Georgia Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have sent a new letter to War Department officials demanding they immediately withdraw a formal notification to Congress about modifying services at Eisenhower Army Medical Center, arguing that servicemembers, their families and veterans around Augusta deserve answers before any changes move forward. The senators say the Defense Health Agency plans to convert the hospital into an ambulatory care center, a shift that would permanently shut down inpatient care and downgrade the emergency room to an urgent care facility.
According to Atlanta News First, the senators wrote that 17 days had passed since a response deadline they set in June without any reply from the War Department, calling the silence unacceptable. The August 7 letter, addressed to Assistant Secretary of Defense Keith Bass and Defense Health Agency Director Vice Adm. Darin Via, followed the agency's failure to respond within the deadline to a prior inquiry, according to Senator Jon Ossoff's office. Ossoff had also raised concerns about the proposed reductions in a separate letter sent to the agency in November 2025.
What's at Stake for Augusta-Area Patients
Eisenhower Army Medical Center, also known as Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center, sits near Augusta and provides care to an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 beneficiaries across the Central Savannah River Area, per Senator Ossoff's office. Local healthcare leaders and lawmakers have warned that eliminating inpatient and emergency services would redirect patients to already-strained civilian providers, including Wellstar MCG Health and the Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center, according to the same account from Senator Raphael Warnock's office.
The hospital operates roughly 60 inpatient beds and six operating rooms, with a staff of about 1,500 people, including approximately 80 medical residents who make up roughly half of its physician workforce, per Ossoff's office. Those residents train across five graduate medical education programs — Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, General Surgery and Transitional Year. Ossoff and Warnock say the proposed changes could disrupt medical care for servicemembers, their families and veterans while adding strain to Augusta's civilian health care system.
A Legal Fight Over Notification Timing
Under 10 U.S.C. §1073d, the Department of Defense must submit a detailed report to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees before modifying or downsizing a military medical treatment facility, triggering a mandatory 180-day congressional review period before changes can take effect, according to the Congressional Research Service. In May, a bipartisan group of six U.S. Representatives — led by Rep. Rick Allen and Rep. Joe Wilson alongside Reps. Austin Scott, Buddy Carter, Brian Jack and Sheri Biggs — sent a joint letter to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth accusing the Defense Health Agency of circumventing the law by starting downsizing before completing statutory review requirements, per the Office of Representative Rick Allen. Allen, a Republican representing Augusta, and his office said the lawmakers emphasized that more than 20 military installations sit within the region their letter represented.
Ossoff and Warnock argue the Pentagon has not fully explained which services would be affected or how the transition would actually work. The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel responded to that uncertainty by inserting language into the draft Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act in June to halt service reductions and closures at 41 military treatment facilities nationwide, including Eisenhower, while requiring quarterly status reports from the Defense Health Agency, according to the Military Officers Association of America. Allen's office said the provisions were aimed in part at protecting Eisenhower Army Medical Center, and he has backed those provisions in the House-passed defense bill.
Part of a Bigger Pentagon Overhaul
The push to restructure Eisenhower traces back to a Department of Defense plan released in February 2020 under Section 703 of the FY2017 NDAA, which designated 50 military hospitals and clinics nationwide for downsizing to prioritize active-duty combat readiness over retiree and dependent care, according to the Air Force Medical Service. Out of 343 domestic military medical facilities screened that year, 50 were selected for realignment. A Government Accountability Office study, first published in 2020 and updated in June 2023, found the Defense Health Agency lacked adequate data to ensure civilian medical networks could absorb transferred military beneficiaries and had no established mechanism to reverse downsizing if local civilian care proved insufficient.
Fort Eisenhower, renamed from Fort Gordon in 2023, hosts the U.S. Army Cyber Center of Excellence, U.S. Army Cyber Command and NSA Georgia, supporting an installation population of more than 16,000 active-duty military members and 13,500 civilian personnel, according to Wikipedia. Notably, the Department of War itself named Eisenhower Army Medical Center one of 15 military hospitals nationwide to receive an A hospital safety grade from The Leapfrog Group for its spring 2026 evaluation, even as the same department pursues plans to strip the hospital of its inpatient operations.
