‘Free lifetime health care’ not law of land
Since 12-22-05
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Sent: Thursday, December 22, 2005 5:30 AM
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Subject: ‘Free lifetime health care’ not law of land
Wednesday,
December 21, 2005
Military
Update: ‘Free lifetime health care’ not law of land
Court
battles have shown that health plan premiums here to stay
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, December 22, 2005
Military retirees under 65 learned this month that they might face sharply
higher health care costs under a plan by senior Defense officials that would at
least double Tricare fees by 2008, and tie future fee increases to the annual
percentage rise in health care costs nationwide.
Hundreds of retirees, upset by the news, are sending e-mails to this columnist
and posting angry comments on various Internet sites, contrasting the changes
now proposed to past promises of free lifetime health care if they stayed long
enough to retire. It’s an echo of complaints heard in the mid-1990s from an
older generation of retirees as they were being turned away from military
hospitals and advised to use Medicare and buy supplemental insurance to meet
their medical needs.
The groundswell of complaints at the time led to lawsuits, a grass-roots effort
to restore promised benefits, aggressive lobbying by service associations and,
finally, votes in Congress in 2000 to establish Tricare for Life and Tricare
Senior Pharmacy for 1.5 million elderly retirees as well as spouses and
survivors. The situation is different for younger retirees. It is true that,
just 15 years ago, some recruiters still were promising free lifetime care.
In 1999, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army Gen. Hugh Shelton, gave
Congress quotes from a 1991 Army recruiting brochure, promising “superb health
care … for the rest of your life if you serve a minimum of 20 years.” Still the
number of under-65 retirees now citing promises of free health care is
surprising, for two reasons. One, most of these retirees, unlike the older
generation, have not been receiving free health care.
They either are enrolled in Tricare Prime, a managed-care plan that collects an
annual fee and co-payments for doctor visits, or they use Tricare Standard, the
fee-for-service option, which carries a deductible and patients also pay a hefty
cost-share of any services received.
Second is the history of recent court battles in which the older generation of
retirees lost that argument. Coincidentally, the lawyer and war hero who led the
legal fight, retired Air Force Col. George “Bud” Day, announced this month that
he and his grass-roots volunteers, who created Class Act Group to raise funds
for the court challenge, are laying down their swords effective Dec. 31.
Reached by phone at his law office in Fort Walton Beach, Fla., Day said retirees
65 and older “got about 95 percent” of medical benefits they had sought, but the
gains weren’t won in court. Instead, the case helped to influence Congress to
correct an injustice to elderly beneficiaries by enacting Tricare for Life and
the Tricare Senior Pharmacy plan.
The lawsuit, Schism and Reinlie v. U.S., was decided Nov. 18, 2002, by the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The court acknowledged
“moral claims” by retirees to free lifetime health care but found no law or
service regulation had authorized free, unconditional medical care.
If recruiters promised that, even if ordered to do so by service leaders, the
promises were invalid because they were not backed by law.In June 2003, the
Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Day had explained while shaping
his case that claims to lifetime care from retirees who entered service on or
after June 7, 1956, were weaker because of a law signed that day that made
access to service medical care conditional for retirees based on available space
in military hospitals. “Congress — and only Congress — can authorize [lifetime
medical] benefits,” wrote the court.
Yet it never had. In June 2003, the Supreme Court declined to review the
decision. During its last two years, Class Act turned to lobbying Congress to
pass the Keep Our Promise to America’s Military Retirees Act (HR 602), which
would waive Medicare Part B premiums, bringing these older retirees nearer to
the promise of free lifetime health care.
For younger retirees, HR 602 would make them eligible for the menu of health
care plans allowed federal civilian employees under the Federal Employees Health
Benefit Plan. The Defense Department would pick up costs normally covered by
Tricare Standard. Assuming that 25 percent of under-65 retirees shifted to the
FEHBP, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill’s cost at $2 billion
in direct spending the first year.
After hurricanes ravaged the Gulf Coast, Day said he visited Congress and “ran a
trap line” on prospects for passage of HR 602. Members told him they weren’t
good, given the cost of Katrina and the war in Iraq. Day and his staff therefore
voted to close down Class Act. Also, Day said, retiree contributions to Class
Act had slowed. “I think people have gotten used to the idea that they are going
to have to pay Medicare Part B premiums,” he said.
Volunteers also were tired and satisfied with what they achieved in helping to
persuade Congress to adopt Tricare for Life and the senior drug benefit. Day, 80
and a Medal of Honor recipient, said he will leave to others the fight ahead for
younger retirees.“Frankly, if I were a [younger] military guy I would be a
little unhappy … a little stirred up” about the proposed Tricare fees, he said.
They are. But they also know, thanks to Day, what the courts will say.
To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA 20120-1111,
e-mail
milupdate@aol.com or visit
www.militaryupdate.com.
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)
Any man or woman who may be asked in this century what they did to make
life worthwhile in their lifetime....can respond with a great deal of pride and
satisfaction, "I served a career in the United States Navy."