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Old 11-14-2002, 10:01 AM
billr billr is offline
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Default Concurrent Receipt Update

This is a special TROA legislative update for Wednesday, November 13, 2002.

Summary: House Passes Limited Concurrent Receipt Provision. House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders, fearful of a veto that could kill the whole FY2003 Defense Authorization Act, convinced the Administration to accept a reduced package focused on retirees with disabilities due to combat, combat-oriented training or certain other hazard-related circumstances. With that last issue resolved, the House passed the Act (H.R. 4546) by voice vote Tuesday evening. Senate leaders hope to have a vote today so the Act can be sent to the White House for signature.

House Passes Limited Concurrent Receipt Provision

In the end, House and Senate Armed Services Committee leaders had to negotiate a limited concurrent receipt provision that didn't leave any of the parties satisfied. Certainly TROA is deeply disappointed that it falls far short of the much broader provisions we have been battling for - and we fully intend to continue that fight. It does not speak well of the current Administration that 90% of legislators can sign their names to support full
concurrent receipt, that both chambers can pass substantial programs separately, and we can still end up with a final provision that falls so far short of what either the House or Senate approved.

But the Committee leaders believe they had little choice in taking what they saw as the only possible route to any progress on concurrent receipt this year, and the only way to keep from killing the FY2003 Defense Authorization Act and many other important provisions in that legislation.

They came back to Washington several days early for closed-door discussions on how to draw up a substantive concurrent receipt provision that wouldn't draw a veto. Then the Senate Armed Services Committee's senior Republican (and next year's Committee Chairman) Sen. John Warner (R-VA) visited the
President and VA and DoD leaders to persuade them that some action was needed.

Meeting with military and veterans' association representatives, Sen. Warner acknowledged that the final agreement was much less than the Armed Services Committees had hoped to achieve. But he described it as "an essential beachhead in law" which the Committees hope to expand in the future. Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO), the senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee used similar language in describing the deal on the House floor.

In essence, the deal establishes a new form of "special compensation" for certain disabled retirees who have at least 20 years of active duty or a combination of active duty time and Reserve points comprising the equivalent of 20 years of full-time active duty (unfortunately, very few Reserve retirees qualify under this strict criterion).

The amount of the special compensation will be the full amount of retired pay forfeited due to receipt of VA compensation for a qualifying disability.
Unlike the special compensation already in law (which provides $50 to $300 per month for certain severely disabled retirees), the new version won't be capped at a specific dollar amount, and will rise each year as the offset rises. Unlike the current $50 to $300 special compensation, which requires that a qualifying disability must have occurred within 4 years after retirement, eligibility for the new version will not be restricted by any time limit. Qualifying members will be eligible to receive either the "new" or the "old" special compensation amount, whichever is higher.

The effective date for the new program will be six months from the date the President signs the Defense Authorization Act into law (that likely will happen this month, so the effective date should be sometime in May). The six-month delay will allow the Pentagon time to determine which retirees and which disabilities qualify for the new payments (see below) and establish
application procedures (the language passed by the House indicates qualifying retirees will have to apply for the new special compensation).

There will be no phase-in or ramp-up period. Qualifying payments will be paid as of the effective date.

There are two sets of qualifying disabilities, one more complicated than the other.

On the simple side, any qualifying retiree with a disability rating of 10% or higher that is associated with award of a Purple Heart will be eligible for the new special compensation. Under this rule, the special compensation amount will be based on the disability rating awarded for the combat wound, rather than any higher rating the retiree may have been awarded for a different reason.

The other, more complicated, eligibility rule covers retirees awarded disability ratings of 60% or higher for other illnesses/injuries attributable to combat situations, combat-oriented training, hazardous duty, or instrumentalities of war. The legislators based these categories on the Defense Department's current definition of "combat-related" disabilities, as described in DoD Instruction 1332.38. The following is a summary of the descriptions in that Instruction, which presumably will be used to guide DoD eligibility decisions for the new program.

* Direct result of armed conflict: including a war, expedition, occupation of an area or territory, battle, skirmish, raid, invasion, rebellion, insurrection, guerrilla action, riot, or any other action in which Service members are engaged with a hostile or belligerent nation, faction, force, or terrorists.

* While engaged in hazardous service: including, but not limited to, aerial flight duty, parachute duty, demolition duty, experimental stress duty, and diving duty.

* Under conditions simulating war: resulting from military training, such as war games, practice alerts, tactical exercises, airborne operations, leadership reaction courses, grenade and live fire weapons practice, bayonet training, hand-to-hand combat training, rappelling, and negotiation of combat
confidence and obstacle courses (does not include physical training activities, such as calisthenics and jogging or formation running and supervised sports).

* Caused by instrumentality of war (incurrence during a period or war is not required): includes such causes as wounds caused by a military weapon, accidents involving a combat vehicle, injury or sickness caused by fumes, gases, or explosion of military ordinance, vehicles or material. (DoD example: an injury resulting from a fall on the deck of a ship while participating in sports would not normally be covered, since the sport
activity, not the ship, caused the fall. But it would be covered if the operation of the ship caused the fall.)

Clearly, these guidelines allow for some judgment, so it's uncertain how many people may qualify. Different Hill sources have offered estimates ranging from 10,000 to 30,000 eligible retirees, with cost estimates ranging from $4 billion to $9 billion over 10 years. The new Defense Authorization Act specifies that the Pentagon will be responsible for applying the above criteria to determine which VA disability awards qualify for the special
compensation.

In discussing the issue on the House floor, Reps. John Larson (D-CT) and Gene Taylor (D-MS) expressed their concerns about ensuring that conditions related to Agent Orange and the Gulf War Syndrome would be covered. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), who helped negotiate the provision, expressed his belief that
they should be, and expressed his willingness to write a letter to that effect to the Secretary of Defense.

TROA's bottom line: We agree with the Armed Services Committees that the authority outline above is preferable, by far, to the alternative of getting nothing. But it falls far short of what TROA believes is fair, and still leaves many, many thousands of disabled retirees having to pay for their own disability compensation. We intend to track implementation of the new plan closely to ensure the rules are interpreted reasonably, and will continue the fight to expand eligibility.

We would be remiss if we didn't thank those who have led the way in this year's battle: Concurrent receipt champions Rep. Mike Bilirakis (R-FL) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Senate Armed Services Committee leaders Carl Levin (D-MI) and John Warner (R-VA), House Armed Services Committee leaders Bob Stump (R-AZ), Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Ike Skelton (D-MO), and Reps. Jim
Nussle (R-IA) and Charles Bass (R-NH) of the House Budget Committee.

Some form of the current law was on the books for more than a century. Now, with the help of the above-mentioned legislators and many, many others, we have finally established a beachhead and at least have begun to address the inequity in a substantive way.

billr
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Old 11-14-2002, 11:35 AM
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SEATJERKER SEATJERKER is offline
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Default Billr...

...thank you for the "heads up"...

...I'm sure that it's a start in the right direction for those that qualify...

...unfortunate that it doesn't go all the way yet...

...still wish I was able to put in twenty, but, but, but, they didn't want me running things anyway ...
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