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b.
Ask MOAA’s Benefits
Counselors
Do
you have a question about TRICARE
For Life, the Survivor Benefit
Plan, or other military benefits?
Log in to MOAA's Web Base and ask
one of MOAA's benefits assistance
specialists.
(Click
on
Ask
MOAA’s Benefits
Counselors here
or above to access the link to ask
your question(s).
GF)
c.
HBO's The Pacific Premiers
Sunday
From
the creative team behind HBO's
Emmy Award winning miniseries
Band of Brothers comes an epic
10-part miniseries that will
track the intertwined odysseys of
three U.S. Marines across the
vast canvas of the Pacific front
in World War II. Watch a trailer
here.
(Click on
HBO's
The Pacific Premiers
Sunday
here or above to see the
details.
GF)
ISSUES
Issue 1.
Senate Hearing Highlights People
Concerns
New
Chairman Jim Webb (D-VA)
exchanged views with defense,
MOAA, and other association
leaders at a March 10 Armed
Services Personnel Subcommittee
hearing. (See Issue 1 below
for the details. GF)
Issue 2.
Armed
Services Leaders Seek Budget
Help
House
and Senate Armed Services
Committee leaders have asked
their respective Budget
Committees for budget headroom to
make needed benefit improvements.
(See Issue 2
below for the details.
GF)
Issue
3. Even
Short Delay Is A Big
Deal
This
week, the Senate passed
legislation to delay the 21%
Medicare/TRICARE payment cut
until October 1 (vs. April 1).
Now the ball is in the House’s
court. (See Issue 3
below for the details.
GF)
Issue 1.
Senate Hearing Highlights People
Concerns
A
March 10 Senate Armed Services
Personnel Subcommittee hearing
featured testimony by the
Pentagon's top personnel leaders
and several Military Coalition
representatives, including MOAA
Government Relations Director
(and Coalition Co-chair) Col.
Steve Strobridge
(USAF-Ret).
New
Subcommittee Chairman Jim Webb
(D-VA) underscored his empathy
with the military community and
his intent to be an active
chairman.
He
said his father was an Air Force
officer, he attended 9 different
schools between the fifth and
tenth grade, and "I'm the father
of a Marine NCO who did some hard
time in Iraq, and the
father-in-law of a Marine
infantry sergeant who, at age 24,
is being deployed for the fourth
time this coming
July."
Webb
intends to "exercise continuous
and active oversight of all our
military personnel matters." He
called particular attention to
the stress of lengthy
deployments, noting, "We're in
uncharted territory in terms of
the long-term
consequences."
He
also acknowledged concerns about
rising defense personnel costs,
especially for health
care.
The
panel's ranking Republican, Sen.
Lindsey Graham (R-SC), cited Webb
as the "most clearly qualified
[senator] to lead this
subcommittee right now...When it
comes to the troops, we’ll be as
bipartisan as
possible."
"Sustainability
of health care is the issue,"
Graham said. "There's been no
TRICARE premium increase since
1995, and eventually we'll have
to deal with that."
Under
Secretary of Defense for
Personnel & Readiness
Clifford Stanley, testifying for
the first time in his new
position, reported that
recruiting and retention programs
continue to be successful, and
the services continue to maintain
an all-volunteer force of top
quality even after eight years of
combat operations. But he
acknowledged that rising
personnel costs could affect
readiness.
On
a subsequent panel, Strobridge
and the Coalition witnesses
testified on an array of
initiatives to support the
military community:
Military
pay raise: The Coalition
urged adding at least one-half
percentage point to the 1.4%
military pay raise proposed in
the defense budget - which would
be the lowest raise since 1962,
even while the Nation is imposing
unprecedented sacrifices on
troops and families.
TRICARE:
Strobridge expressed the
Coalition's gratitude that the
new defense budget didn't propose
any TRICARE fee increases, and
urged the panel to include
language in this year's defense
bill to acknowledge that career
military people pay huge, in-kind
and up-front premiums through
decades of service and sacrifice
over and above fees paid in cash.
He also urged the subcommittee to
stop a scheduled Oct. 1 increase
of more than $110-per-day above
the current $535-per-day TRICARE
Standard in-patient
copay.
Concurrent
receipt: Coalition
witnesses expressed support for
the President's initiative to end
the disability offset for all
medically retired members, with
the ultimate goal of ending the
disability offset to retired
pay.
Survivor
Benefits: When the
Coalition urged ending the
deduction of VA survivor benefits
from military SBP annuities, Webb
noted that his mother was an SBP
annuitant and said how much it
meant to her when Congress ended
the Social Security offset to SBP
several years ago.
Guard
and Reserve: Priorities
included authorizing
reduced-retirement-age credit for
all active service since 9/11/01,
extending 9-11 GI Bill benefits
to full-time Title-32 guard
personnel, and authorizing Public
Health Service and NOAA officers
to transfer benefits to family
members.
Wounded
warriors: Strobridge
cited the need to provide three
years of active-duty level
TRICARE coverage for disability
retirees and to further improve
protections for wounded warrior
caregivers.
Issue 2.
Armed Services Leaders Seek Budget
Help
Late
last week, both House and Senate
Armed Services leadership sent
bipartisan letters to their
respective Budget Committees,
seeking needed budget allocations
to meet FY2011 military
needs.
House
Armed Services Chairman Ike
Skelton (D-MO) and Ranking Member
"Buck" McKeon (R-CA) highlighted
several top MOAA priorities,
including:
- An
across-the-board pay raise
increase of 1.9% (.5% above
the Employment Cost Index)
for military
members
- Retroactive
credit for early retirement
qualification for deployed
guardsmen and
reservists
- Improved
education programs for the
Selected Reserve
- Concurrent
receipt for all medically
retired
servicemembers
- Elimination of
the offset for survivors
entitled to both the Survivor
Benefit Program and
Dependency and Indemnity
Compensation
Senate Armed
Services Chairman Carl Levin
(D-MI) and Ranking Member John
McCain (R-AZ) asked the Senate
Budget leadership to support the
Administration's concurrent
receipt proposal.
The Administration's
FY2011 defense budget proposes a
five-year phase-out of the
disability offset for all medical
(Chapter 61) retirees. Rep. Joe
Wilson (R-SC) has introduced
legislation (H.R. 4525) to
implement that plan.
Last year, neither
the White House nor Congress
identified a funding source to
offset the initiative's cost
($264M in FY 2011 and $5.3B over
the next ten years). The
Skelton/McKeon letter expressed
frustration that the White House
again did not identify specific
offsets, and said the Armed
Services Committee will need the
Budget Committee's help to make
it happen.
Under congressional
rules, increases in so-called
"mandatory spending" (which
includes concurrent receipt,
Reserve retired pay, and SBP
fixes) must be offset by
increased revenue or cuts in
other mandatory spending
programs. Since the Armed
Services Committees can’t cut
retired pay to fund SBP or vice
versa, they need leadership help
to identify other
offsets.
Issue 3. Even
Short Delay Is A Big
Deal
On
Wednesday, the Senate passed H.R.
4213, the unemployment benefits
extender bill that also would
postpone the looming 21% cut in
Medicare/TRICARE doctor payments
until October 1.
Without
this fix, that patently
unacceptable cut would take
effect as of April 1.
But
we're not out of the woods yet.
The House still has to pass it,
and if the House changes anything
in it (as they likely will),
House and Senate leaders will
then have to work out those
differences.
Since
the massive bill has a $140
billion price tag and some of the
cost offsets the Senate proposed
to pay for it are the same ones
proposed to help offset the cost
of national health reform
legislation, clear sailing is far
from assured.
Everyone
is sick and tired of this
extended drama, and wants to find
a way to get the 21% payment cut
stopped. But if it were simple,
it would have been done long
ago.
For
now, legislators need to find a
way to get the six-month delay
through…so we can all move on to
thinking about what happens Oct.
1.
Stay
tuned.
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