Kelly concerned with Mil.med cuts

Lawmakers, including Mississippi Republican Trent Kelly, expressed concern at a Dec. 5 hearing on how many military medical billets are scheduled to be eliminated in 2020 as the services' hospitals and clinics transition to the Defense Health Agency. Members of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel received an update on the Military Health System transition. The hearing focused mostly on access to mental health care. The surgeons general for each of the services told lawmakers they were no longer filling vacant positions, pending a billet review by the DHA. They broke down the number of reviewed billets last year that were determined "excess" (4,000 Air Force: 6,935 Army and 5,386 Navy) In 2018, the military “determined that their current medical force exceeded the operational requirements they needed," said Thomas McCaffery, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. Each service decided to “look at a subset of their medical billets and repurpose them to look for other high priorities tied to the military department's needs and meeting national defense goals." Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and ranking member Rep. Kelly (R-Miss.) were not pleased with those numbers, and expressed concern there were already long wait times for doctors' appointments, pointing out how dangerous it could be to leave mental health care specialist positions unfilled. "I just want you guys to know: That's a lot of billets that are going away," Kelly said. "So, we shouldn't just be subtracting, we should be adding in some areas and saying, 'Hey, we can get rid of these folks, but we need more in this area’." (Source: Military.com 12/06/19) Kelly is Mississippi’s 1st District congressman. The district is located in the northeast corner of the state, and includes Alcorn, Benton, Calhoun, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Clay, DeSoto, Itawamba, Lafayette, Lee, Lowndes, Marshall, Monroe, Pontotoc, Prentiss, Tate, Tippah, Tishomingo, Union, Webster, and Winston counties with a portion of Oktibbeha County. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/12/06/surgeons-general-lay-out-how-many-health-care-jobs-each-service-may-lose-merger.html