President Bush's plan to reform the disability compensation system, which he sent to Congress last week, includes a four-part payment scheme targeted exclusively at a newer generation of service members and veterans.

The plan is ambitious in scope and more generous than the current disability system. As proposed by the White House, it would be applied automatically only to future disabled veterans. It would be offered as an alternative to current disability benefits only for veterans separated or retired from service since Oct. 7, 2001, the day of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Former Sen. Robert Dole, an architect of the plan as co-chairman of the President's Commission on Care of America's Returning Wounded Warriors, said he is getting "push back" from veterans' service organizations. Lawmakers will feel it too, he said, but it shouldn't deter them from giving newly-disabled vets and the current force a better disability package.

"I think we passed the baton to this generation" Dole told the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee Oct. 17. Improving their benefits, he said, "shows we're making progress" and honoring their sacrifice.

As described by Donna Shalala, Dole's co-chair, the Bush plan would totally restructure how disability compensation levels are set. The military's role would be reduced to conducting a thorough physical and determining if an ill or injured service member is unfit for duty. Those found unfit would be retired with a lifetime annuity based on final rank and time in service. Annuities would set at 2.5 percent of basic pay multiplied by years served.

The VA then would award a disability rating based on any service-related injury or ailment found. In addition to the military annuity, veterans would get a three-part VA payment: transition money to help adjust to civilian life; followed by a monthly payment for loss in earnings capacity; a new quality-of-life payment to compensate for limits on day-to-day activities.

Less clear is the administration's position on whether all veterans separated as medically unfit should be eligible for lifetime benefits under TRICARE, the military's fee-for-service health insurance plan. The White House proposal says that anyone who gets a DoD annuity for being medically unfit should be considered "retired" and thus should be eligible for retiree benefits such as base shopping privileges.

But to win eligibility for lifetime health benefits brings "an additional requirement," said a White House background document. The member's "unfitness for military service" would have to be "due to a combat-related serious injury" or "would have to meet other criteria" set by the secretary of defense.

To some veterans advocates, the White House motive here is to block most veterans discharged as medically unfit from gaining TRICARE benefits.

To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, or visit: www.militaryupdate.com.