Military Officer - March 2008 - (Page 38) washingtonscene the hearing, especially bills such as H.R. 2702 that would raise MGIB reimbursement rates. MOAA strongly believes GI Bill benefits should be raised to cover the average cost of a four-year public college or university. They now cover about 75 percent of that amount. MOAA also thinks reservists should be entitled to full active duty MGIB benefits if they complete a cumulative 36 months on active duty. Norton said the principle should be “same service, same battlefield, same benefits.” Observing that more than half the 2002 class of the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, N.Y., has left service, and the Army has growing shortages of mid-grade officers, Norton urged making service academy graduates and ROTC scholarship recipients eligible for the MGIB if they agree to extend their initial service commitment. using federal civilian program data and against the premature premium increase. MOAA’s view was that DoD had plenty of actual cost data from past TRICARE Standard claims. For the past two years, MOAA and TMC have convinced Congress to bar any further premium increase pending a review of the methodology. The GAO found that DoD based the premiums on projected program costs of $70 million for FY ’05 and $442 million for FY ’06. But DoD’s actual costs proved to be $5 million in FY ’05 and about $40 million in FY ’06. Beneficiary premiums were intended to cover 28 percent of program costs. The GAO concluded current premiums are 72 percent too high for single coverage and 45 percent too high for family coverage. In other words, the monthly premium for individual coverage should have been $48 instead of $81. The monthly family premium should have been $175 instead of $253. According to the report, “DoD’s cost projections were too high largely because it overestimated the number of reservists who would purchase TRS as well as the associated cost per plan of providing benefits through the program.” The GAO recommended — as MOAA consistently has — that DoD stop basing TRS premiums on Blue Cross Blue Shield data and use the actual costs of providing the TRICARE benefit. DoD concurred with the recommendations, saying the Pentagon “remains committed to improving the accuracy of TRS premium projections.” But DoD made no commitment to start using actual TRICARE data by any specific date. MOAA will push hard for a TRS premium reduction — and a retroactive refund for Guard and Reserve warriors and their families in 2008. MO — Contributors are Col. Steve Strobridge, USAFRet., director; Col. Mike Hayden, USAF-Ret.; Col. Bob Norton, USA-Ret.; Cmdr. René Campos, USNRet.; Cmdr. John Class, USN-Ret.; Col. Phil Odom, USAF-Ret.; Joy Dunlap; Cass Vreeland; and Bret Shea, MOAA’s Government Relations Department. Reservists Overcharged GAO: TRS premiums up to 72 percent too high. A December 2007 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed DoD’s cost of providing the new TRICARE Reserve Select (TRS) coverage versus its premiumsetting methodology and concluded the premiums set by the Pentagon were significantly too high — just as MOAA and The Military Coalition (TMC) have contended since the program was enacted. When the program first was implemented, DoD based TRS premiums on the cost of the Blue Cross Blue Shield option of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan (FEHBP) — and promptly raised those premiums by 8 percent even before the first enrollees made a first payment. At the time, MOAA and TMC strongly argued against 38 MILITARY OFFICER MARCH 2008
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