Senior Defense officials defended their plan to raise Tricare Prime fees modestly for working-age retirees at a Tuesday hearing of the House armed services subcommittee on military personnel.
The next day, representatives of military associations testified. Five of them, including one who spoke on behalf of 13 other groups, too, said they could accept what would be the first Tricare fee increases in 16 years. The same groups could accept annual adjustments to these fees if the inflation index used were the same one used to set retiree cost-of-living raises.
Every beneficiary advocate at the hearing, however, rejected the Obama administration’s call to adjust retiree Tricare Prime fees based solely on medical cost inflation. Defense officials haven’t picked the particular health cost index they want. But their budget savings assume fees would rise by an average of 6.2 percent a year if tied to medical inflation.
At this hearing, only the National Association of Uniformed Services said Congress should “hold the line” on any Tricare fee increases. Rick Jones of the association charged Defense officials with conducting a public relations campaign to blame retirees for the dramatic rise in health costs over the last decade, when the true culprit has been sustained warfare.
After the hearing a Department of Defense spokeswoman, Cynthia Smith, reiterated that the three biggest factors contributing to health cost growth in the last decade have been: introduction of the Tricare for Life benefit for elderly retirees; higher Tricare usage in part because more retirees use Tricare instead of employer health insurance, and overall health care inflation.
Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., subcommittee chairman, said a few months ago that he would oppose any Tricare fee increases. He did not repeat that pledge in these hearings. Most other panel members echoed the conditional support of beneficiary groups toward the slightly higher fees and indexing.
Wilson was far more upset by the surprise appointment of John Baldacci, former governor of Maine, to lead a new comprehensive review of military health care from inside the Pentagon.
If Baldacci is interested in health care efficiencies, Wilson said at one point, he should immediately step down and save the department $200,000 — his salary of $165,300 a year and Wilson’s best guess on his expenses.
“We don’t need a health care czar,” Wilson said. “We have veterans service organizations that can provide this information” about needed reforms. “And this is not the government’s money. This is taxpayers money … being diverted from the military health care system.”
Baldacci was a four-term congressman before becoming governor in 2003. In January 2011 he completed his second term. Baldacci did not serve in the military or on the armed services committee. He did establish a comprehensive health care reform system in Maine, which has been extolled by the left and criticized by the right. He also was the second governor to sign a gay marriage law, and the first to do so without a court order.
The Department of Defense made no official announcement of his appointment as director of its Military Health Care Reform Initiative. Maine reporters published the first stories on it last week. As governor, they said, Baldacci was paid $70,000 a year. His Department of Defense appointment is for one year “with an option to extend if necessary.”
“This is a temporary project where he will review, evaluate, assess and make recommendations” on health reform to Clifford Stanley, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, Smith said. “His leadership, executive and legislative experience will deeply enhance this initiative.”
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