DoD Continues its “Sustain the Benefit” Campaign to Justify Beneficiary Cost Hikes

Since 02-21-06

From: Waspscpo@aol.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 15, 2006 7:44 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: DoD Continues its “Sustain the Benefit” Campaign...........


http://www.nmfa.org/site/PageServer


DoD Continues its “Sustain the Benefit” Campaign to Justify Beneficiary Cost Hikes

During Congressional hearings last week and on its TRICARE website, the Department of Defense leadership continued to try to make the case for increases in fees paid by TRICARE beneficiaries. The Department has given this effort the theme of “Sustain the Benefit” and it has posted information on its website to support its case that beneficiaries, especially retirees under age 65 and their families, must shoulder more of the costs of their health care in order to preserve the benefit for everyone.

BG Elder Granger, the Deputy Director of the TRICARE Management Activity, released a letter to beneficiaries this week highlighting both the increases in the Department’s costs and that beneficiary cost shares have not increased. While acknowledging the sacrifices of those who deserve the benefit, he called on these beneficiaries to accept the increases as the way to “make this great program available for generations to come.”

To view General Granger’s letter and other information from DoD regarding the proposed cost increases, go to: http://www.tricare.osd.mil/STB/index.cfm. As we stated in previous issues of the Government and You E-News, NMFA has many concerns about DoD’s proposed beneficiary cost increases. While we accept that some fees may have to be increased—the TRICARE Prime enrollment fee for retirees has not been increased since 1995—we believe DoD’s proposal would raise fees entirely too high too quickly.

The proposed "enrollment fee" for TRICARE Standard is in actual fact a premium and moves the medical entitlement earned by those who serve and have served to an insurance program. The belief that DoD now regards TRICARE Standard as “just another insurance plan” is further reinforced by its proposal to tie future increases in deductibles and enrollment fees to the increases in premiums for the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP), the insurance program for federal civilian employees.

History shows that CHAMPUS (the forerunner of TRICARE Standard) was only implemented when the direct care system could not care for all eligible beneficiaries and relatively high deductibles and cost shares were included to preclude the indiscriminate use of CHAMPUS when care was available in the direct care system. However, CHAMPUS was simply an extension of the health care entitlement.

Therefore, TRICARE Standard is that same extension and charging to simply use it makes the clear case that DoD no longer believes beneficiaries need an entitlement to health care, but only an ability to buy into an insurance plan. We believe enrollment fees for Prime are different from a Standard enrollment fee because additional benefits are given to Prime beneficiaries: access guarantees, additional preventative care and management of the beneficiary's health care.

As an organization that strongly promotes the interests of active duty families, NMFA recognizes that preserving the health care benefit will require some reasonable increases in beneficiary cost shares. We want today’s servicemembers and their families to be able to count on access to a rich benefit now and when they reach retirement. Playing "ostrich" and simply opposing any increase is not neither practical nor beneficial for the long term.

However, NMFA is concerned that DoD’s proposed tiering of the fee increases may be too arbitrary and impose inappropriate charges on some of our most vulnerable beneficiaries, especially survivors and wounded servicemembers who were medically retired. For example, under the DoD proposal, the recent widow of an 0-2 killed in Iraq would face an enrollment fee of $700 per year by FY 2008—the same as the fee paid by a retired General Officer with thirty years of service, simply because her deceased spouse happened to be an officer.

We will be searching for another alternative to the tiered system that provides equity between the various ranks, recent vs. longer-term retirees, and the more vulnerable beneficiaries, such as survivors and those servicemembers who have been medically retired. NMFA also believes that, while reasonable annual increases in the TRICARE Standard deductible and Prime enrollment fees would probably be better for beneficiaries in the long run than dramatic increases imposed more infrequently, these increases should not be tied to FEHBP increases. We believe these raises should be no greater than percent of the annual COLA increase.

What do you think of DoD’s proposed increases? Let us know by e-mailing NMFA at families@nmfa.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)