Just when everything was going so swimmingly — poll figures, AIG, Democratic unity and all — President Obama enrages veterans:

The leader of the nation’s largest veterans organization says he is “deeply disappointed and concerned” after a meeting with President Obama today to discuss a proposal to force private insurance companies to pay for the treatment of military veterans who have suffered service-connected disabilities and injuries. The Obama administration recently revealed a plan to require private insurance carriers to reimburse the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in such cases.

“It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan,” said Commander David K. Rehbein of The American Legion. “He says he is looking to generate $540-million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it.”

After he and his wife spent great effort and time preening about their care and concern for the military, the president is serious, it seems, about a plan to nickel and dime injured vets. Obama spends billions and billions on a liberal wish-list of junk (marketed as “stimulus”) and proposes a $3.9 trillion budget, but when it comes to vets, he’s dinging their insurance plans. I didn’t think it was possible, but he found something even dimmer to do than limiting tax deductibility of charitable donations.

In addition to being morally objectionable, this proposal will never, I suspect, see the light of day. The president and his staff may be tone deaf but Congress is not so dense.

UPDATE: Congressional Democrats are indeed furious. (h/t Glenn Reynolds)

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 5:08 PM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.