Hegseth's Mission As Sec Def: Privatize And Cut Services To Troops
Hegseth dresses up the MAGA giveaway-to-the-rich scheme as a benefit to veterans. “We want to have full choice where veterans can go wherever they want for care,” Hegseth reportedly told Donald Trump and then-VA head Dr. David Shulkin during Trump’s first term in office, as per CNN. But it’s really a plan that would destroy the current system, not improve it, and make things worse for vets.
More from CNN:
“Your version of choice would cost billions more per year, bankrupting the system,” Shulkin recalls telling Hegseth in his memoir. “How can we responsibly pursue this? Unfortunately, he didn’t want to engage at the level of budget and other aspects of day-to-day reality. He seemed to prefer his sound bites on television.”
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“At the time, I was telling him, ‘I’m here on the ground, I know the reality,’” [Shulkin] told CNN in an interview on Wednesday. “I see the patients, the veterans with PTSD. I’ve been a doctor my whole life in the private sector. I know my hospitals that I ran didn’t have the capability to care for these patients. I’m not just going to give [veterans] a voucher and say, ‘Good luck.’”