The Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) provides an essential pipeline of military medical talent, but like the rest of military medicine, it remains a familiar target for cost-cutting proposals.

And while MOAA and its partners in The Military Coalition, a group of military and veterans organizations representing a combined 5.5 million members, recently asked key legislators to stop a recent round of planned USU cuts via the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), lawmakers need to hear from all corners about the damage such cuts could do.

[TAKE ACTION: Ask Your Lawmakers to Protect the Military Medical Pipeline]

MOAA board member Rear Adm. Tom Jurkowsky, USN (Ret), raised red flags in a recent commentary for The Hill, a Washington, D.C.-based news outlet. He outlined the issues raised by The Military Coalition as well as those of Dr. Thomas J. Nasca, president and CEO for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, who noted “grave concerns” with the planned cuts in a letter to USU and Defense Health Agency officials.

USU contributes to readiness through both the training of its students to serve as military medical professionals and through the research undertaken to provide a better quality of care for servicemembers and others under the military medical umbrella, Jurkowsky writes. He cites improvements in critical and psychiatric care, rehabilitation programs, and prosthetics as some of the ways this research has paid off. 

“The sacrifices of our active military demand these advances,” he writes.

Lend your voice to these calls for action by asking your lawmakers to provide USU with the funds needed to continue its mission. It’s just one of several ways MOAA continues its work to preserve military medical care in all its forms.