Pentagon officials and service health care professionals gathered this week for the annual state of military health care conference. The mantra was consolidation and transformation to eliminate redundancy and improve response to changing patient demographics—in a word, jointness. Officials cited the changes to be wrought under BRAC 2005, such as the replacement of historic Walter Reed Army Medical Center in D.C. with a national medical center at Bethesda, Md., and consolidation of military medical training at Ft. Sam Houston, Tex. Officials also had high praise for military medicine on the battlefield and in medical evacuation.
President Donald Trump on July 4 signed into law $150 billion in defense funds as part of the tax-and-spending package known as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” after congressional Republicans approved the legislation in narrow, drawn-out votes earlier this week.
