President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter over an internal Defense Department discussion to cut $2.2B from the military health system’s budget. The president’s tweet was also in response to a story that appeared Aug. 16 in Politico – quoting anonymous senior defense officials - saying that DoD has proposed cutting health care as part of Defense Secretary Mark Esper's defense-wide review. Trump’s tweet said he “firmly and totally rejected" any such plan. According to Politico, the Pentagon officials "at the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness” would be tasked to find savings in their budgets to the tune of $2.2B from military health. Other unnamed sources said that the effort has been "rushed and driven by an arbitrary cost-savings goal." Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman tweeted that the story was "inaccurate and incomplete." SECDEF has “neither directed nor reviewed, let alone approved, any cuts to military health care in the upcoming budget” or for future years, Hoffman wrote. DoD Chief Management Officer Lisa Hershman is developing a plan to cut $5B from Pentagon administration to "reinvest in military modernization," wrote Hoffman, and will be "bringing recommendations on a wide range of DoD budget issues” (including healthcare) to SECDEF’s team in the coming weeks. Politico tweeted that the publication "never said Esper had directed the cut." An hour after the president tweeted about the issue, Esper responded: "I have not directed nor (sic) approved any cuts to our military health care system … (and) will not allow any reductions that would harm access to quality medical care for our service members, their families and our larger DoD community." (Source: Military.com 08/18/20) https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/08/18/trump-says-reported-22-billion-cuts-military-health-system-are-no-go.html
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