by Seth Michaels, May 27, 2008

Last week, the U.S. Senate passed a groundbreaking update to the G.I. Bill, which would cover the cost of college education for all returning veterans.

By ensuring our nation’s veterans have access to education, this bill would honor their service and give them the opportunity to have good jobs and economic security.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) didn’t show up to vote, but, this weekend, he left no doubt as to how he felt about the bill.

McCain chose to put an attack on the new G.I. Bill at the center of his Memorial Day speech, claiming it would hurt retention. (According to a Time magazine analysis, the bill would help recruitment as much as it would reduce retention. The U.S. Department of Defense reports that our military met its recruitment and retention goals in April.)

McCain’s failure to support the new G.I. Bill, unfortunately, is not surprising. The union of federal government employees, AFGE, has taken a look at McCain’s record on veterans’ issues and found that McCain has taken some troubling votes against full funding of veterans’ benefits.

In particular, they point to a proposal McCain made in February to move veterans out of the Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital system and into the private health care market using vouchers.

AFGE has a new website, FundtheVA.com, opposing the privatization and dismantling

of the VA health system. The union also has launched a national ad campaign asking McCain, in his role on the Senate Armed Services Committee, to fight voucher-based privatization of veterans’ care.

Phil Glover, an AFGE member and a veteran, speaks on the ad, which aired on the radio in seven states:

Sen. McCain, as ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, you talk a good game, but vets need more. Your policies hurt those who answered the call but, unlike you, need the VA.

At FundtheVA.com, AFGE argues that McCain’s voucher-based proposal would undermine the services we need to provide to our country’s returning heroes.

It is tantamount to breaking this nation’s contract to take care of the brave men and women who protect our rights, liberty and freedom. 

The concept in whatever form is not new nor is the consequence: the end of affordable, accessible, quality health care designed for veterans. Vouchers and credit cards mean privatization pure and simple. It would dismantle the current veterans’ health care system and move veterans into the unregulated, overpriced, insensitive corporate health care system–the boondoggle that is failing to cover over 40 million Americans and failing to serve tens of millions more.

McCain’s record of military service is honorable, but he needs to respect the service of other veterans, too. He needs to support full funding for veterans’ benefits—including the modernization of the G.I. Bill—and oppose efforts to privatize and undermine veterans’ care.

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