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Stars and Stripes vs. Esquire

Stars and Stripes, the D.C.-based military affairs newspaper, has taken issue with Esquire magazine over its latest cover story, which claims that the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden would not receive health care from the U.S. government.

Now, Esquire is punching back.

The Esquire story, by Phil Bronstein, executive chairman of the Center for Investigative Reporting, opens with the portrait of a hero fearing for his own wellfare: "The man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden sat in a wicker chair in my backyard, wondering how he was going to feed his wife and kids or pay for their medical care," Bronstein writes. He later states that the unnamed SEAL would receive "no pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family.”

Stars and Stripes says "the claim about health care is wrong."

"Like every combat veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the former SEAL, who is identified in the story only as 'the Shooter', is automatically eligible for five years of free healthcare through the Department of Veterans Affairs," S&S's Megan McCloskey writes. She also notes that "no servicemember who does less than 20 years gets a pension, unless he has to medically retire."

But Esquire says that it is McCloskey who is in fact in the wrong.

Reached via email, Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger referred POLITICO to a forthcoming response on the magazine's website -- titled "The Shooter Needs Health Insurance: A Response to Stars and Stripes" -- in which Esquire's editors say McCloskey's claim about "denied healthcare" is just "her first factual error" among many:

[N]owhere in Bronstein's piece does he write that the Shooter was 'denied' healthcare. Rather, what Bronstein's piece properly establishes is that once the Shooter and his colleagues separate from the service, they must go into the private market to buy insurance to match the coverage for themselves and their families that they had when they worked for the government, and that this transition is an abrupt one. There are benefits available to combat veterans via the VA, which "The Shooter" discusses (this constitutes the second factual error in McCloskey's piece, more on that in a moment), so what does Bronstein mean when he writes, "Nothing. No pension, no health care, and no protection for himself or his family..."? Well, he means precisely that. Because while the Shooter may be eligible for some direct benefits from the VA, his wife and two children are eligible for nothing. Not to get too deeply into the philosophy of insurance and the distribution of risk, but that means that under the best scenario, the Shooter is 1/4 covered, which of course means that he is not covered at all. It would be like having a 1/4 roof during a storm. Your house still fills with water. What good does it do the man if he can go to a government chiropractor for his neck when (heaven forbid) his child could get sick and wipe out the family? It is a simple fact that when your family doesn't have healthcare, you don't have healthcare. Think the Shooter has healthcare? We respectfully suggest that Ms. McCloskey ask his wife.

And so on and so on, right down to issues with McCloskey's diction: "As for her use of the word 'automatically', well, that is problematic, too, as there is nothing automatic about benefits from the VA," etc.

Esquire's editors end with a direct shot at Stars and Stripes, the Dept. of Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. government in general.

"[I]f there are people out there, journalists included, who think that the status quo is hunky dory, the government's approach to these extraordinary veterans is just right or even adequate, and who are too quick to incorrectly call another journalist's work 'wrong' rather than doing their own work on the profound problems of returning veterans, then," they write, "as the cover of the magazine says, the man who killed Osama bin Laden truly is screwed."

UPDATE (1:00 p.m.): Esquire has added a note to the top of its response, acknowledging discrepancies between the online and print edition of Bronstein's article that "led to a misunderstanding, through no fault of her own, by reporter Megan McCloskey":

Editor's Note: The online version of The Shooter story did not reflect the final version of the story in the print magazine, which went to press 10 days ago. The print version included more details about the availability of benefits for veterans. Unfortunately, this omission on the online version, which has been corrected, has led to a misunderstanding, through no fault of her own, by reporter Megan McCloskey and others about some of the facts in our story regarding healthcare and our veterans. The online version of the piece omitted the following paragraph that appears in the print magazine: "There is also a program at MacDill Air Force Base designed to help Special Ops vets navigate various bureaucracies. And the VA does offer five years of benefits for specific service-related claims—but it’s not comprehensive and it offers nothing for the Shooter’s family." The story's argument, however, remains the same: That the man who shot and killed Osama bin Laden, as the following post explains, remains responsible for his own healthcare and that of his family.

The full response is available online.