See previous: Let's hear it for national health care ...

Reed
Greyhawk

There are two sorts of congressional representatives in America - those who've visited Walter Reed, and those who haven't.

Both sorts are now rightfully screwed:

Imus: Have you been aware, even since 1981, of the state of treatment that veterans have been receiving throughout the Veterans Administration hospitals?

Schumer: Yes, it’s gotten much worse in the last seven or eight years because the funding was just cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. I get stories all the time of veterans wounded in Iraq, they get good treatment over in Iraq . . . The Veterans Administration has just been decimated in terms of funding and it’s unbelievable because . . . we ask these people to serve us and in the DoD part, at least in Iraq, and initially when they are wounded from all reports they are treated well, after that they are just sort of forgotten about and the VA is just in terrible shape, terrible shape . . . It’s a little like FEMA with Katrina. They put the wrong people in charge. They don’t really care.
<...>
Imus: Here’s another question. Have you ever been over to Walter Reed?

Schumer: Ahh, not in a while, no.

Imus: How long has it been since you’ve been over there?

Schumer: Oh, before Iraq. ...

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Video: Chuck Schumer deeply, deeply
concerned about conditions at Walter Reed
Allahpundit

To precisely the same extent that John Edwards is concerned about right-wing bias at Fox. [video link]

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Did Privatization Undo Walter Reed?
Ed Morrissey

The focus of blame for the deplorable conditions of a portion of Walter Reed Army Medical Center has now fallen on the Army's decision to privatize its maintenance workforce. After the canning the Secretary of the Army and the commander in charge of Walter Reed, critics blame a contract with a KBR subsidiary -- and a sister of Halliburton -- for the poor state of the facility:

The scandal over treatment of outpatients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center has focused attention on the Army's decision to privatize the facilities support workforce at the hospital, a move commanders say left the building maintenance staff undermanned. ...

The problem appears less one of privatization than of management of the process. IAP got the contract in January of 2006, but didn't take over the job until a year later. In that period, almost half of the maintenance staff left Walter Reed, and the facility didn't replace them. It's hard to maintain a facility as large and complex as Walter Reed with only half of the necessary facilities management personnel, and over the period of a year, things will fall apart. 

The Army runs Walter Reed. If they saw the need for more people, they should have moved people into these positions until they were ready to have IAP take over the functions themselves.  ...

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Free Walter Reed
The wounded deserve more than political recrimination
WSJ Opinion Journal:

The reports of poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center have set off a political firestorm. It remains to be seen whether the system that created the problem is capable of fixing it.

The Walter Reed facility is located inside the District of Columbia. While the press reports have been dramatic, it strains credulity to think these problems are suddenly news to Congress and all its staff, the executive branch, the Pentagon (across the Potomac), the rest of the Washington press divisions or servicemen and their families.

So now Congress is holding hearings, the White House is setting up an independent commission and Vice President Dick Cheney has pledged "there will be no excuses, only action." Arguably "only action" is a federal-government oxymoron. The action so far has consisted of firings and recrimination. If this continues, the incentive for anyone in government to think innovatively about Walter Reed will fail.

Not surprisingly, the story beneath the Walter Reed mess is a morass. ...