Changes ahead for military health care

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department plans to transfer thousands of uniformed health care personnel out of their positions in military medical facilities over the next few years and replace them with civilian workers or contractors.

The initiative is part of a larger Pentagon effort to reassign military members to jobs that are more directly tied to war-fighting and national security, leaving the tasks they had been performing to civil servants or private contractors.

The plan could bring important changes in the way the Defense Health Program provides medical and dental care to 8.9-million active members of the military, their dependents and military retirees. The changes are expected to affect thousands of doctors, dentists, nurses, administrators and ancillary staff employed in a network of 75 military hospitals and 461 military clinics.

What will not change, officials contend, is the quality and level of care provided in a system that employs 40,648 civilians and 91,917 military members, with a budget of $17.3-billion.

Pentagon officials declined to discuss most details of the plan, saying it is part of the department's budget-development process. The administration has requested $17.6-billion for the department's health program next year.

The rationale behind the plan is that only certain jobs - for instance, those of surgeons who care for Marines wounded in battle - must be performed by a person in uniform, officials said. Others can be done by civilian or contract workers - or could be eliminated.

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