Military Officer - January 2006 - (Page 30)

washingtonscene More Endof-Year Legislation VA ﬁxes in; defense, health care remain at risk. pound-foolish. The country needs a larger defense budget, not a smaller one. Medicare/TRICARE payment rates. The Senate-passed budget reconciliation package included a provision reversing a planned 4.4 percent cut in Medicare and TRICARE payments to doctors for 2006, proposing a 1 percent increase instead. The House version of the bill envisioned allowing the cuts to take place. MOAA had generated an alert urging support for the Senate provision on the grounds that payment cuts would only discourage more doctors from seeing military patients. The country needs a larger defense budget, not a smaller one. D espite the delay on the Defense Authorization bill, Congress did manage to complete action on two veterans’ bills in late November. VA COLAs. The Veterans’ Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) Act of 2005 authorized a 4.1 percent cost-of-living increase for those who collect disability and survivors’ beneﬁts from the VA. Unlike military retired pay and survivor annuities, Congress must authorize annual VA COLA increases each year. The increase took effect Dec. 1, 2005, and will be reﬂected in Jan. 2, 2006, checks. VA health funding. The FY 2006 Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act provided an overall 4.8 percent increase in the VA budget, including an 8.1 percent funding increase for VA medical services. It also included an extra $1.2 billion to make up the FY 2005 VA health care budget shortfall that was discovered in June. But other important bills remained snarled in end-of-year budget politics. Defense budget. At press time, action was still pending on the FY 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill (which provides funding for programs authorized by the Defense Authorization Bill). House leaders were seeking to apply a 2 percent across-the-board budget cut to all federal programs — including the defense budget — to pay for hurricane recovery costs. MOAA had generated an alert opposing any cut to the defense budget in wartime as penny-wise and VA Calls Off PTSD Dogs Nicholson nixes review plan. I n a sudden late-November reversal, Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Nicholson canceled a planned review of 72,000 VA disability compensation awards for PTSD. The VA announced the case review after the VA inspector general reported that some ﬁles contained insufﬁcient documentation for the PTSD compensation award. In reversing the decision, Nicholson said, “The problem appears to be administrative in nature, such as missing documents, and not fraud.” The secretary conceded that the documentation technicalities weren’t sufﬁcient reason to put disabled veterans through multiple interrogations. Recent studies such as one by the New England Journal of Medicine indicate that one out of six Iraq and Afghanistan veterans may have PTSD symptoms. MOAA thinks the cancellation was the right decision. Pressing thousands of PTSD case “re-reviews” would have undeservingly stigmatized these combat veterans and deterred other sufferers from seeking help. [CONTINUES ON PAGE 32] 30 MILITARY OFFICER JANUARY 2006

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Military Officer - January 2006

Contents Features Departments From the Editor Chairman's Page Board of Directors Nominations Your Views MOAA Directory Rapid Fire Washington Scene Member Books Financial Forum Ask the Doctor Chapter Activities Cover Story: On the Edge Storm Stories Our Brilliant, Bloody Future eXtreme Seniors Pages of History Information Exchange MOAA Scholarship Donors Advertising Index MOAA Calendar Sounding Taps MOAA Member Services Encore

Military Officer - January 2006

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.