Why Romney's Wrong About Veterans' Health

With his proposal to give veterans vouchers for private insurance, Mitt Romney’s trying to fix something that ain’t broke. In fact, the current Veterans Health Administration is “a huge policy success story, which offers important lessons for future health reform,” writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times. It provides quality care while keeping costs down, thanks in part to the fact that it both provides and pays for care.

Romney’s “latest really bad idea” is based on Republicans’ ideological love for vouchers and privatization: They think “the private sector is always better than the government, and no amount of evidence can shake that credo,” writes Krugman. Indeed, the GOP seems “especially eager to dismantle government programs that act as living demonstrations that their ideology is wrong.” Maybe it’s all “a case for Rick Perry,” Krugman notes. “Any Republican would, if elected president, set out to undermine precisely those government programs that work best. But Mr. Perry might not remember which programs he was supposed to destroy.” Click through for the full piece. (More Paul Krugman stories.)