A message to a civilian supporter on Keep Our Promise to America's Military Retirees Act, HR602

Since 11-29-05

From: Waspscpo@aol.com
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 8:51 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: Fw: [MRGRG-MS] A message to a civilian supporter 

Subj: [MRGRG-MS] A message to a civilian supporter 
Date: 11/24/2005 11:13:57 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: fsears@bellsouth.net
To: fsears@bellsouth.net
Sent from the Internet (Details)

  MRGRG-MS Main Page

I thought you might be interested in this message I sent to one of our civilian supports that basically asked me how we were doing. It reveals my current thinking and mood in reference to regaining the medical care we were promised.

Floyd

Dear Lois:

Thank you for thinking about my fellow veterans and me. The fight to regain the medical care we were promised is all but over. We managed to get a Medicare Supplement for those military retirees that are Medicare eligible, but is not what we were promised.

The fight to regain what we were promised is all but over because we (those of us who have been leading the fight) are getting to old to continue. Our leader, Medal of Honor recipient Colonel George Day from Ft. Walton Beach, FL, I think is well in to his eighties.

I'm 75 and I am one of the younger troops. Before Katrina I averaged 8 hours a day 7 days a week organizing and encouraging the troop to continue. The last project I participated in can be seen at http://mrgrg-ms.org/history14.html.

That project put well over 56,000 letters into the hands of the Congress. In the process we gained, so far, 234 cosponsors for the Keep Our Promise to America's Military Retirees Act, HR602. The Keep Our Promise to America's Military Retirees Act was first introduced in 1999 by Congressman Ronnie Shows and in the current Congress by Congressman Chris Van Hollen. All during this time we have had a friend Phil Alperson (a Congressional Staff member) working to help us keep this bill alive.

This is the latest on the bill: 2/25/2005 Referred to House subcommittee. Status: Referred to the Subcommittee on Health, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Chairman.

Even though we have well over 1/2 of the House as cosponsors the House leadership will keep this bill bottled up in subcommittees until it dies for this session of the Congress.

This has happened over and over since the bill was introduced in 1999. The bill did however play a major role in the passage of the law that bought us the Tricare for Life Medicare supplement.

Will it get introduced again and will we be able to gain that many cosponsors again? Probably not.

We fought a good battle with the Colonel Day lawsuit taking our fight all the way to the Supreme Court, but the United States Government has done what no other Government in the world has been able to do... they have defeated us. See http://mrgrg-ms.org/f99-1402.html#conclusion

Again, thank you for thinking about the veterans, and me.

Floyd