Military Update: TRICARE Fees, Retiree COLA
Key Senators Back TRICARE Fees; Retiree COLAs Return
Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and John McCain (Ariz.), its ranking Republican, endorse President Obama’s call to establish next year a $200 enrollment fee on TRICARE for Life (TFL), the prized supplement to Medicare for 2.1 million elderly military retirees, their spouses and survivors.
These influential senators made their views known on TRICARE changes and other defense budget issues in separate letters to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. The so-called “super committee” of 12 lawmakers faces a Nov. 23 deadline to recommend to the full Congress a plan to trim the nation’s massive debt by $1.5 trillion over a decade.
The first-ever TLF fee would climb to $295 in 2013 and, under the president’s plan, would be raised annually thereafter to keep pace with health care inflation. Levin, however, wrote that annual adjustments should match the percentage increase in enrollment fees to TRICARE Prime, the managed care option. And both the House and Senate versions of the 2012 defense bill would raise Prime fees in the future, for working-age retirees only, by the percentage increase given retirees as cost-of-living adjustments.
And now… the rest of the story. …..
Harold
