washingtonscene
compensation, noncash and deferred ben- efits, and health care, continues to rise at disturbing rates.” Drawing a comparison between DoD’s
VA Protection Approval
■ Congress finalized legislation in May that ensures all VA health care enrollees are deemed to have qualifying coverage under health care reform. Previously passed laws already covered TRICARE and TRICARE For Life.
FY 2011 overall proposed personnel and health care base budget to that of FY 2001, Webb said it has increased 57 per- cent over the past decade. The health care budget, including retiree health care, alone increased 151 percent over the same period. Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for Military Personnel Policy, re- iterated the need for DoD “to keep pace with private-sector wages.” Failure to do so could result in “a repeat of across-the- board recruiting and retention failures witnessed as recently as the late 1990s.” Congress reacted to the recruiting and
retention woes of the late 1990s (when decades of pay-raise caps had caused mili- tary pay to lag a cumulative 13.5 percent behind private-sector raises) by increasing military raises above private-sector pay growth every year since 1999. With the gap now reduced from 13.5
percent to 2.4 percent, the issue is wheth- er Congress needs to continue doing that. Analysts say no. MOAA couldn’t disagree more. A 1.4-
percent pay raise, the smallest in nearly 50 years, sends the wrong message to our servicemembers and their families when we’re asking them to bear the greatest sac- rifices in more than 50 years. Webb, picking up on points raised by
MOAA and The Military Coalition in a previous hearing, questioned DoD’s methodology in comparing private-sector pay to military pay. The GAO witness ac- knowledged difficulties in making “apple- to-apple” comparisons of military versus civilian compensation. This issue isn’t going to go away, as it’s
been a problem for more than 40 years. But for this year, this force, and the cur- rent wartime environment, 1.4 percent is not the right number.
3 0 MI L I T A R Y O F F I C E R J U LY 2 0 1 0
Panel Votes on Pay, Benefit
Upgrades Troops, families, retirees, and survivors could benefit.
O
n May 19, the House Armed Ser- vices Committee completed its draft of the FY 2011 Defense Au-
thorization Bill. This is the first step in de- termining what Congress will approve for manpower levels, pay and benefit changes, and weapons programs. Chair Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) thanked com-
mittee members for their bipartisan efforts. The committee did not include any lan- guage concerning the elimination of DoD’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, as it thinks Congress should allow DoD to complete its review of that topic, which won’t be fin- ished until late this year. Ranking minority member Rep. Howard
McKeon (R-Calif.) expressed regret spend- ing offsets could not be found to eliminate the retired pay disability offset (see page 29) or the Survivor Benefit Plan/Dependency and Indemnity Compensation offset. As approved by the committee, the de- fense bill would: ■ authorize a 1.9-percent military pay raise for 2011 (versus the 1.4 percent recom- mended by the Pentagon); ■ prohibit any TRICARE Prime, Standard, or pharmacy fee hikes for FY 2011; ■ allow continued TRICARE coverage for children up to age 26, in return for a pre- mium to be set by the Pentagon; ■ increase Imminent Danger Pay to $260 a month and Family Separation Allowance to $285 a month (a $35 increase for each); ■ authorize a new unified medical com- mand, responsible for all military treatment, training, and research facilities and for managing the defense health care budget,
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