Veterans & Military Families Monthly News
Special Convention Edition
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Higher TRICARE Premiums
through TRICARE premium increases or reducing plan cover-
age. "Yesterday," Gates responded.
"Health-care reform is on my agenda," he added. It will
on Gates' Cost-Cut Agenda be part of a new "track" of cost-cutting reforms identified by the
Quadrennial Defense Review and endorsed by other reports for
By: Tom Philpott | August 12, 2010 curbing defense spending.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signaled that the "And so we have studies going on now...that will help
department's fiscal 2012 budget request to be sent to Congress shape our FY '12 budget submission. They involve logistics.
early next year will include recommendations to raise TRI- They involve health care and personnel policies, more restruc-
CARE premiums for some beneficiaries. turing and organizational changes [and] continued acquisition
If past proposals are a reliable guide, the target of high- reform." Gates continued, "There are no sacred cows, and health
er fees is likely to be military retirees rather than active duty care cannot be excepted" from cost-control plans, not to lower
families. The Bush administration had tried for three straight overall defense budgets but to free up funds for more pressing
years to raise fees for working age retirees. Congress blocked defense needs.
those efforts. "Everybody knows that we're being eaten alive by
Defense officials hope lawmakers, faced with mount- health care. I believe there is a growing understanding on
ing federal debt and tightening defense budgets, will be more [Capitol] Hill about this. It cost us $19 billion in 2000 or 2001.
receptive to the argument that TRICARE fees haven't been It'll cost us over $50 billion in FY '11, and will cost us about
raised since they were set in 1995. $65 billion in FY '15. And particularly when the top line [of
During a Pentagon press conference where he unveiled defense budgets] is only growing at a percent or thereabouts, it's
a host of initiatives to cut "overhead" in defense budgets, in- unsustainable and therefore it has to be a part of our effort."
cluding shutting down the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Dr. Jonathan Woodson, nominated to take charge of
Va., Gates said proposals to control burgeoning health care health care policy as the new assistant secretary of defense for
costs will be unveiled in the months ahead. health affairs, stayed mum on issue of higher TRICARE fees
The issue arose when Gates was asked by a reporter during his Aug. 3 confirmation hearing before the Senate
when it would be time to control rising health care costs, either Armed Services Committee.
We would like to express our appreciation to all of the fighting men and women in the United States Military.
Thank you for your service to this county.
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Stand Up For Veterans-They Stood Up For US
-The DAV
Asked by Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) years," he told the board.
how he would address rising health costs, Woodson said, "What Chapter 61 Concurrent Receipt -- In his defense budget re-
we need to do is work with a number of constituents and try and quest last February, President Obama called on Congress again
stem rise of that cost." He referred to more cost-efficient to phase in "concurrent receipt" -- payment of some military
"therapies" and addressing "waste in the way we deliver care retired pay in addition to disability compensation-- for 103,000
because of the culture of medicine. And there's opportunity to "Chapter 61" veterans, those of them forced by service-
decrease the variability of care that might result in cost sav- connected disability to retire short of 20 years.
ings." But the administration disappointed advocates for this
Sen. John McCain, ranking committee Republican, change, including Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the
said Woodson's major challenge will be getting costs under House Armed Services Committee, by not identifying new
control. McCain questioned whether he can do it, given the money or else "offsets" from other entitlement accounts to pay
steady rise of national health costs. for this change. The estimated cost is $5.4 billion over the first
Woodson, an Army Reserve brigadier general and vas- 10 years. As a result, neither the House nor Senate version of
cular surgeon who has deployed in most every recent conflict, is the defense bill, at least so far, authorizes Obama's CR initia-
Army assistant surgeon general for force management, mobili- tive.
zation, readiness and reserve affairs. House Democrats did try to slip it into the American
Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (HR 4213). But in final
In his written responses for the committee, Woodson negotiations with the Senate over this bill, only an extension of
said retirees and their families are 53 percent of all TRICARE federal unemployment benefits survived.
beneficiaries and account for 57 percent of the DoD health care Uncomfortably for some, the president still took credit
budget. for his unfunded effort in a speech before the Disabled Ameri-
20-For-60 Clarified -- Last week I erred in describing a point can Veterans convention Aug. 2.
made by the Defense Business Board task force in arguing that "We've kept our promise on concurrent receipt by pro-
military retirement costs are unsustainable. A slide used by the posing legislation that would allow severely disabled retirees to
task force listed among "unsustainable trends" the fact that the receive your military retired pay and your VA disability bene-
government pays "the military and their families for 60 years to fits. It's the right thing to do," he said to applause. Right thing to
serve for only 20 years." do, say vet advocates. But it hasn't yet been done.
I had rephrased the point awkwardly, leaving the im-
pression that the task force assumes retirees draw retired pay for Let the DoD and your elected officials know how you feel
an average of 60 years. I heard from many retirees angered by about this issue.
that false notion. To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military
The point Arnold Punaro, task force chairman, more Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or visit:
tried to make with that slide is in the transcript of his presenta- www.militaryupdate.com.
tion to the board:
"This system encourages our military to leave at 20
years, when they are most productive and experienced, and then
pays them and their families, and their survivors, for another 40
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