Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump Rolls Out Plan To Reform Veteran's Health Care
Billed as 鈥渢he Trump Plan鈥 in keeping with the billionaire developer鈥檚 habit of naming things after himself, the initiative would allow veterans to get medical care from any doctors or medical facilities that accept Medicare. It also would give veterans education benefits, business loans, job training and placement services to ease their transition from battlefield to civilian life. The plan was cheered by veterans in the crowd, which the campaign estimated at more than 5,000. (Vozzella, 10/31)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump released a plan on Saturday aimed at overhauling the Department of Veterans Affairs and improving veterans' health care and employment services. Under Trump's plan, eligible veterans would be able to bring their veterans' identification cards to any private doctor or facility that accepts Medicare and be able to receive immediate treatment. The change, he said, would help improve wait times and services by adding competition. (Colvin, 11/1)
Donald Trump proposed a series of reforms to the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs on Saturday, delving deep into the specifics of his plan for nearly half an hour at a rally in Virginia before releasing the documents online a few hours later. (Vitali, 10/31)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made a new pitch Saturday to veterans, promising them that he鈥檒l take on the 鈥渃orrupt鈥 and "incompetent鈥 Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump told a crowd of supporters in front of the U.S.S. Wisconsin in Norfolk, Va., that the department is mismanaged and "not efficient. (Snyder, 10/31)
Veteran health is also a campaign issue for Hillary Clinton, as is her role in shaping the 2010 health law聽鈥
Several readers asked us to fact-check this claim, which drew sharp backlash from veterans groups and both Republican and Democratic lawmakers. Clinton is referring to the VA scandal that unfolded in 2014 after whistleblowers alleged that dozens of veterans died at the Phoenix VA while waiting for medical care. The VA Office of Inspector General later acknowledged that wait lists may have contributed to the veterans鈥 deaths. Patient and appointment record falsification and manipulations were then found to be a systemic, years-long problem. (Lee, 11/2)
Neera Tanden, a former Obama administration senior adviser on health-care reform, was working to push the impression that many of the health-care ideas proposed by the administration were in fact part of Clinton鈥檚 2008 campaign platform, according to e-mail correspondence released Friday between her and the former secretary of state. (DelReal, 10/30)
