Veterans groups unhappy with Obama

By Adam Levine
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Veterans groups are angry after President Barack Obama told them Monday that he means to go ahead with a proposal to have treatment for service-connected injuries charged to veterans' private insurance plans.

Leaders of the country's most prominent veterans groups met Monday at the White House with Obama, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel and Steven Kosiak, the director in charge of defense spending for the Office of Management and Budget.

Some of the veterans groups were caught off guard when the president said the administration wants to go ahead with the idea as a way of generating $540 million for the Department of Veterans Affairs in 2010. The groups and some members of Congress have been very vocal in opposing the idea.

The message, according to some of the people in the room, was that if the groups do not like this idea, they need to come back with another way of saving or raising revenues for the VA.