Lost in the national debate over health care is a frightful fact: In small towns and big cities alike, emergency medical systems operate at or near capacity, leaving them ill-equipped to handle any sudden or unanticipated surge in demand.
Military veterans with medical training are ideal candidates to relieve some of the stress on this system, but instead of embracing them and honoring their skills and service, they are blocked by bureaucratic red tape.
Consider, for example, Sgt. Myesha Britt, a decorated combat medic from San Bernardino who served in Iraq and Kosovo. With no home of her own, no job, and a young daughter, she started looking for work as an EMT after her honorable discharge in May. But without a California state certification, no local ambulance company can hire her. The certification course is redundant — like taking freshman biology after working as an organic chemist — wasting Britt's time and the tax dollars spent on her military training.
Britt is not alone. Each year the Army's Department of Combat Medic Training turns out 8,000 graduates. The curriculum combines civilian emergency medical skills with the latest techniques in battlefield medicine. The training is so rigorous that one of every five soldiers who begin the course cannot complete it. Most who finish deploy to a combat zone within six months.
Yet medics who want to provide medical care as civilians must retrain from scratch. Earlier this month I joined forces with several of my colleagues — Reps. Melissa Bean, D-Ill.; Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D.; and John Sarbanes, D-Md. — to add an amendment to the health care bill that would create a fast-track for military medics to become first responders. It passed with the unanimous support of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
This doesn't help only veterans, it helps every community faced with overburdened emergency systems. Last summer, a heat wave in New York City caused an uptick in 911 calls that inundated the system. As a result, some New Yorkers waited an hour and a half for an ambulance to arrive. Just imagine what might have happened in the event of a mass-casualty incident like a biological attack or natural disaster.
The situation in California is much worse. Our state ranks dead last in providing access to emergency care and suffers from a shortage of medical professionals.
Military medics can be part of the solution. Who better to come to our rescue in time of disaster than the same men and women trusted to defend our nation overseas? First responders routinely face life-or-death decisions, often amid a backdrop of chaos and confusion. This would be magnified during a catastrophic terrorist attack or natural disaster — precisely the moment when their skills are most needed.
Critics might question how transferrable a military medic's skills really are. To be sure, the battlefield is a wholly different environment, and we cannot expect our veterans to function as civilian first responders without additional training. That's why this amendment calls for veterans to undergo a regimen that accounts for their previous training and experience and prepares them to operate in a civilian environment.
It also helps veterans find work. The transition from military to civilian life is always difficult, but the economic downturn has made it even harder. Last year the average unemployment rate for service members returning from recent deployments was 30 percent higher than that of their civilian counterparts.
Our veterans deserve better. The Emergency Medic Transition Act is a win-win, honoring veterans and making communities safer.
U.S. REP. JANE HARMAN, D-El Segundo serves on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which is considering health care reform. She wrote this article for the Mercury News.