Republicans Wrong on What is Best for Vets — Veterans Oppose Privatizing VA!

In war, the idea is to destroy the enemy’s capacity to fight. This generally includes destruction of the enemy’s army. The Republican Party, however, seems to want to destroy American soldiers as well as the enemy as they turn their greedy, profiteering eyes on America’s veterans. The Republican Party has shown that it has no respect for America’s veterans.

It was just this spring that President Obama vetoed a Republican bill which would have cut benefits to 70,000 veterans. And in January, we saw Bernie Sanders rip Republicans for cutting Social Security For 1 million disabled veterans.

Privatization is a Republican money-making scheme directed at various targets, most prominently perhaps, education. But Republican sights have also settled on the Veterans Administration, and as Leo Shane III writes at Military Times, “Veterans like choice. But they don’t like privatization.”

“That’s the bottom line from a new poll out Tuesday from the Vet Voice Foundation,” relates Shane:

The poll of 800 veterans, conducted jointly by a Republican-backed firm and a Democratic-backed one, found that almost two-thirds of survey respondents oppose plans to replace VA health care with a voucher system, an idea backed by some Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates.

“Veterans overwhelmingly feel that health care was a promise made for their service and oppose vouchers that may not cover all costs,” group officials said in their report. “Veterans worry that private insurance companies care too much about profit and would make decisions for the care of veterans based on money.”

The survey conducted by Lake Research Partners and Chesapeake Beach Consulting showed that 64 percent of vets oppose privatization (54 percent strongly) while only 29 percent support it.

Hillary Clinton has said, “Privatization is a betrayal, plain and simple, and I’m not going to let it happen,” and veterans seem to agree.

The results of the survey show that “Veterans overwhelmingly feel that health care was a promise made for their service and oppose vouchers that may not cover all costs.”

As well they should. The government employed these men and women to fight its wars. They should not have to treat the resulting wounds at their own expense.

Increasingly, Republican politicians view veterans as an irritant. They have been used and discarded and are now best forgotten except when convenient to use to score political points.

As Clinton pointed out,

“You know, I don’t understand why we have such a problem, because there have been a number of surveys of veterans, and overall, veterans who do get treated are satisfied with their treatment. Now, nobody would believe that from the coverage that you see, and the constant berating of the VA that comes from the Republicans, in part in pursuit of this ideological agenda that they have.”

John McCain, as he spends most of his time these days doing, demanded an apology:

“Hillary Clinton’s remarks downplaying the significance of the scandal in which veterans died awaiting care at VA hospitals in Phoenix and across our nation while corrupt bureaucrats collected bonuses are disgraceful, and show a total lack of appreciation for the crisis facing veterans’ health care today.”

Because it’s so much better when corrupt corporate bureaucrats collect bonuses. In fact, the recent survey shows, contrary to McCain’s claims, that,

Fifty-nine percent of veterans rate their impression of VA hospitals as favorable. When only asked about VA hospitals in their area, 61% of veterans rate their impression as favorable. Veterans approve of the job that VA hospitals in their area are doing servicing veterans like them.

In fact, 51% of Republicans give an excellent or good rating; 26% give a just fair or poor rating.

According to this survey, Republicans like Jeb Bush, who has said he wants to privatize elements of veterans healthcare, might want to step warily, as veterans “see it as a potential voting issue, with a majority unwilling to support a candidate for a major office who favored moving toward privatizing VA hospitals programs and services.”

According to the survey, “Veterans oppose privatization of VA hospital programs and services on four particular planks”:

1. That health care was a promise for their service – veterans deserve their health care to be fully paid for.
2. That private insurance corporations care too much about profits and how to cut spending, and they make decisions about care and treatment based on money, not based on what the veteran needs.
3. That if Congress privatizes the VA, veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan with a significant war injury and their families would have to deal with private insurance and having the claim denied or only partial payment or going bankrupt.
4. That after two wars in the last 14 years, a record number of veterans need care, and only the VA serves every veteran from every war with any injury. The VA is where the experts are, and we need to strengthen, not weaken this system.

It is bad enough that, as Gallup relates, “Returning vets don’t feel their college understood their needs,” but their own government?

These people fought and died for us and they deserve better than to be the victims of Republican get-rich-quick schemes, and that is all voucher programs and privatization amount to, as is demonstrated again and again.

Today is Veterans Day. We should not spend it, as Republicans do, trying to conjure up ways to make money off wounds honorably gained in service of their country. This is Veterans Day, not Screw the Veterans Day.

And Veterans are right: privatization is not the way forward, because privatization is not meant to benefit veterans, but to benefit Republicans eager to make money for themselves and their corporate owners.

Photo: WhiteHouse.gov

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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