Newt Gingrich told a veteran during a town hall in Concord, New Hampshire this afternoon that he would support voucherizing the Veterans Health Administration, saying, “I think we should find ways to create satellite clinics that are local so people don’t have to travel and we should also find a way to have a voucherized system for those who want it.” Watch it:
Veterans groups condemned a very similar proposal from then-GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2008, arguing that providing “rural veterans greater access to VA-sponsored care exclusively through private providers” would undermine the existing health care system. In a report titled “The Independent Budget,” the groups said that the VA’s “specialized health-care programs” would “suffer irreparable impact by the loss of veterans from those programs.” Mitt Romney also briefly flirted with the idea during Veterans Day, but later abandoned it.
Gingrich himself has previously praised the veterans health care system, calling it “a model for modernization and a model of using information technology that’s very impressive” during a veterans issues forum in Iowa on December 10th.
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