At an Veteran's Day campaign event in South Carolina Friday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney hinted that he might introduce "private sector competition" for veterans' health care and other benefits.
Romney told a group of veterans at Mutt's BBQ in Mauldin that it might be possible to create a "voucher" system.
"When you work in the private sector and you have a competitor, you know if I don't treat this customer right, they're going to leave me and go somewhere else," the candidate said. "Whereas if you're the government, they know there's nowhere else you guys can go. You're stuck."
Romney added: "Sometimes you wonder if there would be some way to introduce some private sector competition, somebody else that could come in and say, you know, each soldier gets X thousand dollars attributed to them. And then they can choose whether they want to go into the government system or the private system with the money that follows them."
"Like what happens in Florida, where people have a voucher that goes with them. Who knows?"
Last week, the former Massachusetts governor proposed a Medicare overhaul that would also include the option of vouchers, a plan similar to one offered by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) earlier this year.
A Bloomberg Government study found that the Ryan plan would result in very little health care savings.
