Calling all veterans: New evidence is in; watch John McCain closely.

Senator McCain was recently quoted in the Army Times that he would prioritize combat-disabled veterans over all other disabled veterans in the VA system for treatment and compensation. (http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/07/military_mccain_healthcare_072308/) Making a distinction between service-disabled veterans based on how the disability was incurred simply to deny care and benefits to one group to cut expenditures is repugnant and quite telling. McCain was simply focused on combat-wounded veterans as they are a hot topic and therefore a means to gain sympathy votes from those who are not informed on his record and actual position.

The result of McCain’s plan will be a still woefully under-funded VA while shoving every other veteran out in favor of the combat-disabled to save a buck.

This is nothing new. The Bush Administration proposed creating a two-tiered VA system where, for example, a leg lost to an IED would be worth more than a leg lost in a training accident and then declare, in either case, once the veteran was able to walk with a prosthetic device that they were made whole and benefits would stop although both were still missing a leg. There was also the idea of giving the veteran a lump-sum payment for a service-connected disability before the full extent of it and its life-long implications could be evaluated.

It’s no accident under the Republicans that concurrent receipt for military retirement and disability benefits is structured with phase-ins with the actuaries betting most veterans would be dead before they could ever collect or that the VA has evolved into a system that is the veteran’s adversary rather than advocate as the object is to slash budgets on veterans' backs by directives to misdiagnose and deny disability compensation where-ever possible as evidenced by leaked VA memos.

What is not being covered in the presidential campaign coverage is that Senator McCain, despite coming from a Navy family, being an Annapolis graduate, a career Navy officer and POW, has been no friend of veterans as evidenced by his votes; he has voted against sufficient VA funding at every opportunity, watering-down current benefits, or creating new caveats to obtain them and opposed the 21st Century GI Bill.

Every voter should know and remember this: While countless veterans are on waiting lists for medical care and fighting for compensation years after their service McCain gets the very best of priority care at Bethesda Naval Hospital while collecting his Navy retirement, disability compensation and senate pay.

21-50. Out.