http://freebeacon.com/trashing-tricare/TRASHING TRICARE
OBAMA TO CUT HEALTHCARE BENEFITS FOR ACTIVE DUTY AND RETIRED US MILITARYThe Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials. Several congressional aides suggested the move is designed to increase the enrollment in Obamacare’s state-run insurance exchanges.
The disparity in treatment between civilian and uniformed personnel is causing a backlash within the military that could undermine recruitment and retention.
The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon’s $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and $12.9 billion by 2017. Since you brought up Bush, seems like he was
all for raising Tricare fees as well as lots more things that hurt the troops. During wartime.
Bush 'Strongly Opposes' Troop Pay, Benefit Initiatives
Talk about lousy timing.
With President Bush’s popularity scraping bottom in opinion polls, with U.S. casualties rising in Iraq in a force surge that has stretched soldier tours to 15 months, the Bush administration July 10 said it “strongly opposes” key military pay and benefit gains tossed into their fiscal 2008 defense bill.
Initiatives the administration “strongly opposes” include:
A military pay raise for next January of 3.5 percent versus 3 percent endorsed by the White House.
Lowering the age-60 start of reserve retirement annuities for reserve component members by the length of their future mobilizations.
Expanding eligibility for Combat-Related Special Compensation to service members forced by combat disabilities to retire short of 20 years.
Directing pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide the Department of Defense with same price discounts for TRICARE retail pharmacy network that are provided already on medicines dispensed from base pharmacies.
The administration also grumbled that the Senate intends to block for another year TRICARE fee increases for under-65 retirees and dependents.
The objections appear in a “Statement of Administration Policy” from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget delivered to Senate leaders as they opened floor debate on the defense authorization bill.
A day later, Senate Republicans, at White House’s urging, blocked amendments to the bill that would have shortened Iraq tours for U.S. ground forces and slowed frequency of wartime deployments. Republicans said the amendments really were aimed at changing administration policy in Iraq.
Here is more on Senate provisions that the White House opposes:
PAY RAISE – Like the House, senators favor a 3.5 percent military pay raise for 2008 versus the administration's proposed 3 percent to match private sector wage growth as measured by the government's Employment Cost Index (ECI). The White House calls the extra half percentage point unnecessary and notes that basic pay has jumped by 33 percent since 2001. The added cost of the bigger raise, $2.2 billion through 2013, is money “that would otherwise be available to support our troop,” said OMB letter.
The White House will lose this one. Congress intends to approve the ninth consecutive military raise to be set at least .5 percent above private sector wage gains, continuing to close a perceived “pay gap” with civilians.
However, a Congressional Budget Office report released in late June suggests no such gap exists. When housing allowances growth and associated tax advantages are weighed, the pay gap for the enlisted force, which advocates say started in 1982, actually was closed by 2002. Since then, the military pay gap has become a “pay surplus,” even excluding improvements in special pays and bonuses, CBO says.
Military associations dispute the CBO findings and support congressional efforts to continue to special military pay adjustments. The House in May voted to sustain the string of ECI-plus-a-half-percent military raises through 2012. The Senate bill deals only with the 2008 raise. When House-Senate conferees work a final compromise bill later this summer, the CBO findings could persuade conferees to adopt the Senate pay raise plan.
TRICARE INCREASES – Dr. S. Ward Casscells, the new assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, has said he intends to work with Congress and service associations on more modest TRICARE fee increases for under-65 retirees and their dependents than has been pushed so far by the Bush administration. The OMB letter doesn’t reflect that air of compromise.
By not allowing the TRICARE fees and deductibles to rise as the administration planned, OMB chided, the Senate is adding $1.86 billion, again “funds that would otherwise be available to support our troops.”
That's just one year, his last. Want me to look up the rest?
