[TFL] TRICARE Increases Opposed - House & Senate May Split on TRICARE Fee Hikes

From: TFL Mailing List
To: <HEALTH.MIL@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <TFL@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:40:43 -0500
TRICARE Increases Opposed
House & Senate May Split on TRICARE Fee Hikes

Tom Philpott
10:58 p.m. EDT, April 29, 2012

The House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel has declined to give
the Obama administration new authority it sought to phase in higher TRICARE fees
on military retirees over the next four years and to peg future TRICARE fee
hikes to medical inflation nationwide.

But in marking up its version of the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill, the
subcommittee did not adopt language, as it has in the past years, that would
block any TRICARE fee increases.

It also did not include language, as it has previously, that would prohibit the
Department of Defense from using existing authority to raise co-payments on
prescription drugs for dependents and retirees who use neighborhood pharmacies
or the TRICARE mail order pharmacy program.

The Pentagon Another sign that the issue of higher TRICARE fees is not settled
for this year comes from Sen. Lindsey Graham, S.C., ranking Republican on the
Senate military personnel subcommittee. A day before the House panel marked up
its portion of its defense bill, and stayed silent on raising medical
out-of-pocket costs for retirees, Graham predicted a compromise on health fee
hikes between the two chambers by Sept. 30.

"Between now and the end of the fiscal year, I hope we can convince the House to
accept some adjustments in premiums for TRICARE, because it's just unsustainable
right now," Graham told me in a phone interview.

House Republicans oppose the Defense Department's "balanced" approach for
slicing $487 billion from defense budgets over the next decade, a figure agreed
to in the Budget Control Act enacted last year.

About 10 percent of those cuts must occur to personnel accounts, defense leaders
argue, primarily by raising out-of-pockets costs on military retirees through
higher enrollment fees, deductibles and co-payments. Without higher fees,
national security is at greater risk, they contend.

"If Congress rejects all of the modest changes we've proposed in TRICARE fees
and co-pays for retirees, than almost $13 billion in savings over the next five
years will have to be found in other areas such as readiness, or we could be
forced to further reduce our troop strength," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
told Pentagon reporters this month.

But Rep. Buck McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
said in a speech last week that the panel will "seek to eliminate the military
health care fees proposed by the administration."

Ignoring that retirees are targeted for most of the fee hikes, McKeon added:
"Our forces on the front lines shouldn't have to worry about caring for their
families' health back home."

The House subcommittee not only ignored administration plans to raise TRICARE
fees, it also proposed new benefits - 180 days of TRICARE Standard and TRICARE
dental coverage to members of the drilling reserve who are involuntarily
separated during the force drawdown now underway.

It expressed "the sense of Congress" that military members and their families
make extraordinary sacrifices over their careers, which should be viewed as a
"significant pre-paid premium for their health care" in retirement. This, of
course, would serve as a caution against any straight-line comparison of
military benefits to what civilian workers receive.

Graham, however, was blunt in arguing that retirees must be required to pay
higher fees to make their TRICARE benefit "sustainable" and to ensure that
weapon modernization and force structure aren't cut more deeply than planned.

"TRICARE premiums have to be adjusted," Graham said. "There have been no
meaningful premium adjustments since 1995. And when the [TRICARE] program was
first introduced, beneficiaries were providing 24 percent of the cost. Now they
are down to 10. That's unsustainable."

Graham was asked if he was sympathetic to the view that imposing an annual
enrollment fee on elderly beneficiaries using TRICARE for Life would break faith
with a generation promised free lifetime military health care.

"I don't believe anybody was promised free lifetime medical care. That's a
popular myth," Graham said. "I think we have an obligation to the retired force
to be generous and to be compassionate to help recruiting and retention. But,
you know, there was never any contract with anybody that, for the rest of your
life, you will get free medical care. That's not part of the deal and was never
part of the deal."

Comments?  Email milupdate@xxxxxxx or visit http://www.militaryupdate.com


SOURCE:  Hampton Roads VA HRMilitary.com web site at
http://www.dailypress.com/news/military/




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[TFL] TRICARE Increases Opposed - House & Senate May Split on TRICARE Fee Hikes

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