The scheme was dead on arrival. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who should have known better than to defend it, was raked over the coals in a House Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing March 10. At a White House meeting Monday, March 16, the O-Team -- with the man himself attending -- tried to jam the idea down the throats of Veterans Service Organizations.

By Tuesday, members of both houses and both parties on Capitol Hill were paying attention as the blogosphere filled with ire from veterans and their families. On Wednesday, House Republicans sent a letter to the White House denouncing the proposal as a breach of faith in "a solemn obligation to our nation's veterans." A few hours later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was applauded for announcing that the O-Team had "made the decision that the combat-wounded veterans should not be billed through their insurance policies for combat-related injuries."

Full disclosure here: I'm relieved because, among other things, I had a personal stake in the outcome.

According to the VA, my service-connected wounds and injuries amount to a 40 percent disability. I receive $541 a month from the VA as "disability compensation." Unlike civilian private-sector or government retirees receiving "disability," my military retired pay is reduced by the same amount.

Like most veterans, I now have a "civilian" job, which pays me a lot more to be shot at than the Marines did. My employer has a private insurance plan in which my wife and I participate. Under existing rules, the VA is required to pay for any medical treatment I receive as a consequence of my service-connected injuries.

The O-Team's proposal unfairly would have made our private insurance company pay for this care, even though neither my present employer nor insurer had anything to do with my being wounded in Vietnam. Like most private insurance policies, ours has a maximum benefit amount, which we could exceed if those old injuries required prolonged care. The prospect of my wife being unable to receive medical treatment because we had "run out of insurance" was too painful to contemplate.

Had the administration's despicable design succeeded, the burden on those wounded in the current war would have been unthinkable. The O-Team rescinded its shameful plot to make veterans pay for combat-related medical treatment, but only because Americans were repulsed by the idea. It remains to be seen whether similar outrage will be provoked by White House plans to burden our children with debt and use the tax code to wage class warfare.