washingtonscene Whack
Commissaries? Senate bill would do it.
A
mong the bills approved by the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee in late June was the
“Caring for Camp Lejeune Veterans Act of 2011” (S. 277), sponsored by Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the senior Repub- lican on the committee. The bill would authorize VA health care for former military family members and veterans and certain family members stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C., between 1957 and 1987, when the water at the base is ac- knowledged to have been contaminated with carcinogens. MOAA indicated its support for the bill and other pending measures in a letter to committee Chair Sen. Patty Murray (D- Wash.) and Burr. That was before the committee voted unanimously, without notice or hearing, to fund the care by eliminating the federal subsidy for military commissaries and di- recting consolidation of all DoD commis- saries and exchanges. MOAA strongly opposes this surprise attack on the military benefits package for several reasons. First, the Veterans’ Affairs Committee has no jurisdiction over and no knowledge of DoD commissary and exchange sys- tems, which are under the purview of the Armed Services Committee. Second, they propose virtually disman- tling the commissary system without any hearings or other efforts to assess the ad- verse effect of such a dramatic cut to a core military benefit. There are good reasons why the Armed Services committees, who actually understand the commissary and
40 MILITARY OFFICER SEPTEMBER 2011
exchange programs, have ardently rejected similar proposals for the past four decades. Third, they seek to poach DoD funds to
pay for VA health care at a time when DoD personnel budgets already are under threat. MOAA supports expanding VA care
to cover Camp Lejeune veterans, but the Veterans’ Affairs Committee needs to find another way to fund it besides raiding the military commissary system. Make no mistake, without the federal
subsidy, military commissaries eventually would go out of business, as prices would have to rise and savings to customers would be lost. The commissary is one of DoD’s most
cost-effective people programs. Every dol- lar of the subsidy translates to nearly three dollars of benefit value to patrons (and considerably more than that for lower- grade enlisted families). Where else can the Pentagon get that kind of compensa- tion bang for the buck? Following backlash from the military community (including more than 20,000 messages from MOAA members), commit- tee leaders have backpedaled on this fund- ing source and are looking for other options.
GI Bill Fix for Public Health
Service Transferability is approved.
I
n July, Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Dr. Clifford Stanley approved eligibility for officers
of the U.S. Public Health Service Commis- sioned Corps to transfer Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits to their family members. Legislative authority for this action was provided by the Post-9/11 Veterans
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