Healthcare fee hike attacked
By Tom Philpott
Members of the Task Force on the Future of Military Healthcare learned last week why The Military Coalition (TMC) may be the most formidable lobbying force ever to fight on behalf of service members, retirees and families.
Representing more than 30 service associations, TMC leaders appeared Wednesday before the congressionally created task force like a steel wall of opposition to plans to raise TRICARE health insurance fees, co-payments or deductibles.
TRICARE rates haven't been adjusted since they were set in 1995. But rather than concede a single point to panel economists that an increase is past due, coalition representatives attacked on multiple fronts.
Their new theme for deflecting higher fees, expressed often during the March 7 meeting and in a glossy brochure from the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA), is that retiree premiums have been "paid in full" by retirees "through decades of arduous service and sacrifice."
Five coalition witnesses presented familiar arguments for rejecting higher fees, including that Defense officials have failed to act on a host of alternative cost-saving moves. Also, it's not right to raise fees in wartime and the treatment of outpatients at Walter Reed is fresh evidence of the strain on members and families. But the coalition also had new arguments.
If Defense officials are so worried about flat fees, said retired Air Force Col. Steve Strobridge, TMC's co-chairman and director of government relations for MOAA, why haven't they raised the 15-cents-a-mile reimbursement rate that has been paid since 1985 to service members moving personal vehicles during stateside change-of-station moves?
Also, given DoD's call to raise TRICARE fees on retirees under age 65, Strobridge asked the task force to consider the financial impact that population felt from active duty pay caps imposed in the 1980s and '90s.
Joseph L. Barnes, the other TMC co-chairman and National Executive Secretary of the Fleet Reserve Association (FRA), presented five healthcare cost "principles" the coalition supports:
