While Republicans and their
billionaire allies are very happy to politicize the crisis in the Veterans Administration medical system, they're
not too anxious to do anything to fix it.
A House-Senate conference committee tasked with writing a compromise veterans’ health bill continues to struggle with a Congressional Budget Office cost estimate for what it will take to allow veterans to seek care from private health care providers and avoid notorious treatment delays at veterans’ medical centers.
[The] CBO has reduced its estimate by 15 percent to $38 billion per year, down from $50 billion, but Republicans are still keen on spending offsets while Democrats are urging a non-offset emergency designation for the bill.
Of course they don't want to solve this problem. Beating up on President Obama is much more important to them than taking care of veterans. Republicans only want to help veterans if they can take the money away from some other program and make someone else hurt. Chances are, the programs they would cut to fund the VA fixes would be other programs that veterans rely on, like foodstamps or housing assistance. Because for Republicans, a veteran's service only counts if she doesn't need any help when she gets home.
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