{"id":36586,"date":"2013-07-10T11:42:13","date_gmt":"2013-07-10T15:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=36586"},"modified":"2013-07-10T11:42:13","modified_gmt":"2013-07-10T15:42:13","slug":"senate-committee-kills-big-tricare-hikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=36586","title":{"rendered":"Senate Committee kills big Tricare hikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Navy Times<\/a> 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;<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cTricare is, quite frankly, unsustainable without reform. We haven\u2019t increased premiums since 1995 but once, and it\u2019s really pitting the military between health care benefits for retirees and funding the force,\u201d Graham said June 11.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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

The Navy Times reports that the Senate Armed Services Committee halted the administration’s attempts to hike … Senate Committee kills big Tricare hikes<\/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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-veteran-health-care"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36586","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=36586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}