Watch: Rachel Maddow Blows Lid Off Republican Scheme to Privatize the VA
In this alarming report, Rachel Maddow breaks down the right-wing push to privatize the Department of Veteran’s Affairs and turn the eternal debt that the American people owe their veterans into the for-profit exploitation of our brave warriors, turning the injuries and psychological trauma they suffered defending our nation into another private-sector commodity and Wall Street windfall.
The concept of privatized veteran care has been consistently rejected by veteran’s associations, but it appears to be gaining popularity among Republicans. Maddow reports that three of the GOP presidential contenders (Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio) have endorsed the idea, ostensibly after the slew of bad press surrounding the area but in reality are bending over backwards to satisfy the Koch brothers. The bad billionaires have suddenly taken an interest in the issue, probably smelling an opportunity to make a profit, and have subsequently thrown millions of dollars into creating a PAC from scratch to lobby for privatizing the VA.
Despite the administrative issues plaguing the VA, Maddow reveals that the agency’s care is rated consistently better than that given in the private sector, and that the Koch brothers specifically engineered the campaign to slander and abolish the VA as a “new line of defense against socialized medicine.” While nobody believes the VA is perfect, the idea of turning the care for our veterans into yet another way for corporations to extort money out of the very people who risked their lives defending their “freedom” to make billion dollar profits and purchase our political system.
Watch it here:
