An assumption in the Department of Defense’s 2008 budget request that $1.9 billion will be saved by raising military retirees’ Tricare fees next year “poisons the water” for the work of the Task Force on the Future of Military Healthcare, says a key lawmaker.
The projected savings will reinforce a belief among retiree advocates that the task force is stacked and ready to meet Defense Department cost-cutting targets, said U.S. Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., the new chairman of the House armed services’ subcommittee on military personnel.
Snyder leveled that complaint at Dr. William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, during a hearing Tuesday on the proposed fiscal 2008 defense health budget.
“It was not our intent to poison the water in any way,” Winkenwerder replied. “I hope that’s not the case.”
However, the $1.9 billion hole left in the defense health budget, he added, should be viewed by Congress as a sign of how committed defense leaders, especially military leaders, are to slowing retiree health costs.
Retiree advocates are understandably angry and even task force leaders are “very concerned,” Snyder said.
“The budget is saying flat out a recommendation will be made (by) a task force whose final report doesn’t come out until December of this year,” said Snyder. “Some of us think that’s not very appropriate.”
Winkenwerder denied that the task force had been stacked with those who support raising fees for military retirees. Yet he also expressed confidence that task force recommendations will be endorsed by his department and urged they be given serious consideration by Congress. Recommendations to control costs are expected to be in an interim task force report due in May.
Senior defense officials and top military officers, some of whom serve on the task force, made clear last year that they want fees, deductibles and co-payments raised sharply for retirees under age 65, their spouses or survivors. The aim is to slow what they perceive as out-of-control health care spending that is encroaching on other defense budget priorities.
Snyder said he has advised task force leaders to ignore the projected savings and just “do your business. It’s not the expectation of Congress that … your goal is to buy the recommendations of (last) year.”
Interviewed after the hearing, Snyder said last year’s proposed Tricare fee increases, even if endorsed by the task force, “aren’t going to happen.” They simply are too steep to be acceptable, he said.
But Snyder doesn’t rule out including some Tricare fee increases in the 2008 defense bill if the task force quickly endorses reasonable changes.
“If they come back with specific recommendations in a way that can have a timely impact on this year’s defense bill, of course we will embrace them if we can, and (if we) agree with them. But I don’t want them to feel any obligation to fulfill this ($1.9 billion savings target) in the president’s budget. That line shouldn’t have been there,” said Snyder.
To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111, e-mail milupdate@aol.com or go to www.militaryupdate.com.
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