washingtonscene
TRICARE Tests
add that in. Finally, you save 7.65 percent on
Online Counseling
payroll (Social Security/Medicare) taxes. Forum Focuses
That adds up to a 37.6-percent savings
■ TRICARE began testing
an online counseling ser-
— $37.60 on every $100, right? Not quite. on Wounded
vice in August. The TRI-
If you don’t have an FSA, you have to
Packed house of attendees
CARE Assistance Program earn $159 in taxable money to net $100
demonstration offers
that you actually can spend on these out-
gather at symposium.
active duty and Selected
of-pocket expenses. So an FSA saves you
Reserve personnel and
their families unlimited
$59 for every $100 of out-of-pocket ex- ore than 600 people at-
online access to licensed
penses, not $37. tended a daylong symposium
counselors. For more
DoD already has authority to imple- M sponsored by MOAA and the
information, visit https:// ment FSAs for servicemembers, but U.S. Naval Institute Sept. 16 to highlight
www.hnfs.net/bene/home,
it refuses to do so, despite repeated continuing challenges of traumatic brain
and click on TRICARE As-
congressional pressure. injury (TBI), PTSD, and depression fac-
sistance Program (TRIAP)
Web-Based Video Behav-
Why? An April 2009 Pentagon report to ing America’s wounded warriors and their
ioral Health Counseling.
Congress claimed, in essence, that military units, families, and caregivers.
families already get plenty of health ben- Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
efi ts and don’t need FSAs. Adm. Michael Mullen, USN, kicked off the
It also said premium conversion isn’t ap- event with a powerful statement of national
plicable to active duty personnel, many ser- obligation to the wounded. “We need to
vicemembers might not use FSAs if they had create a system [not just in the military and
them, and the cost of implementing FSAs the VA but] throughout America that sus-
might not be worth the benefi t. tains their needs for the rest of their lives,”
Come again? Thousands of active duty said Mullen. “We have a sense of urgency to
troops pay premiums for family dental turn research into implementable solutions
coverage, and every one of them would [and] avoid creating another generation of
appreciate tax saving on those premiums. homeless veterans. Shame on us if we don’t
Ditto for the thousands of drilling guard- make sure that happens.”
members and reservists and their families Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, chief of the Army
paying premiums for TRICARE Reserve Reserve, highlighted the need to provide
Select and TRICARE dental coverage. help for children of the deployed and
Thousands more family members pay wounded, who often experience suppressed
hundreds or thousands of dollars every and confusing fear and anger. For service-
year for glasses, contact lenses, and or- members, “Every returning soldier has
thodontics, and none of the programs suffered stress,” Stultz said. “Counseling
mentioned in the DoD report will cover a should be mandatory, not voluntary.” He is
single dollar of those expenses. working to create “virtual installations” to
And who has more need for pretax sav- assist families in areas with signifi cant mili-
ings on child care expenses than a family tary populations but no military installation.
with a parent who is deployed for a year? VA Assistant Secretary of Public and
If DoD agrees civilian employees need Intergovernmental Affairs Tammy Duck-
FSAs and premium conversion options, on worth, a medically retired Army helicop-
what basis can it claim people in uniform ter pilot who lost both legs in Iraq, said,
don’t need them? “On any given night, there are 131,000
One would think the Pentagon would be homeless veterans on the streets of Amer-
the last institution to impose such fi nancial ica, and we’re all dishonored by that.”
discrimination on military families. Duckworth said the VA is focusing on
One would think wrong. mental health outreach, accelerated dis-
38 MILITARY OFFICER NOVEMBER 2009
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