Trump boasts veterans law first passed by Obama as one of his greatest achievements
‘You couldn’t get it for 50 years. I got it,’ Mr Trump claims during Wisconsin town hall
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has boasted a veterans law first passed by former President Barack Obama as one of his greatest achievements while in office.
The president was asked what he thought was his greatest achievement during a town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Thursday evening, which was hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
In response to the question, Mr Trump said: “We got Veterans Choice approved and Veterans Accountability ... Very hard to get. You couldn’t get it for 50 years. I got it. The other thing is Veterans Choice ... If you can’t see a doctor you go out and you see a private doctor, and we pay the bill.”
The Veterans Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act was first signed by Mr Obama in 2014 after it passed through Congress.
Under the act, veterans could see doctors outside the government-run Veterans Affairs system if they had to wait more than 30 days for an appointment or drive more than 40 miles to a VA facility.
Mr Trump did expand the eligibility of the program starting in 2019.
The expansion allows for veterans to seek out a private doctor if their wait time was more than 20 days (28 days for speciality care) or if they lived more than 30 minutes away from a VA facility.
This was not the first time the president has falsely boasted about creating the Veterans Choice program.
He made a similar claim in 2019 when announcing the expansion of the program in collaboration with VA secretary Robert Wilkie.
At the time, the president claimed the program finally passed after “45 years” of failed attempts from other presidents, despite Mr Obama successfully creating the program in 2014.
The Obama administration also passed same-day mental health services at the VA and wait times for patients at VA medical centres fell between the years of 2014 and 2017.
While Mr Trump was correct in stating he made expansions and improvements to the program, he was misplaced in suggesting his administration completely created the veterans program.
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