Veterans "tri Care" Health Care Costs Set To Soar!

[Gimpy]

Posted January 30, 2006


Veterans' 'TRI CARE" health costs could soar

Advocates warn of sharp hike for retirees under proposal

By John Lee
Post-Crescent staff writer

Bob Everson can't understand a tentative Pentagon and Bush administration proposal that would sharply increase the costs military veterans pay for health care.

He earned two Purple Hearts in Vietnam, is on a 100 percent disability, and is upset with talk among veterans groups that a proposal to double or triple costs for veterans to help pay for other defense programs.

"They said they'd take care of us if we served our time, and now instead of taking care of us they are trying to charge us," Everson, of Appleton, president and interim treasurer of the Fox Valley Vietnam Veterans Association, said Sunday.

"How do you explain to a man coming back from Afghanistan with both legs blown off and you are going to tell them they have to wait until they are 65?" for health coverage.

Military retirees too young for Medicare are objecting to a proposal being publicized by advocacy groups to double or triple some of their health care costs to pay for other defense programs.

Retirees and military service organizations have started sounding off about the possible increases, which could make in into President Bush's budget proposal on Feb. 6. More than a million retirees under the age of 65 could be caught by the change.

With retiree family members included, the number covered by Tricare, the military health care program, is about 3 million.

Military service organizations say the proposal calls for the annual enrollment fee for the plan known as Tricare Prime to increase substantially in the next three years.

The fee is now $230 for single enlisted and officer retirees, and would rise to $450 for enlisted retirees and $750 for officers.

Family coverage, now $460 a year, would increase to $900 for enlisted retirees and $1,500 for officers, according to the Military Officers Association of America.

A plan called Tricare Standard, which now has free enrollment, would cost $300 for single officers and $600 for family coverage. Enlisted retires would see costs climb to $200 for single coverage and $400 for a family. Also being considered are increases in some pharmacy co-payments.

Everson was hit twice in Vietnam ? by grenade fragments on April 21, 1966, and shot 13 times on May 17, 1966, when he was "bagged and tagged," or pronounced dead and zipped into a body bag.

Now, at 62, he rides a bike a mile to work at a grocery store ? he can't drive because of his disability ? and he also worries that his dad, a World War II veteran, isn't getting services he deserves from the Veterans Administration.

"My dad is 86 and a veteran and he never drew a penny from the government for anything. The last five years he had to pay to get medication out of the VA," he said.

John DeLong, a retired Coast Guard commander and former Appleton police officer who now lives in Kerrville, Texas, said he believes the increases would affect Korean and World War II veterans more than recent retirees.

"That's going to hurt them big time," said DeLong, who retired from the Coast Guard in 1991 after 25 years of service. "The (coverage) increase is going to be substantial."

He said the proposal breaks promises made when people enlisted. "In the '90s, it wasn't signed in blood. Maybe we were more realistic and we saw the handwriting on the wall. But those Korean vets, it's going to hit them hard."

Retirement benefits were one of the things that attracted people when he was a recruiter, he said. "I don't know if it is the biggest attraction. Probably today the retirement itself is one of the things."I think (veterans) feel like they are being sold out," said DeLong, a member of the Military Officers Association of America.

In a briefing to the Military Coalition, an umbrella group of 36 military and veterans organizations in mid-January, Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, described the military health benefit as "extremely rich." Military retirees pay an average of $680 in out-of-pocket health costs a year, while civilian retirees pay $3,700, he said.

He said spending for the defense health program has grown rapidly from $18 billion in 2001 to more than $36 billion today.

But many retirees see the Tricare benefit as payback for active-duty careers that last 20 to 30 years and frequently call for sacrifice and hazardous work.

"I certainly don't feel very rich," said Jackie E. Turpin, 43, of Sterling, Va., who retired in 2004 after 23 years as a Navy corpsman. "I'm now self-employed and the only thing I feel rich about is how richly I'm being backstabbed.

John Lee can be reached at 920-993-1000, ext. 362, or by e-mail at jlee@postcrescent.com. Gannett News Service contributed to this report.

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Looks like it's gonna get WORSE before it can get better folks!...................