Rick Santorum: 'The VA Is Antiquated'

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Tuesday during the fourth undercard debate that Veterans Administration hospitals should be replaced with centers for specialized treatment while allowing service personnel to obtain standard care in their communities.

"The VA is antiquated," the former Pennsylvania senator said during the undercard debate in Milwaukee. "There's no need for a VA system as it existed after World War II.

"We have the best private healthcare system in the world," he added. "We needed it in the 1950s.

"Hospitals were not particularly advanced, so we built the best. We didn't maintain the best.

"Government didn’t keep its promises to its veterans."

To applause from the crowd at the Milwaukee Theatre, Santorum called for allowing veterans to "to go to private-sector hospitals for their routine and ordinary care so that they can get the best healthcare possible in their community."

He added that VA centers would provide specialized care for such conditions as PTSD or with specialized injuries "that are unique problems within the veteran's community, where we can develop centers of excellence and replace the VA."

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