ROMNEY'S VETERANS DAY GIFT: PRIVATIZE VETS' HEALTH CARE!
WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney floated an eyebrow-raising suggestion on Veterans Day: privatize veterans' health care.
Speaking with a dozen vets in an occasionally emotional roundtable discussion in South Carolina Friday, the GOP presidential contender sympathized with the service members' difficulties obtaining treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, which one vet described as "adversarial."
Romney, who has already proposed privatizing Medicare, suggested that maybe giving wounded warriors an outside option would force VA health bureaucrats to be a little more responsive.
Though Romney was equivocal about the idea, the Democrat-aligned Protect Your Care was quick to pounce on the suggestion, which could have the effect of diverting cash from the VA.
"It is well-known that Romney wants to take away seniors' Medicare and turn it into a privatized voucher system, but it is unfathomable that on Veterans Day he would even hint at privatizing their VA health care," said Protect Your Care spokesman Eddie Vale. "Although I guess that is the kind of thing they should expect from someone who in the past said his sons also served their country by campaigning for him."
Vale was referring to remarks Romney made in the 2008 campaign, when he defended his five sons' decisions not to enlist in the military by saying they were serving their country by helping to get him elected.
