USDR Legislative Update
Date: January 17, 2007
Tricare fee hikes needed, task force is told
By Gordon Lubold - Staff writer
A new task force charged with looking at the future of military health
care
may help the Pentagon to do what it failed to do last year: convince an
unreceptive Congress to increase some fees for Tricare users in order to
keep the military medical system whole. The Task Force on the Future of
Military Healthcare, mandated by Congress, had its first substantive
meeting
Tuesday, during which its 14 members were briefed on the issues
confronting
the Defense Department's health care system.
Senior Pentagon officials gave the task force an earful. The prognosis for
the health care system is grim, said David S.C. Chu, the Pentagon's
personnel chief, unless higher fees
- which would be aimed mostly at "working age" retirees, those under age
65 - aren't implemented, and soon. The Pentagon is already trying to
increase efficiencies within the system and implement better business
practices to save money. But that won't do it alone, Chu told the group.
"It's our conclusions that the current business practices do not lead to a
sustainable benefit over the long term," he said If Congress doesn't allow
the Pentagon to "rebalance" the ratio of costs paid by the department and
by
beneficiaries, and charge beneficiaries more for the services they use,
then
the health care that all military members and dependents receive will
suffer, he said.
Last March, Chu said the percentage of health care costs covered by
beneficiaries had shrunk from 27 percent in 1995 to a current level of
about
12 percent. At that time, the Pentagon was putting forth an ambitious
program to fix the long-term viability of the Tricare program, considered
by
defense officials to be one of the best health care programs in the
nation.
The thrust of the proposal was to increase some Tricare enrollment fees
and
deductibles
for retirees under age 65. Defense officials argued that the fee structure
has not been significantly changed in more than a decade - even as health
care costs have consistently shot upward - and that the only way to
continue
offering a high level of service is to make those changes.
But the plan drew sharp criticism from both Republicans and Democrats on
Capitol Hill, who did not want to tinker with fees, and the proposal was
dropped. Chu acknowledged that politics played a role in the Pentagon's
failure to articulate its message properly, and that they had introduced
the
proposal at an already fractious time in national politics, as debate
raged
about the war in Iraq.
"There was a deep reluctance to make a change," Chu said. Pentagon
officials
won't acknowledge if they'll be back again with a similar proposal when
President Bush's fiscal 2008 defense budget is released Feb. 5. But if so,
the task force, which Chu said can play a role in building consensus on
this
and other issues, may help grease the skids in Congress. For now, the
group
is simply learning the challenges facing the Pentagon, members said.
The group will meet again Feb. 6.
Noel Pritzl
Web Site Director, USDR
(931) 648-4292
Angler88@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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