washingtonscene
but who fill critical vacancies in another Selected Reserve unit more than 150 miles from their home; Allow Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP)-par- ticipating military retirees who waive their retired pay in favor of a survivor annuity under the Federal Employees Retirement System to stop paying SBP premiums. Codify space-available travel eligibility for active and reserve component mem- bers and their dependents, effective Jan. 1, 2014. The provision includes “gray area” Guard/Reserve retirees but does not ex- plicitly include survivors, as MOAA had supported. The secretary of defense would retain authority to designate additional eligibles and designate relative travel pri- ority for the various groups; authorize DoD to put selected over-the- counter medications on the TRICARE pharmacy formulary and establish a co- payment for them; and require an annual report on access, cost, and quality of care for military dependents with disabilities and special needs. The House overwhelmingly approved the FY 2013 Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4310) in mid-May. As this article was being written in late May, Senate ac- tion had not yet been scheduled on the version of the bill approved by Senate Armed Services Committee.
Out to Lunch on T 34 MILITARY OFFICER JULY 2012
Military Benefits New study ignores history.
he Center for American Prog- ress (CAP) released a new study, “Reforming Military Compensa-
tion,” that asserts the Pentagon’s FY 2013 defense budget doesn’t go nearly far enough in proposing cuts to military pay, retirement, and health care benefits.
Like many previous studies, it’s a com- pendium of budget-focused assertions that, at best, miss the point and, at worst, misrepresent the role and purpose of current career compensation incentives. Here’s a look at specific quotes from the CAP report.
“When TRICARE was created in 1996,
working-age retirees contributed about 27% of their health care costs; today that number has fallen to just 11%. Should the Pentagon’s recommendations [for large TRICARE fee hikes] be implemented by Congress, military retirees would still con- tribute just 14% of their health care costs, about half of what they did in 1996.” First, there was no discussion in 1996
about having retirees pay any percent- age of health care costs. Second, MOAA rejects the implied assumption that bas- ing beneficiary fees on a percentage of DoD costs is a reasonable thing to do. Many of the interim cost increases were driven by readiness needs and the inher- ent inefficiencies and lack of oversight of the current health care delivery system, and beneficiaries should bear no share of those costs. Finally, unlike CAP, MOAA won’t simply accept whatever statistics DoD chooses to cite without far more information about what those figures did and didn’t count — which defense leaders so far have declined to share. “Due to the 20-year vesting require-
ment, Pentagon managers are reluctant to separate personnel who have served more than 10 years but less than 20, not want- ing to leave servicemembers without a job and retirement savings. … This rigidity leaves the retirement program particular- ly ill-suited for periods in which the force is shrinking significantly, as it is today.” MOAA hasn’t seen any such reluc-
tance. During the drawdown of the 1990s and the new one now under way, Con- gress and DoD have exercised multiple
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