Today Gus joined with over 20 of his House colleagues, including House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH), in writing a letter to President Barack Obama expressing their strong opposition to shifting health care for the nation’s veterans out of the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The letter reads:

“We are writing to express our profound disappointment over news reports that your Administration is considering a proposal to breach a solemn obligation to our nation’s veterans who have courageously fought for our freedom,” the leaders wrote in the letter to the President.  “If true, the proposal under consideration would permit the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to ignore its core responsibility to provide health care services to our men and women who have a service related disability.  We recognize much work needs to be done to improve access to health care services for veterans; however, turning our backs on our veterans by shifting the burden to private health care insurers for their disability-related health care is the wrong policy course.”

The full letter to the President is available here.

Late this afternoon, CNN reported: 'The Obama administration is abandoning a controversial plan to charge private insurers for treatment of veterans' service-connected ailments.'