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EXPECT A TRICARE FEE HIKE -- The
Pentagon-appointed
Task Force on the Future of Military Health
will endorse
higher TRICARE fees, deductibles and
co-payments
for under-65 retirees.
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http://www.honoluluadvertiser.
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528/NEWS08/705280317/1018/NEWS
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Expect a Tricare fee hike
By Tom Philpott
The Pentagon-appointed Task Force on the Future of Military Health will
endorse higher Tricare fees, deductibles and co-payments for under-65
retirees and their families in an interim report to Congress this week.
It also will back other key features of the Tricare "reform" package
first proposed last year by the Department of Defense. These include:
# Raising beneficiary co-payments on prescriptions filled in the Tricare
retail pharmacy network.
# Indexing Tricare fees and deductibles so that automatic annual
adjustments keep them in step with rising healthcare costs.
# Establishing tiers for the new Tricare fee structure so retirees with
bigger annuities pay more for their coverage and retirees with smaller
annuities pay less.
The task force will propose that the higher Tricare fees and deductibles
be set so that, when fully phased in, they are no more burdensome for
retirees than fee levels set in 1996 when Tricare was launched.
The task force favors periodic adjustments to Tricare's catastrophic
cap, the maximum amount of out-of-pocket expenses beneficiaries face in
any given year. The present cap is $1,000 for active-duty families and
$3,000 for other Tricare-eligible families. The original Defense
Department plan would have left the caps unchanged.
Co-chaired by economist Gail R. Wilensky and Air Force Vice Chief of
Staff Gen. John D.W. Corley, the 14-member task force outlined its
interim recommendations Wednesday at a public meeting of the Defense
Health Board.
The task force's interim recommendations fall into four areas, two of
which directly would affect beneficiary cost shares: higher retail drug
co-pays and higher Tricare fees. More details will be released in
December.
The task force wants Tricare fees realigned for under-65 retirees so
they are more "fair" to taxpayers yet still recognize retirees' "years
of demanding service" to the nation, she said.
To soften the blow of higher fees and of indexing them to inflation,
Wilensky said, Congress could consider a one-time increase in military
retirement pay, if deemed appropriate. But Wilensky suggested it is past
time to begin to reverse the ever-widening cost differential for
healthcare paid by working-age military retirees versus other American
workers.
Steve Strobridge, co-chairman of The Military Coalition, an umbrella
group of service and veterans associations, urged the task force during
the meeting's public comment period not to ignore factors that might
have skewed the cost of military healthcare since 1996. For example, in
measuring Defense Department cost growth compared to fee levels, he
said, the task force should consider the downsizing and closing of many
base hospitals and the cost today of sending military doctors to war.
Because of those factors, he said, many more beneficiaries are compelled
to get more costly care from Tricare civilian providers.
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Larry Scott --
