Military Officer - October 2006 - (Page 30) washingtonscene What You Said Should the National Guard chief be a four-star? YES: 54% NO: 41% Remaining respondents were neutral. systems, and budgets to finish the hard part — figuring out who is due how much in retroactive payments. Defense Finance and Accounting Service sources say the affected retirees will receive specific details at the time their retroactive payment is made. MOAA members responding to an online poll in the August 2006 issue of Military Officer were slightly in favor of making the Guard chief a four-star. MOAA took no position on the issue. Independent of the four-star debate, 69 percent think the National Guard is disadvantaged in the current planning/budget process compared to the active forces. Cafeteria Plan Use Isn’t Abuse Employer cost-shifting limits should focus on abusers without imposing penalties. M OAA has been working hard with House and Senate Armed Services committee staffs in an effort to prevent the FY 2007 Defense Authorization Bill from inadvertently imposing unique compensation penalties on thousands of retired TRICARE beneficiaries. Provisions in both the House- and Senate-passed versions of the bill would bar civilian employers from providing cash payments to working military retirees in order to persuade them to drop the company health plan and use TRICARE instead. For example, one airline sent all of its pilots a letter offering them a cash payment to do just that. Defense officials complained that some employers are abusing this method to shift their health costs to the Pentagon. House and Senate leaders agreed that shouldn’t be allowed. Legislators also agreed with MOAA that the Pentagon’s initial proposed fix — doubling and tripling retirees’ TRICARE fees to try to drive them away from TRICARE — was the wrong answer and worked to address the issue with employers instead. Medicare law currently bars employers from offering cash incentives to em- ployees over age 65 to drop the company health plan and start using Medicare. Using that as a precedent, both Armed Services committees put language in the defense bill regarding TRICARE. Because similar language is in both the Senate and House bills, some form of it will be in the final defense bill. But MOAA has been working with the House and Senate Armed Services committees in hopes of modifying it to avoid unintended financial penalties for thousands of TRICARE beneficiaries whose employers aren’t conducting such costshifting campaigns. Many companies provide a modest monthly payment (e.g., $100 or $200) to employees who choose to use health coverage offered through any other source, such as a spouse’s employer or a previous employer, including federal civilian insurance, state teachers’ insurance, another civilian plan, or TRICARE. Many retiring members want to keep TRICARE because that’s what they know, because a family member is in a special care program, or just to maintain their family’s continuity of care. In other cases, employers offer all health care through a cafeteria plan, under which the employer pays a certain amount into the plan and the employee chooses where to spend it. When MOAA asked Capitol Hill staffers if such plans could be affected by the new legislative wording, they acknowledged the likelihood that they would. MOAA feels strongly that military beneficiaries under these circumstances shouldn’t be singled out for what amounts to a pay cut that doesn’t apply to other employees of the same company who use other non-company coverage. MOAA has been encouraged by the interest of the committee staffs regarding this issue and is optimistic that Congress will agree to fix the language that is currently in legislation. [CONTINUES ON PAGE 32] 30 MILITARY OFFICER OCTOBER 2006
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