[Vision2020] Tricare Ploy May Backfire

[Tom Hansen]

>From the April 17, 2006 edition of the Army Times -

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Tricare ploy may backfire

David S.C. Chu, the Pentagon's personnel chief, warned April 4 of
potentially dire effects on health care benefits for active-duty members and
families if the Pentagon is not allowed to double and even triple Tricare
fees over the next couple of years for retirees under age 65.

But before anyone buys into this Chicken Little scenario, a bit of
perspective might be useful.

The Pentagon plan is part of a larger effort to hold down the growth of a
defense budget that in 2007 will total about half a trillion dollars - as
much as the defense budgets of all other nations on the planet combined.

Yet the payoff is negligible. The plan to hike Tricare fees for many
retirees would save $11.2 billion over five years, or about $2.2 billion a
year - 0.4 percent of the estimated 2007 defense budget.

In the context of the several hundred billions spent on the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq for which the vast majority of Americans have been
asked to sacrifice nothing, and the routine spectacle of big-ticket weapons
that run tens of billions of dollars over budget without anyone batting an
eye, the Tricare plan is literally a drop in the bucket. 

Ah, but asking Americans to sacrifice a bit more for the war effort than
slapping "support the troops" magnets on their cars, or asking defense
contractors to stop gorging at the public trough, could carry severe
political repercussions. Far easier to stick it to military retirees with
comparatively minimal clout.

The Pentagon's unseemly strategy of playing off retirees against active-duty
members by warning of dire consequences ignores another dangerous long-term
consequence:

Jacking up Tricare fees with an aim to push retirees off the military health
care rolls by driving them to find other health insurance options will, by
definition, devalue military retirement. That, by extension, will reduce the
incentive to complete a 20-year career.

That's bad business for a military in the midst of a war and barely able to
recruit to meet its current needs.

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My advice to the active duty:  Don't get out.  You'll be swept under the
rug, forgotten, and lose what benefits to which you are entitled.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"Patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil
and steady dedication of a lifetime." 

--Adlai E. Stevenson, Jr.