipses around Europe.

I am ashamed for those politicians and their advisers who sent the men and women into the morass in Iraq and Afghanistan and now blame one another. Who bears the load for their failure to provide adequate health care for our servicemen and servicewomen? The service people who answered the call of their country and their dependents of course, but not the responsible politicians who have ensured that their health plans are the best in the country, with no ifs, ands or buts.

Leopold A. Potsiadlo, Las Vegas