Military Officer - April 2008 - (Page 14) fromthepresident Sound the Alarm Alert your friends and fight alongside MOAA to defeat disproportional health care fee hikes that devalue the singular sacrifices of military servicemembers and families. S ometimes MOAA headquarters staff feel like Paul Revere, spreading the alarm of an impending attack. Today the warning is about upcoming challenges to health care fees. Two new proposals — from a DoD health care task force and in the latest budget from the president — would raise TRICARE fees dramatically, not only for retirees but also for many currently serving families. If these proposals are approved, any civilian will get better deals on hundreds of drugs at Wal-Mart than military beneficiaries will from TRICARE. That’s not right. For the past few years, defense leaders have pushed to shift more health care costs onto the backs of military beneficiaries — who already have paid substantial in-kind premiums through years of service and sacrifice. Proposals for large fee increases ignore and devalue that already-rendered service. Two years ago, when DoD first proposed big fee increases (after keeping fees flat for 10 years), MOAA gave DoD and Congress a lengthy list of efficiencies that, if implemented, would reduce costs by far more than the proposed fee hikes would bring in. With your help, and the help of a sensitive Congress, we’ve been successful — so far — at keeping military health care fees at reasonable levels. But this year’s attack is as serious a threat as we’ve seen in a long time. Many who are worried about the increasing cost of the war and the size of defense budgets 14 MILITARY OFFICER APRIL 2008 see these proposals as viable options. A columnist with a major newspaper recently endorsed requiring “modest copayments” to cut $2 billion a year from the defense budget. I fired off a response, but it wasn’t published. Please take every opportunity to explain that raising health care fees (i.e., cutting retirement benefits) by $1,000 to $2,000 a year not only is unfair to those who spent 20 to 30 years sacrificing for the rest of the country but also can only hurt retention among today’s already overstressed military families. Retirement and health care benefits are the primary offset to the extraordinary conditions of military service, and that service constitutes a huge, up-front premium that few Americans are willing to pay. It’s unreasonable to expect fees will never go up, but MOAA wants a limit in law to ensure the percentage increase in any future year doesn’t exceed the percentage growth in military compensation. MOAA will remain in the thick of this fight, but we need every member standing with us to be successful. — Vice Adm. Norb Ryan Jr., USN-Ret. PHOTO: STEVE BARRETT
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