San Antonio’s military families just got hit where it hurts most: their children’s care.
Doctors are treating kids with autism, wounded warriors, and retirees — and suddenly,
the government stopped paying them. Clinics are burning through personal savings.
Some are days from closing their doors. Parents are terrified,
Congress is dug in, and every hour, the waiting rooms grow qui… Continues…
In San Antonio, where uniforms are as common as school backpacks, the shutdown has become painfully personal. TRICARE’s promise — that military families would always have care — now collides with clinics on the brink of collapse. Providers like Dr. Britt Sims and Dr. Gia Koehne aren’t hedge-fund hospitals; they are small practices surviving on thin margins, now stretched to zero as reimbursements freeze. The families they serve, many raising children with autism or complex developmental disorders, cannot simply “wait it out.” Every missed therapy session risks lost progress that may never fully return.
Meanwhile, troops’ paychecks are being protected with reallocated funds, but the civilians who keep their families healthy are left carrying the financial burden. It is a quiet crisis: no dramatic headlines from battlefields, just shuttered offices, unanswered phones, and parents wondering how a political standoff in Washington could so quickly unravel the fragile safety net they thought was guaranteed.
In San Antonio, where uniforms are as common as school backpacks,
the shutdown has become painfully personal. TRICARE’s promise — that military families would always have care — now collides with clinics on the brink of collapse.
Providers like Dr. Britt Sims and Dr. Gia Koehne aren’t hedge-fund hospitals;
they are small practices surviving on thin margins,
now stretched to zero as reimbursements freeze.
The families they serve, many raising children
with autism or complex developmental disorders,
cannot simply “wait it out.”
Every missed therapy session risks lost progress that may never fully return.
Meanwhile, troops’ paychecks are being protected with reallocated funds,
but the civilians who keep their families healthy are left carrying the financial burden.
It is a quiet crisis: no dramatic headlines from battlefields,
just shuttered offices, unanswered phones,
and parents wondering how a political standoff in
Washington could so quickly unravel the fragile safety net they thought was guaranteed.
