[Vision2020] Tricare Fee Hike Now May Save Big Hit Later

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of the February 28, 2011 edirion of the Army Times.

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Tricare fee hike now may save big hit later

After a two-year lull, the fight over Tricare fees is on again.

In one corner is Defense Secre­tary Robert Gates, who wants to raise fees
for working-age retirees by a modest $2.50 to $5 a month and set the stage
for annual increases to follow.

In the other is Congress, which has rejected three prior proposals by
Gates to get retirees to bear a bigger share of the Pentagon’s soaring
health care costs.

To date, the stance of military advocacy groups and their closest allies
in Congress has been that no increases in health care costs are acceptable
for men and women who were promised “free health care for life.” But this
might the best chance military advocates get to secure an affordable
increase in health care costs. Blocking it would set the stage for more
dire actions in the future, when urgency will dictate much bigger
increases than Gates pro­poses today.

His plan would:

■ Raise enrollment fees in 2012 for 586,000 working-age retirees
enrolled in Tricare Prime by about 13 percent — $5 per month for family
coverage, $2.50 per month for individual coverage.

After 2012, fees would be indexed to the medical inflation rate, lock­ing
in annual increases.

■ Eliminate co-pays for generic drug prescriptions filled through
the Tricare Mail-Order Pharmacy, and raise the co-pay on drugs obtained at
local retail pharma­cies to $5 from $3 for generics and to $12 from $9 for
brand-name drugs. The co-pay for brand-name drugs through mail order would
stay the same at $9.

It’s true that the enrollment fee would rise further in future years, and
that’s not to be taken lightly.

But Tricare fees could increase 800 percent before they approached the
level of comparable civilian health plans. With the wars wind­ing down and
the nation’s finances in crisis, Congress won’t ignore that fact for long.

The average civilian pays between $2,000 and $4,000 in annual deductibles
and another $4,000 in annual premiums for family health coverage. By
con­trast, Tricare’s annual decuctibles top out at $300 and annual
enroll­ment fees are $460.

Military health care costs now top $50 billion a year and are growing so
fast that they’re eat­ing into funds available to pay for troops and
equipment. One way or another, money must be found to secure the nation’s
defense. So the pressure to control health care costs — either through
reduced benefits or by shifting costs to beneficiaries — will only
increase.

Locking in a mod­est hike now along with modest infla­tionary increases in
the future takes this issue off the table and eliminates the likelihood
that Congress and a future administration might triple or quadruple rates
later on.

For years, free or nearly free health care has been a key mili­tary
benefit, provided at least in part to make up for the sub-par wages troops
were paid for much of the past 50 years.

Today, however, military pay is highly competitive — and it’s harder to
make a case that active and retired troops should get health care at
little or no cost.

Indeed, asking military families to pay a modest enrollment fee for
Tricare akin to what working-age retirees must pay would be anoth­er solid
step toward ensuring the long-term viability of Tricare as a benefit.

No one wants to pay more. But paying a little more now so you don’t have
to pay a lot more later is what insurance is all about.

Carrying that metaphor a step further, accepting this deal is like buying
insurance against future catastrophic increases.

Blocking the increase could set the stage for more dire action

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As an Army retiree, I have no problem with having to pay increased fees
for my, and my wife's, health care.  But . . .

HANDS OFF adopting increased health care costs to active duty service
members.

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown