{"id":26627,"date":"2011-09-23T09:11:37","date_gmt":"2011-09-23T13:11:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=26627"},"modified":"2011-09-23T09:14:04","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T13:14:04","slug":"the-tricare-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=26627","title":{"rendered":"The TriCare fight"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes’ Tom Philpot reports that “Tricare facing fiscal fight over funding<\/a>“;<\/p>\n

The White House debt cutting plan, delivered to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, confirms what advocates for Tricare beneficiaries had feared: that they are expected to share in the fiscal sacrifices to be asked of millions of Americans drawing federal entitlements.<\/p>\n

Military associations sound equally alarmed by the rhetoric in the White House recommendations suggesting that key military benefits are just too generous and must be brought nearer to what civilians receive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ya know what? I wrote my two Senators (Rockefeller (WV-D) and Manchin (WV-D) and my Congressman (McKinley (WV-1-R)) in regards to jacking around with veterans’ benefits and I told them I wouldn’t vote for anyone who voted for screwing veterans. I got answers from my senators and nothing from my congressman yet. But neither senator even read my letter – they talked about debt reduction and not a word about veterans’ benefits. So I guess that means I’m screwed. <\/p>\n

As I age, my body is going to shit and i need the medical benefits I was promised. I take 16 pills and one injection every day, so far. And I haven’t even been prescribed anything for my latest malady. One of the main reasons I stayed on active duty for a career was to keep the health benefits, since the pension is pretty anemic. And I know I’m not the only one out here.<\/p>\n

The White House notes that TFL users now pay only the Medicare Part B premium, $110 a month for most, and pharmacy co-pays. Otherwise they face no out of pocket health costs. By contrast, private sector elderly, in 2009, paid on average $2100 a year for their \u201cMedigap\u201d policy.<\/p>\n

The annual TFL fee would save a $6.7 billion over 10 years.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So that’s what my health is now…a way for the government to avoid shutting down the Education Department or the Commerce Department.<\/p>\n

The unusual structure adopted in August to reach a final debt deal — with the president and Congress conceding to the joint or \u201csuper\u201d committee of 12 lawmakers responsibility to shape a take-it-or-leave-it legislative package by November 23 \u2013- almost certainly handcuffs the influence of lobbyists to derail whatever package of cost curbs the committee\u2019s majority embraces.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt changes the dynamic considerably,\u201d said a key congressional staff member. \u201cThe changes get rolled into a package and all of a sudden it looks like just your fair share. And we shouldn\u2019t take our fair share?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fair share? If I was a medicaid patient looking at a reduced benefit, the media and Congress would be crowded around me at the microphones – but I’m a veteran getting screwed because it’s my “fair share”.<\/p>\n

But Arnold Punaro, a retired Marine major general, strongly supports initiatives to slow Tricare cost growth as well as retirement reforms for new entrants. He applauds the planned retirement commission, urging that a prominent military leader, like retired Gen. Colin Powell, serve as chairman.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yeah, that’s what we need – Colin Powell sticking up for us like he did for Bush. Like he did in the last presidential election when he chose race over competence. No thanks. It looks like we already have too many generals turning their backs on the troops ONCE AGAIN in this battle for what we earned once.<\/p>\n

Bonus March, anyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stars & Stripes’ Tom Philpot reports that “Tricare facing fiscal fight over funding“; The White House … The TriCare fight<\/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":[86,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veteran-health-care","category-veterans-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26627","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=26627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26627\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}