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Military retirees fight proposed drug fee hikes
By Dale Eisman, Knight Ridder Newspapers
January 2, 2004
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is considering dramatic increases in the fees military retirees pay for prescription drugs, a step that would roll back a benefit extended just 30 months ago.
Pentagon budget documents indicate that retirees may be asked to pay $10 - up from the current $3 - for each 90-day generic prescription filled by mail through Tricare, the military's health insurance program. Tricare's current $9 co-pay for a three-month supply of each brand-name drug would jump to $20.
The proposal also would impose charges for drugs the retirees now receive free at military hospitals and clinics. There would be a $10 fee for each generic prescription and a $20 charge for brand name drugs dispensed at those facilities.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the drug plan, calling it "pre-decisional."
But word of the proposal was spreading at the speed of light among veterans organizations, who wereE-mailing their thousands of members to solicit calls and letters of protest to the White House and members of Congress.
"It's something that we're going to look at very closely when we return," said Tom Gordy, chief of staff for Rep. Ed. Schrock (R-Va.).
"You're tampering with a benefit that was earned by people putting their lives on the line," said James Lokovic, a retired Air Force chief master sergeant and deputy director of the Air Force Sergeants Association.
Lokovic's 136,000-member association already has sent Bush a letter warning of "significant backlash from millions of retired military voters" if the plan is implemented.
Military retirees had no prescription drug coverage until April 2001.
The budget documents circulating Wednesday indicate that the proposed charges would considerably ease the burden of prescription drug costs on the defense budget.