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Press Release

On the night of her primary victory, Christine O'Donnell announced that if elected, one of her top three policy priorities would be creating health care vouchers for veterans. Today, Chris Coons and veterans warned that Ms. O'Donnell's dangerous and out of touch plan would undermine the health care promised to veterans.

"We have made a solemn commitment to ensure our veterans receive the health care they need. Moving veterans' health care to a voucher system is a terrible idea that reflects an extreme agenda. As a member of the U.S. Senate, I will work to ensure our veteran health care system and our VA hospitals have the resources needed to provide our veterans the quality health care they have been promised. I will fight to fix the flaws in the VA system and demand accountability from VA administrators. Ms. O'Donnell, on the other hand, has a plan that would break the commitment we have made to our veterans. Her voucher scheme would seriously undercut the health care provided to our veterans. If Ms. O'Donnell had her way vets would see a rise in the cost of health care and deterioration in the quality of that care," said U.S. Senate candidate Chris Coons.

"The idea of privatizing veterans' health care is simply wrong," said Col. Richard L. Klass, USAF (retired), president of VETPAC. "It would threaten the ground breaking research being done in the Department of Veterans Affairs on a host of veteran health care issues from prosthetics to traumatic brain injury to retinal damage. And it would weaken the opportunities for bonding between wounded warriors, a key component in their rehabilitation."

Steve High, a retired United States Army Lieutenant Colonel from Townsend, DE added, "There is absolutely no need for change in our current veteran's health care system. The bottom line is the system works. Health care vouchers for veterans would add an unnecessary hurdle to receiving health care, and would take away from the great strides and accomplishments the Veterans Administration has made and is making in order to assist, support and to continue the high quality of health care readily available for our honored veterans."

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