This story has been breaking on
a lot of news sites for about six hours now, so there is a bit of momentum behind this. A
new study shows the number of veterans with no health care has increased under Bush.
"The number of uninsured veterans has increased by 235,159 since 2000, when 9.9 percent of non-elderly veterans were uninsured, a figure which rose to 11.9 percent in 2003," the groups said.
So Bush will send them to be killed or maimed. But he won't attend their funerals or allow them to be shown in the media, and he won't take care of them when they come home.
A
Reuters article on the report points out
The groups were especially critical of a January 2003 decision by the government to suspend eligibility for so-called Category 8 veterans, who include "middle-income" ex-servicemen and women making on average $25,000 a year or more.
So there are dirty hands here. The report puts the number of unisured Vets at 1.7 million.
I realize this issue has been mentioned before in the campaign, but I haven't heard it for a while and this report could reignite it as an issue. I also looked back over the last eighty diaries or so and didn't see this mentioned.