SEARCH
McCain’s Claims on Veterans’ Issues Don’t Match Reality |
|
As Sen. John McCain runs for president, he’s using his own service to cast himself as a friend to war veterans. The truth is, although he served honorably in uniform 40 years ago, his much more recent Senate record on veterans’ issues is very different than his rhetoric.
In contrast, Sen. Barack Obama has a voting record that lives up to this nation’s promise to support those who have served. Obama supported the 21st Century GI Bill, while McCain, who had announced his opposition to the bill, didn’t show up for the vote.
In a new mailer, the AFL-CIO is reaching out to some of the more than 2 million union members who are veterans. The mailer features Walter Springs, a Vietnam vet and AFT member who supports Obama.
John McCain hasn’t fought for veterans in Congress, and he won’t fight for them as president. As a veteran, I want to do what’s best for veterans. That means I’m supporting Barack Obama.
The new mailer is just one of the ways that union veterans are taking part in this fall’s election.
Although McCain makes claims about his support for veterans, his words don’t match reality. His claim of a “perfect voting record” on veterans’ issues is contradicted by the Disabled American Veterans, which gives McCain only a 20 percent rating, and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, which gives McCain a “D”—a sorry distinction the group granted to only four other senators. In contrast, the IAVA gives Obama a “B,” and the DAV gives him an 89 percent rating.
Vet Voice, a veterans’ political group, has compiled a comprehensive list of McCain’s repeated votes against veterans’ benefits and health care.
McCain has proposed a plan that could shift veterans out of the Veterans Affairs (VA) system and into private health care, a move that’s been greeted by skepticism and criticism from veterans’ groups.
Rep. Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat who chairs the subcommittee overseeing the VA and has won recognition from veterans’ groups for his excellent record, says McCain’s plans for veterans’ services just won’t cut it.
The Disabled American Veterans, at their national convention in Las Vegas this year, said that the McCain “plastic card” program could undermine the VA health care system, and in the worst-case scenario could even cause the VA system to be closed. Privatizing the VA health care system is something that virtually every major veterans’ organizations in our country opposes…it would undermine the expertise, the resources and the credibility we have at our veterans’ hospitals, where a vet knows he or she is going to be treated with special care and attention.
It would be devastating to a lot of combat-wounded veterans if you undermined our VA health care system and tried to privatize it, just as [McCain] supported partial privatization of the Social Security system…and that, frankly, would hurt a lot of veterans as well.
What’s more, McCain’s record on issues like jobs, trade and retirement security has disappointed working families across the country—as vividly illustrated by Paul Puzanghera, a canvasser for the AFL-CIO community group, Working America. As part of his door-to-door canvassing to talk with people about working family issues, he stopped at a flag-bedecked house in Bucks County, Pa., where the veteran who lived there said he was voting for Obama because “I don’t want to lose my home.” With the economy topping voters’ lists of concerns, union veterans are voting to protect their jobs and their families this fall.
Retired four-star Admiral John Namath is impressed with Obama’s record of support for the military.
Sen. Obama has consistently voted to fund our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and, just as importantly, has a proven record of support when they return home. That’s why independent veterans’ organizations give Sen. Obama higher marks than Sen. McCain. Despite consistent distortions of his record, thousands of veterans like myself support Sen. Obama because he has the judgment, character and integrity to be a great president. We will need a great president to lead us in these very challenging times.
Union veterans like Walter Springs understand that despite McCain’s service in uniform, his Senate record and his proposals don’t address the needs of today’s veterans and their families.
_________________________________
Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
3 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Hold On Now Just One Minute! Before we get too high in the saddle on this issue, lets strip some of the Red White and Blue Patriotic Emotion from this story and look at some of the Real Basic Human Factors. Talk is cheap right now in the middle of this campaign season, lets look at some of the service delivery facts that are true about the current Health Care Delivery system.
Issues that already affect many Working Families and other Honorable American Citizens whom, other than their “Colors,” have the same or similar injuries and also require the same standard of care as any other injured human person. Let’s just see how the math really adds up when you look at whom is Injured “During and in the Course!”
Let make this one point very Clear up front, when you are killed, wounded or injured, during and in the course of War, or you are killed, wounded or injured, during and in the course of Employment, there is a clear cut Moral, Ethical and Legal Obligation to provide responsible and timely treatment, compensation and benefits to the injured or their survivors. This is a long standing basic principal which is further supported by Law and a Moral Duty.
Evidence of repeated violations to this basic legal and moral duty to others “Injured during and in the Course” is overwhelming and represents a much greater failure that needs to be acknowledged, fully exposed and resolved. It is irresponsible to think and or imagine that we as a People can address other important issues of substance when these basic issues, issues which are fully rooted in a primary duty to meet basic Human Rights and Human Health Care Delivery needs, are continually overlooked, remain unmet and are left for the injured individual to suffer on their own. And it must also be made clear, they do not suffer alone, because the toll of this incompetence and indifference becomes a price which is paid for by the Injured, their Family, their Friends, their Parents, Neighbors, the community and many others including public services.
The treatment of these MEMBERS of our Community, Citizens, these Members of the Human Race that have gone in service of others, often Injured no fault of their own, are treated as human waste and thrown to the curb, it is appalling and more important, it’s hypocritical of a community which demands respect from the World in that their ideals represent the highest form of Human Decency, and yet they fail to deliver to this well documented need on a daily basis. It simply is a Fraud! Simply a Fair Weather Idea which is passed on to encourage further participation by an uninformed body of healthy recruits needed to meet the objective of War, or the Economic Wars between the States. Bodies are needed, and you are a part of the “Team” until YOU really need the benefit of their full service, which includes timely treatment, compensation and benefits. It’s at this point then the reality of their failure, their denials, and hopelessness begins to appear to further complicate the basics of continued living right here on earth, that these promises all produce no fruit.
The notion that “Colors” should provide an automatic free pass to quality care is absurd and discriminatory. Clearly this is a basis for the foundation of a “Class Warfare Crisis” focused around Health Care Delivery. Is this the true objective behind this Campaign of Service Delivery? Separate the simple Working Families and their Health Care needs from the Injured in Uniform, is the current objective and plan? Wrap all the Injured Military Veterans in the Red, White and Blue Flag, attempt to Shield all the Injured Policeman or Firefighter behind the Blue Badge, it all makes for a great campaign plan because you can energize the contest in an emotional flag waving event and gain extra political points in the publics limited understanding of the true and full extent of the problem. But it fails to fully tell the whole story! It fails to outline the discrimination of whom went without the Health Care Delivery, who has gone without treatment in order to serve an Economic Gain, Company Profit or Cost Containment strategy! It’s an American Crime, a story that must be fully exposed and told to the American Working Public!
Health Care Delivery serves Life, the essential elements in building and sustaining a Health Community. The ability to deliver these essential elements of Health Care to ALL Injured must be the goal of a civilized and well informed public. This is a basic component within the concept of Public Leadership and is dialogue which is completely missing from the Public Discourse currently. Too HOT a topic for leaders to address!
Feel free to cast your stones, but first, see to it that you have served the Injured Worker! See to it that you know the real score of your fellow citizens that have gone to work and been injured and thrown to the curb. See to it that the injured worker, who in many cases has Private Health Insurance, is not being held hostage by an employers denials for medical treatment, compensation and benefits. See to it that their family is not being financially forced into Bankruptcy, Foreclosure, and Suicide at the hands of the Employer. Solve this, solve these daily issues of the injured worker NOW, and you will be faced with the tools needed to solve the other issues which plague this entire arena. Don’t continue to drive the Discriminatory Wedge of Special Interest when the tool which is needed is one that serves the needs of ALL the INJURED!
Injustice to One, is an Injustice to ALL!
Injured Workers are Welcome to contact me about their experience and express their ideas for change. I also encourage this website to produce stories that outline the fate of Injured Workers, Yes, Our Members which are faced with these issues!
Thank You!
Craig Michie - Injured Worker
NvVIAW@aol.com - Nevada Voters Injured at Work
At first I didn’t know what you were driving at. I think your post would be more effective if you came straight to the point. You do not have to remind anyone that many people out there do not get the proper health care they need and deserve, and yes, it is a moral issue. The point, however, is that no one is trying to “drive the Discriminatory Wedge of Special Interest” when talking about injured vets, which if course is only one group of the population. The purpose of pointing out that McCain has not supported funding programs for Vets, especially necessary health care, and Obama has, is because this is an area that everyone across the country can relate to, and this is a strong topic in the presidential elections, which points out the hypocrisy of McCain’s voting on these issues and the fact that he himself was a prisoner of war. There is NO difference between veterans needing health care and workers on the job needing it as well. The point is, if we as a nation cannot even help our vets, then we as a nation will not bother to help anyone else either. This IS an important issue, and it is important to know where our candidates stand with regard to it.
As a WW11 veteran, I applaud Senator Boxer, Congressman Filner for helping veterans get great health care at veterans hospitals. Shockingly enough, McCain tried to cut back on necessary funds for the VA. Two faced? I hate to think it.