Military Officer - April 2007 - (Page 31) washingtonscene Take a Hike? Pentagon cuts $1.9 billion from FY 2008 TRICARE budget — triple the size of last year’s cut; assumes Congress will hike health fees $1,000 a year for retired officers under age 65. L E G I S L AT I V E N E W S T H AT A F F E C T S Y O U T he defense budget the administration submitted to Congress Feb. 5 significantly upped the ante in the Pentagon’s campaign to raise TRICARE fees for military retirees under age 65 and increase retail pharmacy copayments for all beneficiaries. It assumes far bigger fee hikes for FY 2008 than last year’s budget submission assumed for FY 2007. Last year’s budget proposed tripling TRICARE Prime and TRICARE Standard fees for retired officers and their family members and survivors over a two-year period and more than doubling them for most enlisted retirees. It also would have increased retail pharmacy fees for all TRICARE beneficiaries of all ages by almost 70 percent. The administration projected that those fee hikes would save the Pentagon $735 million in FY 2007 and $1.9 billion in FY 2008 — and cut last year’s defense health budget by $735 million under the assumption that Congress would accept them. MOAA and The Military Coalition argued that these dramatic fee hikes would be disproportional and inappropriate and that DoD had not aggressively pursued other available options to hold down health costs. (See MOAA’s brochure at www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/moaa /tricarefees). After receiving tens of thousands of tear-out letters and postcards from angry MOAA members, Congress agreed with us, passing legislation that barred the Pentagon from increasing fees in FY 2007, pending review of alternative options. This year, the Pentagon avoided publishing any specific fee increase plan in conjunction with its budget submission for FY 2008. Defense leaders said any specific proposals are on hold pending the findings of a DoD-appointed Task Force on the Future of Military Health Care, which is supposed to provide interim recommendations on cost-sharing and pharmacy copayments in May. But that’s not telling the whole truth, because the budget those same defense leaders recently submitted to Congress assumes $1.9 billion in savings from TRICARE fee increases. That’s almost three times the amount associated with fee hikes in the FY 2007 budget — and happens to be precisely the amount of savings associated with the second year (FY 2008) of last year’s fee hike plan. For all practical purposes, what this means is that the administration’s budget proposal assumes Congress will agree to let the Pentagon implement the TRICARE fee increases (shown in the chart on page 32) as of Oct. 1. That huge budget assumption puts enormous pressure on the task force (all of whose members were appointed by the secretary of defense and half of whom work for DoD) to propose fee hikes at least as large as those the Pentagon APRIL 2007 Here’s How You Can Help ■ Visit MOAA’s Web site at http://capwiz.com /moaa/home and click Stop TRICARE Fee Hikes to send your legislators an MOAA-suggested message. ■ Use MOAA’s toll-free Capitol Hill hot line, (866) 272-6622, to urge your legislators to oppose TRICARE fee increases. MILITARY OFFICER 31 http://capwiz.com/moaa/home http://capwiz.com/moaa/home http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/moaa/tricarefees http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/moaa/tricarefees
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