Remember the President who so loves the “troops?”  The camo-clad First Lady who in the past month began staging what was being hailed as a “signature issue” -- her empathy for the problems of military families?

Forget that, and any of the other deceptive rhetoric that has come from the mouth of the Hustler-in-Chief or his ubiquitous teleprompter.  Forget, for just a few moments if you can, all the other outrages he’s attempting to perpetrate, too many to list here.  Focus just on what he tried to do to veterans this week, because therein is about all you need to know about the character of President Barack Obama.

On Monday, President Obama summoned leaders of veterans’ groups to the White House to discuss  an Obama administration proposal to force costs of medical treatment for military service-related disabilities and injuries from the Department of Veterans Affairs to veterans’ private insurance carriers.

That the meeting was held at all seems to have resulted from a heartfelt letter of protest eleven of the veterans’ organizations had sent after learning of the plan.

As an angry Commander David K. Rehbein of the American Legion said after the meeting, “It became apparent during our discussion today that the President intends to move forward with this unreasonable plan.  He says he is looking to generate $540 million by this method, but refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by it. 

“The reimbursement plan would be inconsistent with the mandate ‘to care for him who shall have borne the battle’ given that the United States government sent members of the armed forces into harm’s way, and not private insurance companies.  I say again that The American Legion does not and will not support any plan that seeks to bill a veteran for treatment of a service connected disability at the very agency that was created to treat the unique need of America’s veterans!”

The veterans’ groups have quite correctly argued that forcing the mammoth costs of service-related injuries onto veterans’ private insurance plans would make it far more difficult and expensive for veterans to get and maintain such insurance, would consume maximum insurance coverage limits at the expense of veterans’ families on the same plan and have the potential of reducing job opportunities for veterans, particularly by small businesses, due to the skewed cost to company health benefit plans.

Those are, of course, just the practical objections. Far more important are those that recognize the sacrifices the men and women of our military have made and will make, and the debt owed to them that can never be repaid,  in the best of circumstances.  For those reasons, it is beyond unconscionable that the Obama proposal would have even been floated.

On Wednesday of this week, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said, “The president has instructed that its consideration be dropped.”

As outrage against President Obama’s policies grow, reserve some anger for this attempt, even though stopped quickly in its tracks, to diminish even the already scant benefits our heroic veterans receive.  When President Obama tells you he’s going to fix your health care, remember how he tried to fix that of our veterans and their families.