washingtonscene
LEGISLATIVE NEWS THAT AFFECTS YOU Misguided Attack
MOAA strongly objects to the surprise White House proposal that cites a goal of making military health care and retirement benefits more like those of federal civilians and private-sector workers.
O
n Sept. 19, the Obama adminis- tration unveiled its plan to cut the deficit by $3 trillion over the next
10 years. The plan includes $27 billion in cuts to the military health care package and a proposal that could cut even more from the military retirement system. First, the administration proposes
establishing a $200-per-person annual enrollment fee for TRICARE For Life be- ginning FY 2013. The proposal would tie this to some unspecified health care cost index so it would increase every year after that. Second, it proposes
changing TRICARE phar- macy copayments to bring them more in line with fed- eral civilian coverage: • Retail generic: Change copayment from a flat $5 to 10 percent of DoD prescription cost in FY 2013 and raise that to 20 percent of prescription cost in outyears. • Retail brand name: Change copayment from $12 to 15 percent of DoD prescription cost in FY 2013 and subsequently to 30 per- cent of prescription cost. • Mail-order brand name: Raise copay- ment from current $12 to $20 in FY 2013 and subsequently to $40. • Mail-order non-formulary: Raise copay- ment from current $25 to $35 in FY 2013 and subsequently to $40.
Finally, the administration calls for a DoD base realignment and closure (BRAC)-style commission to recommend “modernizing” the retirement system. This would start with development of
administration plan] shows a shocking insensitivity to the radical differences between military
[The
and civilian careers.
a recommendation by the Pentagon. The commission would consider this and other options and make its own final recom- mendations for consideration by the White House. If given the president’s blessing, it would have to get an up-or-down vote by Congress, without any amendment options. MOAA believes a BRAC- type initiative that limits debate and amendment op- tions is the wrong way to ad- dress core national security pillars like the military re- tirement system. Fortunate- ly, it won’t happen without special authorizing action by Congress, and MOAA will exert every effort to oppose any such legislation. The language in the ad- ministration plan makes
it clear the intent of these initiatives is to generate large savings by making the military health care and retirement sys- tems more like civilian plans. This shows a shocking insensitivity to the radical differ- ence between military and civilian careers and the reasons why these military pro- grams were built. The whole purpose of the unique mili- tary retirement and health care package
NOVEMBER 2011 MILITARY OFFICER 31
MOAA Members Mobilize Scan the QR code below with your smartphone or visit http://capwiz .com/moaa/home to take action on the most cur- rent MOAA legislative alerts. You also can call MOAA’s toll-free Capitol Hill hotline at (866) 272- 6622 (MOAA) and ask the operator to put you through to your legislators’ offices.
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