Veteran’s Day Special: We love our soldiers so much, they too have to pay for their own rape kits

Sorry to conflate two issues, because in the same breath that I was going to post something for Veteran’s Day to remind us of the soldiers in Iraq and that we must hold a new administration accountable to get them the fuck out, this article popped up on my screen, and, well, it is really not cool.
We were outraged to find out Palin allowed rape victims to be charged for their own rape kits, but we didn’t know she learned how to do it from the Pentagon. According to Penny Coleman at Alternet, TRICARE, the Pentagon’s healthcare plan doesn’t cover rape kits either.

Currently, forensic examinations are not covered for beneficiaries in civilian health care facilities through TRICARE medical plans because TRICARE “may cost share only medically or psychologically necessary services or supplies. Forensic examinations are not conducted for medical treatment purposes, but for the preservation of evidence in any future criminal investigation and/or prosecution.”
The decision to treat rape kits as purely evidentiary, ignoring the very real medical and psychological benefits to the victim, is reprehensibly primitive thinking. Making sure that those legislative changes happen as planned would be a long overdue step out of the primal ooze that has slimed our military in the eyes of our citizens and the world.

Disgusting.