Kerry: Veterans Earned Their Health Care

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=694&ncid=703&e=2&u=/ap/20040513/ap_on_el_pr/kerry

Kerry: Veterans Earned Their Health Care
By MIKE GLOVER, Associated Press Writer

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said Thursday that President Bush broke faith with veterans who have been promised medical care even as he sent thousands of men and women into harm's way in Iraq


"Here we are with an administration that is busy creating a whole new generation of veterans," Kerry said during a flag-draped forum at a center for aging associated with the Department of Veterans Affairs. "Veterans earned their health care ... it was a promise made by a nation. People who served their country, I believe, above all have a right to have that promise kept."


Kerry, concluding a four-day campaign swing focusing on health care, contended that Bush has cut funding for VA health programs and left hundreds of thousands of veterans without care. He called for mandatory funding for veterans health care and a series of cost-cutting measures to assist veterans and their families.


Prominent Kerry supporters, including former rival and fellow Vietnam veteran Wesley Clark, criticized Bush's own military record. After comparing Kerry's public service to his detractors, Clark said, "Some of them put on their cowboy boots and put their feet up on the desk." <snip>

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