Red Tape Gums Up Military Medical Care

A Government Accountability Office official told a U.S. House hearing Monday part of the problem at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is the bureaucracy.

Cynthia Bascetta, director of healthcare for the GAO, testified after several witnesses described the trouble they had getting services from the military medical establishment.

The U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee is investigating problems at Walter Reed following reports of horrendous conditions in The Washington Post.

The rules and regulations are so monumental, we focus more on that and not on the patients, Bascetta admitted.

Former Walter Reed chief Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley said there are problems moving patients from in-patient to out-patient care but, he said, he thinks the system works well 80 percent of the time. He declined, however, to blame the problems on a lack of resources.