Veterans groups and presidential candidates continue to spar over how to reform the Department of Veterans Affairs, most recently over Donald Trump's proposal to allow veterans to obtain government-funded health care at private providers.

Veterans who live more than 40 miles away from a VA facility or have been on a waiting list for a medical procedure for a certain period of time are already eligible to receive care at a private hospital or clinic. Trump's plan proposes allowing all veterans to seek care at any provider that accepts Medicare patients.

In contrast to many of his other ideas (making Mexico pay for a border wall, banning Muslim immigration, to name a couple), Trump's VA proposal is embraced in conservative policy circles. A Congressional commission tasked with developing a reform plan for the VA recently included a similar recommendation in a report.

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