Philip Mattera: Outsourcing Walter Reed (from TomPaine.com)

[marmar]

Outsourcing Walter Reed
Philip Mattera
March 06, 2007


Philip Mattera heads the Corporate Research Project, an affiliate of Good Jobs First.

Reports of substandard conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center have outraged the country. But that anger should not be directed only at the callous Army officials running the facility.

The full story behind the scandal involves a misguided program to “reinvent government” through outsourcing, a company that botched the delivery of ice to victims of Hurricane Katrina and a giant hedge fund led by a former member of President Bush’s cabinet. The private sector has indirectly had a hand in converting the once legendary Walter Reed into a symbol of the shameful treatment of people who have been maimed in the service of their country.

The dismal state of some facilities at Walter Reed cannot be directly attributed to poor performance by a contractor. After all, it has been only a few months since a politically connected firm called IAP Worldwide Services started taking over many of the management functions at the medical center.

Yet a battle over whether to outsource those functions has been going on since early 2000, when the Army commenced a cost-comparison study of support services at the medical center. Such studies—which were being promoted by the Clinton administration’s “reinventing government” initiative led by Vice President Al Gore—forced groups of federal workers to compete with potential contractors to figure out which could perform a given function more efficiently. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/03/06/outsourcing_walter_reed.php

[illinoisprogressive]

1. It was contracted out to a Haliburton subsidiary