{"id":25962,"date":"2011-07-25T08:13:17","date_gmt":"2011-07-25T12:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=25962"},"modified":"2011-07-25T08:22:37","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T12:22:37","slug":"tom-coburn-plan-to-screw-military-retirees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=25962","title":{"rendered":"Tom Coburn’s plan to screw military retirees"},"content":{"rendered":"

Washington Post<\/a> reports that Senator Tom Coburn is coming for our Tricar. I read the article yesterday, but I was so pissed, I had to wait until this morning to write about it. I tried to call Coburn’s office to verify these statements, but the call went straight to the vmail which is apparently full. <\/p>\n

Here’s what the Post quoted;<\/p>\n

Former defense secretary Robert M. Gates proposed raising Tricare Prime enrollment fees for single retirees from $230 a year to $260 a year and fees for retiree families from $460 a year to $520 a year. Coburn wants the fees to be much higher and more in line with private-sector health plans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another comparison he makes is to other federal government workers whose plans are not as cheap. A medical doctor, Coburn told reporters last Monday: \u201cNobody in the country, as a single person working 20 years for the government, should be able to get health care for $250 a year. Nobody was ever promised that, and nobody should be able to do that.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You’re right, Coburn, nobody was promised healthcare for $250\/year. We were promised free health care. For life. In exchange for our health and our youth. That’s why I stayed in the Army when I was being paid $256\/month. that’s why I reenlisted for the Army when I was promoted to Sergeant and got a whopping $22\/month raise for my family of four. It was the free health care that kept me in – knowing my wife and I were covered for life.<\/p>\n

[H]e wants to increase the enrollment fee for single retirees to \u201capproximately $2,000 per year and $3,500 for a family.\u201d At the same time he would limit out-of-pocket expenses at $7,500 for those retirees with families. He thinks these changes could save $11.5 billion a year.<\/p>\n

His Tricare for life would require retirees to pay up to $550 for half the initial cost not covered by Medicare and then up to $3,025, after which all costs would be paid by Tricare. This change could save $4.3 billion a year.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How can the government get away with changing the contract they made with us 40 years ago after we paid off our portion of the contract? I don’t see anyone proposing the same increases in Medicaid – people who have never paid a penny, or a minute of their lives, for their health care expenses. <\/p>\n

I understand that the government is in debt and I understand that they need to save money, but why is the focus on the folks who have no real voice and have no way to retaliate? Why isn’t Coburn looking at the savings of shutting down or drawing down the redundant functions of the Commerce Depart or the Education Department?<\/p>\n

Whenever anyone is looking for savings in government spending, it’s always retirees, military or otherwise, who get hit. Clinton’s “balanced budget” was on the backs of military retirees’ healthcare and DoD’s manpower and training costs. Carter slashed military funding and didn’t “come to Jesus” until his last month in office. We’ve already been hit with co Cost of Living increases for two years in a row in our military pensions and Social Security. Our income taxes on those monies went up and now they want to take even more by hiking our health care costs? Where do we go to justice? <\/p>\n

And where are the Democrats? They’re always quick to jump on anyone who goes after the benfits of welfare queens and drug dealers. So where is their support for the troops that I hear about so often?<\/p>\n

Coburn’s number is 202-224-5754 if you can get through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington Post reports that Senator Tom Coburn is coming for our Tricar. I read the article … Tom Coburn’s plan to screw military retirees<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress-sucks","category-veteran-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}