washingtonscene
individuals and $170,000 for married couples) were adjusted for inflation every year. Now, more people will creep into the means-tested group each year (e.g., by vir- tue of retired-pay COLAs).
Physical, speech, and occu- pational therapy
Does the new legislation fix the current
$1,860 cap on annual Medicare payments for outpatient physical, speech, and occu-
pational therapy? Yes, the new legislation allows an exception to the cap (until Dec. 31, 2010) for medically necessary therapy.
Coverage for children until age 26
The new law allows adult children to
stay on their parents’ health plan until age 26 if their employers don’t offer insur- ance. Will TRICARE adopt this policy? We
expect this will happen, but the TRICARE law will have to be changed. The vehicle most likely will be the FY 2011 Defense Authorization Bill, which probably won’t become law until October or later. Then, the Pentagon would have to negotiate a change to the TRICARE contract and issue new regulations and get computers and finance systems changed. So it could take 12 to 24 months or more before the change takes effect.
Is there anything I can do now to cover
a child who is about to “age out” of TRI-
CARE? Yes. TRICARE already offers coverage for people who lose TRICARE eligibility, including children who age out. The Continued Health Care Benefit Program is renewable in quarterly incre- ments and costs about $933 a quarter for an individual — but you must sign up upon losing eligibility.
MOAA’s MEDIPLUS® TRICARE supplement
Will the new law affect MEDIPLUS?
We don’t think so, but we’re working to verify this with our insurance provider.
New Tactic
for SBP/DIC
Discharge petition introduced.
O
n March 15, Rep. Walter Jones
(R-N.C.) introduced a discharge petition on H.R. 775, the bill that
would repeal the requirement to deduct VA Dependency and Indemnity Com- pensation (DIC) from military Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) annuities when a death was caused by military service. A discharge petition is used to force
a House vote on legislation that has lan- guished in committee. A discharge petition helped win substantive action on concur- rent receipt several years ago. H.R. 775, sponsored by Rep. Solomon
Ortiz (D-Texas), currently has 320 cospon- sors. If a majority of House members (216) sign the petition, the bill must be “dis- charged” from committee consideration and brought to the floor for a vote. You would think getting at least 216 cosponsors to sign would be easy, but that hasn’t proved so in the past. That’s be- cause a discharge petition is an embarrass- ing move for Hill leaders who must find $7 billion to pay for the SBP/DIC fix. House rules require the committee to
identify offsets within its jurisdiction. For the Armed Services Committee, that would require cutting military retirement, TRI- CARE For Life, or some other SBP area, which isn’t going to happen. Committee leaders want to repeal the offset but need House leadership’s help to identify other offsets. That’s a problem, too, when national health care reform and other major initia- tives also need offsets. Sometimes it takes unusual action to
spotlight a bill that has a large majority of cosponsors but still isn’t getting anywhere. It’s a way of saying, “We need to put our money where our mouth is.”
MAY 2 0 1 0 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R 3 5
Rep. Walter Jones
(R-N.C.)
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