This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Veteran Health Care

  • MTFs cut services for furloughs

    The USAToday reports that military treatment facilities are cutting back their treatment of soldiers and their families because of furloughs;

    The Pentagon’s top medical official, Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs, called the cuts illogical and a significant threat.

    “We simply cannot continue to sustain the burdens placed on the military medical system if sequester remains the law of the land,” Woodson says. “The men and women who have fought tirelessly on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan … deserve much, much more than this.”

    Thomas said that by sending patients to a network of private doctors who contract with the government for services, the Pentagon will spend more money in order to compensate for the automatic spending cuts.

    “As we curtail … we will inevitably refer more care out to the network,” he says. “We’ll end up spending more money in the long run.”

    At Walter Reed, the primary care facility for troops wounded in Afghanistan, the number of operating rooms has been cut from 23 to 20 Monday through Thursday and to 10 on Friday, when most civilians take their weekly furlough day, according to a memo July 15 from Navy Capt. Philip Perdue, deputy chief of surgery.

    Of course, USAToday blames Congress, disregarding the fact that sequestration came out of a White House strategy session, also disregarding that the White House has threatened to veto a Defense budget because it doesn’t squeeze veterans enough, and threatens to veto any spending bill that contains any cuts to domestic spending. When Mitt Romney mentioned sequestration last year during the presidential debates, President Obama assured the American voters that sequestration “won’t happen”, yet here we are.

    While we’re at it, lets’ talk about millions of dollars spent on the recent trip to Africa, the millions that will be spent on the Obama family vacation later this month.

  • Senate Committee kills big Tricare hikes

    The Navy Times reports that the Senate Armed Services Committee halted the administration’s attempts to hike Tricare co-pays substantially in the coming Defense Budget, but some Senators aren’t happy with the move and may try to reinsert the hikes after the budget leaves the committee;

    The Senate committee followed the lead of its House counterpart, which earlier also did not approve any of the proposed fee increases. Without such authorization, the Pentagon must follow current law, which restricts increases in Tricare Prime enrollment fees to no more than the most recent annual cost-of-living adjustment in military retired pay.

    […]

    Lawmakers still can offer amendments to the bill before it is voted on by the full Senate. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is among those who said he favors fee increases on retirees enrolled in the military health system.

    “Tricare is, quite frankly, unsustainable without reform. We haven’t increased premiums since 1995 but once, and it’s really pitting the military between health care benefits for retirees and funding the force,” Graham said June 11.

    Thanks, Flaming Lindsey, way to stick up for veterans, Mr. Veteran. I think that the Senate is unsustainable without reform, so I call for you and the rest of the perfumed princes to cut their staffs by at least half, along with your salaries. Go tell Social Security recipients you’re going to raise their costs, and Medicaid participants while you’re at it. I double-dog-dare you.

    The Senate can reduce the costs of Tricare by halting the Pentagon from raiding our surplus in Tricare. Tricare is the only program run by the Pentagon that is operating at a surplus, so they want to “fund the force” with our co-pays and premiums. Sure is helping out, us having veterans in Congress isn’t it?

  • White House determined to balance the budget on the backs of veterans

    The other day, Military.com reported that the House blocked the Department of Defense hikes to Tricare premiums and co-pays for retirees, doing their best to keep faith with veterans. Today Military.com reports that the White House has threatened to veto House Armed Services Committee’s proposed 2014 defense budget (National Defense Authorization Act – H.R. 1960) in the event that it lands on the President’s desk.

    “…if the bill [HR 1960] is presented to the President for approval in its current form, the President’s senior advisers would recommend that the President veto the bill.”

    The White House statement doesn’t enumerate the reasons that they’d recommend a veto, which is always helpful when issuing threats like that – since no one knows specifically what to change in order to get the President’s approval. But we can guess, since the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were up there the other day trying to screw retirees to the wall with Tricare hikes. And if we read the White House’s position on veterans’ benefits, we can read between the lines to determine their intent;

    The Administration believes that military retirees deserve an excellent, sustainable health care benefit. For this reason, the Administration strongly supports its requested TRICARE fee initiative that seeks to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DOD) while keeping retired beneficiaries’ share of these costs well below the levels experienced when the TRICARE program was implemented in the mid-1990s. The projected FY 2014 TRICARE savings of $902 million and $9.3 billion through FY 2018 are essential for DOD to successfully address rising personnel costs. DOD needs these savings to balance and maintain investments for key defense priorities, especially amidst significant fiscal challenges posed by statutory spending caps. The Administration strongly urges the Congress to support the proposed TRICARE fee initiative.

    Yeah, all I needed to hear was the fact that we deserve an excellent and sustainable health care benefit and I knew what was coming. Just like the president’s promise at the American Legion convention a few years back when I heard him say that he wasn’t going to balance the budget on the backs of veterans, while he was planning to do just that.

    If that’s what we deserve, then why are they raiding our Tricare surplus to spend in other areas of Defense? That’s a surplus of $708 million, which you would think would go a long ways towards providing an excellent and sustainable health care benefit. Wouldn’t you think?

    No, the Department of Defense see retirees as a source of income and our out-of-pocket Tricare costs as a tax they can use to splurge on their shit. If there’s a surplus, obviously we’re sustaining our health care program just fine and we don’t need a hike to keep the benefit running as smoothly as it’s currently running.

    The civilians at DoD don’t think that we earned that health care benefit, or at least that we haven’t paid for it enough to their satisfaction. And now they have the uniforms thinking the same way, or at least saying that out loud in public. Yeah, there were civilians at DoD who lobbied for this during the Bush Administration, but when Congress shut them down, they stayed down until the next year when they did the dance all over again.

    But this White House is so determined to make veterans pay, they’ll continue to take bites at the apple until there’s nothing left. I’d say “I told you so”, but I’m better than that. Well, almost.

  • Hagel & Dempsey take shots at your health care

    Stars & Stripes reports that Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Marty Dempsey went to bat for you and your health care today. Of course, I’m lying. There’s no way those two would do anything but screw veterans out of what they promised veterans because they don’t have the wherewithal to cut Pentagon spending where it needs to be cut.

    Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., asked Hagel and Dempsey whether they have started communication efforts with veterans — a segment of society heavily invested in military success, he said — to explain that rising military benefit costs and falling defense budgets could leave future troops without adequate equipment or training.

    Both answered yes, and DOD Comptroller Robert Hale laid out an estimate of how much money DOD hopes to recoup from higher health care costs for Tricare members.

    “We’re going to keep Tricare generous,” he said. “By 2018, our proposals save $2.5 billion in that year alone. If we don’t do that, and we have to, say, cut forces to offset it, it’s about 25,000 troops. We need to slow the growth.”

    Yeah, see, they’re pitting the active duty force against veterans. Oh, the Military Times reports that DoD is cutting their flag officers by a whopping 2%. Geez, we’ll be crippled without those 14 generals. Luckily, we’ll still have another 910 working their two-hour weeks.

    And if you’re thinking that Republicans are going to save veterans this time, think again;

    “We’re not going to fight our enemies with a good health care plan,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C.

    Of course, Graham folded like a Kmart lawn chair – quickly and without hesitation. Like a good little lap dog. I wonder how they think they’ll be able to retain an effective fighting force while they’re slashing every reason the troops have to stay. What are you going to fight our enemies with, Lindsay? Drones?

  • VA to be slammed by Obamacare

    The Navy Times has a story about the coming implementation of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, and the impact it will likely have on the Department of Veterans Affairs.

    Starting in 2014, the law punishes those without health insurance, and the VA’s health plan meets the minimum requirement for coverage – which means that there may be an increase in the number of people seeking health care from the VA.

    It is unclear how many veterans might turn to VA, but the 2014 budget includes $85 million to cover increased medical care costs, plus $3.4 million to cover administrative costs because VA would have to provide a written statement to each enrolled veteran about their coverage.

    The VA’s 2014 budget estimates coverage for 6.5 million veterans, an increase of 1.3% over fiscal year 2013 – about 100,000 more veterans than this year.

    There’s a problem there:

    Kenneth Kizer, director of the Institute for Population Health Improvement at University of California Davis Health System, estimates 1.8 million uninsured veterans will be looking for coverage when the Affordable Care Act requirement kicks in next year.

    Last time I checked, 1,800,000 is a whole hell of a lot greater than 100,000, so there are going to be issues with VA health care next year, as if there weren’t already.

    Cross posted from After the Army

  • Congress mistrusts Obama’s defense budget

    The Washington Times reports that members of Congress are raising many of the same points we discussed yesterday. Connecticut Democrat, Rep. Joe Courtney questioned the reasoning for another round of base realignment when the last one in 2005 hasn’t produced any savings;

    “As someone who has spent seven years on the readiness subcommittee dealing with the 2005 budget BRAC which is not going to generate a penny of net savings for 13 years no prior BRAC has been able to do that in less than six years,” Mr. Courtney said. “For a lot of us who’ve spent a lot of time on this issue, that just doesn’t work.”

    South Carolina’s Joe Wilson asks Defense Department officials about the justification for raising Tricare costs for veterans;

    “And my concern is that we know this is a great program, Tricare. People are very satisfied. Military families appreciate this benefit. Commitments have been made to our veterans and to military families. Why would we be increasing the fees when, in fact, the program is working well?” Mr. Wilson said.

    [Defense Undersecretary Robert] Hale replied that increasing enrollment fees would save about $1 billion. “If we don’t do that, we will have to take that money out of readiness or modernization,” he said.

    Yeah, well, Mr. Hale, you people already took $770 million dollars out of our surplus for Tricare, and now you’re back with your hand out for another billion bucks. If a private company had done that – take money meant for a healthcare program and used for operations with absolutely no intention whatsoever to replace those raided funds – the government would be coming down on them like a ton of bricks. Don’t veterans deserve the same considerations that the average worker on the street get?

    I don’t hear anyone talking about raising out-of-pocket costs for Medicaid to offset spending costs.

  • Tax hikes coming?

    The Washington Times reports that John “get me a tissue” Boehner, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal says that President Obama has no intention of cutting government spending to balance the budget;

    Boehner added that President Obama continues to maintain that America’s federal deficit is caused not by governmental overspending but by “a health-care problem.” Said Boehner, “They blame all of the fiscal woes on our health-care system.” Boehner told Obama, “Clearly we have a health-care problem, which is about to get worse with Obamacare. But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem.” Obama eventually replied, “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”

    I’m getting tired of hearing that you don’t believe it, Mr. President. Well, the article should be corrected, because the President is cutting government spending – in veteran health care.

    In another article, the Washington Times reports that the Democrats in Congress are looking for tax hikes, but not spending cuts;

    Democrats are bubbling over with ideas for raking in additional federal revenue even as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell declared Sunday that “the tax issue is behind us.”

    But clearly it’s not over for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, who on Sunday described the revenue increase negotiated in last week’s deal on the “fiscal cliff” as “significant” but “not enough.”

    I think it’s strange that the only cuts in spending that anyone can agree upon are cuts to veteran healthcare. Well, and defense, in general. What’s even stranger is the number of veterans who support these ass-clowns. And I mean the ass-clowns who call themselves Conservatives, too, but then collapse in a crying jag for the cameras.

  • Obama’s signing statement on the defense bill

    Aside from the fact that the President said when he took office he wouldn’t issue signing statements with his signature to bills, he did after he signed the defense bill last night. And he complained that Congress wouldn’t let him and Panetta jack up health costs on veterans – you know Congress helped Obama keep his pledge to not balance the budget on the backs of veterans. But here’s the part of the statement;

    Additionally, the Department has endeavored to constrain manpower costs by recommending prudent cost sharing reforms in its health care programs. By failing to allow some of these cost savings measures, the Congress may force reductions in the overall size of our military forces.

    So basically, he’s pitting veterans against current members of the military services, and complaining because Congress won’t let him fund the Defense Department out of the pockets of veterans. Remember how they took the $700 million surplus out of our Tricare fund to spend on their defense programs? That was just a preview. That’s not “constraining manpower costs” that’s theft of services. Telling us on the one hand that he’s not going to balance the budget on our backs, raising the costs of our benefits to us, and raiding the surplus that we built. And, oh, yeah, telling us how much of a better system is at the VA. Even though we have to pull teeth to get into the VA system.