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WHEREAS, during peacetime and hostilities, the quality of health care delivery to military personnel is crucial to combat operations, recruiting and retention;
WHEREAS, the 1972 Health Professional Revitalization Act created the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS) and the Health Professionals Scholarships Program (HPSP) and, as designed, provides a flexible source of physicians to meet the changing needs of the services by supplying a cadre of career-oriented medical officers, trained with emphasis on military medicine, such as combat casualty care, tropical medicine, trauma and combat stress; and
WHEREAS, in its "Reinventing Government" initiative, the administration has proposed eliminating the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; and
WHEREAS, a 1993 CBO report concludes that USUHS graduate costs exceed the costs of HPSP graduate subsidies to civilian medical schools, but does not consider indirect subsidies to medical schools in its cost analysis, and the September issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association concludes that if the investment per year of obligated service is computed in the total costs, the cost differential between USUHS and civilian sources is negligible; and
WHEREAS, 83 percent of all USUHS graduates since the first graduating class in 1980 remained on active duty; and
WHEREAS, as provided to congressional committees during 2002 by the Navy Surgeon General: the median length of non-obligated service for physician specialists in the Military Health System, not including
USUHS graduates, is 2.9 years, and the median length of non-obligated service for USUHS physician specialists is 9 years;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Reserve Officers Association of the United States, chartered by Congress, urge the Congress to retain the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences to ensure the continued availability of career-oriented military physicians to the uniformed services.
Renewed by the DC National Convention, February 2, 2011
Renewed by the Atlanta National Convention, June 28, 2008 as 08-27
Renewed by the New York City National Convention, July 30, 2005
Passed by the Philadelphia National Convention, June 23, 2002, as 02-28
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