Hillary Clinton is not going to let Donald Trump be the one to save the Veterans Administration. The frontrunner for the Democratic nomination released a number of plans Tuesday that she said would improve care for millions of American veterans.
Within the first month of taking office, Clinton said she would meet with heads of the defense department and the VA to figure out ways to reform the agency, which has been criticized in recent years over care received by those at VA facilities.
Clinton's plan is in many ways a response to criticism she got after suggesting that Republicans were blowing the problems at the agency out of proportion.
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"There have been a number of surveys of veterans, and over all, veterans who do get treated are satisfied with their treatment," she said last month in a televised interview.
Clinton has since modified her tone substantially on the issue, saying Tuesday that the status quo was "failing to keep faith with our veterans," according to CNN.
To the end of improving care, Clinton believes the VA should be able to contract with more private sector services in areas where patients are currently forced to wait for care, such as surgeries. And she said she would focus on reforming the agency's vast bureaucracy, encourage patients and employees to report bad behavior and implement accountability measures that allow underperforming employees to be fired.
But that's not to say she thinks Republicans are right. Their solution, she argues, is little more than the full-scale privatization of veteran care. A proposal floated by the Concerned Veterans of America, a conservative-leaning group, indeed calls for the VA to be turned into a government-chartered nonprofit. But Republicans say that's not their plan.
"For her to accuse me and my Republican colleagues of wanting to 'privatize' the VA is, of course, inaccurate and offensive," Arizona Sen. John McCain said in a statement to the Washington Post.
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