This just seems........
February 17, 2003 8:48 PM   Subscribe

Veterans accuse Bush of breaking promise on VA health benefits ''I'm terribly frustrated and extremely angry,'' said retired Air Force Colonel George ''Bud'' Day, a Republican who won the Medal of Honor and was a prisoner of war in North Vietnam with Senator John McCain of Arizona. Day said Bush is violating his oft-repeated campaign pledge to veterans: ''A promise made is a promise kept.'' Leaders of the DAV, VFW, and the American Legion concur: "The brave men and women who are currently deployed to far off regions of the world must be assured the VA health-care system will be there for them when they come home." (warning: 1.5 mb pdf file). They are very mad (DAV letter to Don Rumsfeld): "More than 1.2 million members of the Disabled American Veterans support paying military retirees the benefits they have earned. They will not be misled into believing otherwise by inane assertions that proper and just compensation of military retirees will cause us to lose the War on Terror." Meanwhile, Vermont legislators are fighting the benefit cutoffs and restrictions.
posted by troutfishing (3 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Not really news when it's a couple months old.



 
Many veterans are particularly galled that the Bush administration has not backed away from a 1995 decision to rescind a promise of free lifetime health care benefits for soldiers, who from 1941 to 1956 had been told that if they signed up and served 20 years they and their dependents would get free care. The government stopped honoring that pledge in 1995...

So this happened under Clinton's watch... Not Bush's...

[T]he US Court of Appeals in Washington ruled last month [Nov 2002] that the recruiters who promised the free care did not have the standing to do so.

So The US Court of Appeals says the decision was correct.

I find it awful that veterans are in need of medic care, but this is not a Bush issue. This was something that Clinton did, and the Judicial branch supports. Now maybe Bush should reverse the '95 decision, but don't try to spin this that Bush is kicking vets into the street.

But why post this to MeFi now? The last time anything happened with this issue was over a month ago with Leahy & Jeffords press release. Troutfishing, are you just scouring the Internet for anything that you can post to show what an awful President Bush is? I mean look at the document linked...

DAV Letter:
September 27, 2002

Boston Globe Article:
December 22, 2002

Leahy & Jeffords Press Release:
Jan. 23, 2003

This is spin, and old news. Please Troutfishing tell me your motive in posting this.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 9:44 PM on February 17, 2003


Steve, did you miss the part where Bush promised to reinstate their benefits?
posted by UrbanFigaro at 9:52 PM on February 17, 2003


Considering that the soldiers who are about to go into Iraq aren't being given the training or equipment needed to survive a chemical or biological attack, this is hardly surprising.

Coming after President Clinton, who avoided service in Vietnam and had a strained relationship with the military, veterans leaders say they had high expectations for Bush, who served in the National Guard and whose father was a fighter pilot during World War Two.

I guess they hadn't heard about his going AWOL.
posted by homunculus at 10:01 PM on February 17, 2003


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