Obama To Cut Healthcare Benefits For Active Duty And Retired US Military

freebeacon.com...

The Obama administration’s proposed defense budget calls for military families and retirees to pay sharply more for their healthcare, while leaving unionized civilian defense workers’ benefits untouched. The proposal is causing a major rift within the Pentagon, according to U.S. officials.

Wow, I thought our elections must be are rigged and he knows he's a shoe-in to do this before and election, but actually the planned change is timed to take place after the election. Wouldn't want to lose any votes because of this issue.

According to congressional assessments, a retired Army colonel with a family currently paying $460 a year for health care will pay $2,048.

Why can't the bloated bureaucracy take a hit instead of the soldiers?

“Would you stay with a car insurance company that raised your premiums by 345 percent in five years? Probably not,” said the congressional aide. “Would anybody accept their taxes being raised 345 percent in five years? Probably not.”

Probably not? Some people have few employment options and will have to bite the financial bullet just to keep their job, putting there lives on the line and getting dumped on by the Commander-in-Chief.

Congressional hearings are set for next month if you want to tell your representatives about it.

this is what obama meant by change. a bad change.

The trend seems to be to raise rates when people become completely dependent on a particular system or company. And $2000+ per year is someone's property taxes or auto insurance for a full year. I suppose reenlistment will be a must if a family is to afford the rising costs of everything.

I think Halliburton should pay for full healthcare benefits for all active duty soldiers. Even if they did that, they'd still clear some ridiculous profits... but all this stuff isn't really about profits now is it?

Its amazing. This is nothing less than organized crime.

Its sad returning servicemen come back and can't find a job or turned away from jobs. And if they are lucky enough to find one, get screwed in the end anyways.

You don't treat anyone like this, especially someone who is doing the dirty work nobody in Washington has the balls to do themselves. Sometimes I think we should round them up and send them on a one way trip vacation to Afghanistan.

I don't agree with this for a second, but it's a cautionary tale.

Be careful what you wish for? You want entitlement cuts? You want government welfare spending to be cut...
Your wish is my command. Don't throw a hissy fit when it doesn't go exactly how you wanted it.

He needs that leg room to give benefits to dead beats!

Obama goal even before becoming President was to take USA off the top of the pedestal, he is nearing the finish. It will fall into the next mans lap

I wonder what all the Active and Retired military men who voted for Obama think about it now? If he's going to do it for the Military he should do it for the Union as well. Why should they get special treatment?

Originally posted by TheOneElectric
I don't agree with this for a second, but it's a cautionary tale.

Be careful what you wish for? You want entitlement cuts? You want government welfare spending to be cut...
Your wish is my command. Don't throw a hissy fit when it doesn't go exactly how you wanted it.

The budget can be massively cut without touching a penny of soldier's benefits.
This is pure disgrace.

Since *OBAMA* is the 'Commander in Chief', so to say, his healthcare benefits should be the first to be cut.

Does any of these 'Obama lovers' still believe this clown is for the good of America? He just messed with his chance to get re-elected if he ever had one.

I can get all reactionary and yell my head off. I can temper tantrum and rage and claim "You're disrespecting America's bravest!"

But what I really want to do is know WHY.

WHY is President Obama proposing these cuts specifically? WHY is Obama proposing cutting health benefits at all? A business makes these kinds of cuts to reduce spending, obviously. So what is this new found money going towards??

WHAT is Obama going to do with this money that it is deemed more valuable than health benefits for Active duty and Retired US Military?

I WANNA KNOW!

Politifact rates this as half-true.

Obama’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2012 increases the overall Veterans Affairs budget by more than 10 percent. The numbers are big: from $53 billion in FY 2010 to almost $59 billion in FY 2012.

It provides new benefits for veterans’ caregivers, including health care and mental health services, and invests nearly $1 billion in VA services for homeless veterans and those at risk of becoming homeless.

The White House pointed us to several examples of how VA services have been beefed up, summed up in a comment Obama made in 2009:

"We dramatically increased funding for veterans' health care: more care for women's veterans, for our wounded warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries," Obama said at a 2009 signing of a bill that funds veterans’ medical care a year in advance.

Separately, PolitiFact has given Obama seven Promise Kept ratings on pledges he made to improve services to veterans, compared with zero Promise Brokens.

Proposed cuts

* A new $200 annual fee for TRICARE for Life recipients. Open to veterans 65 and older, TRICARE for Life pays out-of-pocket expenses not covered by Medicare. This proposed fee is estimated to save approximately $6.7 billion over 10 years, according to the plan.

* Increases in pharmacy co-pays. The plan says "co-payments for military members have lagged behind other federal and private plans. For example, the average co-payment for a costly brand-name drug purchased at a drug store by a federal retiree in the most popular medical plan option is estimated to be $45, compared to $9 for a military retiree."

* Review and reform military retirement benefits. The current system, the plan states, "provides generous benefits to the relatively few members who stay for at least 20 years and no benefits for the roughly 80 percent of service members who stay less than 20 years. To consider reforms the Administration plans to set up a commission to develop recommendations for reforming the current military retirement system." We should add that the president suggests grandfathering in those now serving so that major reforms don’t affect them.

Military.com rates this as a "fair exchange":

TRICARE Prime Enrollment Fees: The NDAA includes a provision (Title VII, Sect 701) which will increase TRICARE Prime enrollment fees for military retirees by the same percentage as the annual retiree Cost-of-living-Adjustment (COLA). This is not big surprise to most and many see this as a fair way to meet the increasing cost of health care. It is a lot easier to take than Sen. McCain’s suggestion to take the benefit away from retirees all together.

(Source: Defense Bill Passes: 2012 Military Pay, TRICARE, and More

Here's the part you won't see mentioned in the right-wing blogosphere - Republicand wanted to remove Tricare completely. Sen. McCain’s suggestion [was to] to take the benefit away from retirees all together.

Now, I'm curious - the conservative bloggers want to cut entitlement programs, but then when Democrats compromise with Republicans on locking in Tricare payments or raising them slightly for retirees, they use it to attack Obama - neglecting to mention it was McCain who led Republicans to try and remove this program entirely. I'll take the military personnel opinion on the matter, it sucks they couldn't get a raise in benefits but at least they still have it. If the GOP had had their way, it would have been gone altogether.

It appears that the increases are to the upper pay grades and the drug coverage is encouraging the use of generics

From a less hair on fire group.

www.govexec.com...

The TRICARE fee increases mean that military retirees in upper-income tiers would see their health care contributions nearly quadruple over the next five years, Defense Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters Monday. “It’s quite generous compensation compared to private sector plans,” Hale said, adding the department could “revisit” the personnel figures -- which make up $135.1 billion of the fiscal 2013 base budget -- if the economy were to improve.

The proposal includes some good news for military families: It provides $48.7 billion for the Defense Unified Medical Budget to support the Military Health System and $8.5 billion to support the “well-being and psychological health of the military family, ensuring excellence in military children’s education and their development, developing career and educational opportunities for military spouses, and increasing child care,” budget documents said.

Wasn't this part of the agreement extorted for the pro forma debt limit increase.

It only takes a minute to find - the less partisan take on this stuff. Try google it is a wonderous tool.

If you're still wondering WHY Obama/Democrats were compelled to raise some Tricare co-payments: It had directly to do with McCain and Republicans efforts to remove the program.

Could Retirees be Forced Off TRICARE Prime? McCain says YES!

November 7, 2011 • Terry Howell

Looking to kick retirees out of TRICARE Prime, Sen. McCain told the 12-member Joint Select Committee on Debt Reduction, that restricting working-age retirees and their families from participating in TRICARE Prime would help them avoid spending cuts that would directly impact readiness.

As Tom Philpott recently reported, McCain was once a champion for expanded TRICARE benefits to retirees. But, he now feels eliminating retiree TRICARE Prime is more acceptable than alternatives to cut equipment, training or key weapon pro*grams needed by the current force.

In addition, McCain supports President Obama’s proposal to set a $200 a year enrollment fee for TRICARE for Life, for military beneficiaries age 65 and older.

If with only TRICARE Standard, retirees would face higher out-of-pockets costs, annual deductibles and cost-sharing requirements. Under TRICARE Standard out-of-pocket costs can’t exceed an annual catastrophic cap. But according to Philpott, the CBO suggests raising that cap of $3000 a year per family to $7500.

In addition the CBO predicts that the number of working-age military retirees using TRICARE would drop form 71 percent to 35 percent they were denied access to TRICARE Prime. The CBO also assumes that retirees would switch to their employer-provided health care option.

Read Tom Philpott’s article to learn more McCain’s proposal to cut TRICARE for Retirees.

Let your elected officials know how you feel about Senator McCain’s proposals.

This is another perfect example of how Obama compromises with Republicans and they criticize him for it in the media. Obama should have told the GOP to go eff themselves and passed the budget he wanted. That $200 enrollment fee all those right-wing blogs/media are lambasting about came straight from McCains proposal.

You guys scream all day for cuts. Well, here are some cuts.

"Obamacare" was in your best interest, FYI. It would have brought costs down for everyone. No one wanted that. So now you get this.

Republicans barking about repealing Obamacare to cheering crowds as of late -- I would bet that 99% of the crowds don't even know what Obamacare EVEN IS.

It's been watered down by our "middle ground" politics to simply be:

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

and the

Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

which are just sets of consumer protections and regulations intended to PROTECT you from getting SCREWED by the health care companies like so many Americans are every day. And to combat the fact that countless people/families go into bankruptcy EVERY DAY over health care issues in America while these FOR-PROFIT (FOR obscene/unbridled, uncapped, free from true competition to limit prices PROFITS) FAT CATS get richer and richer off of people's unfortunate circumstances.

Keep on cheering for them to repeal that nasty "Obamacare" on day one, sheeple! That's not a term I use often, but this issue really calls for it.

Read through the provisions sections of each, and realize how you're being MISLED. Don't even bother replying to me with counterpoints if you don't.

The real title of this thread should be:

McCain Gets His Cut To Healthcare Benefits For Active Duty And Retired US Military

That $200 increase in Tricare copayment came straight from his proposal.

Any chance we can get some sources on this? Forgive me if I don't take to heart the wingnut source that does not give any references in its article.

Lets look at the source in the ops:

Goldfarb is trying to make a name for the Washington Free Beacon, a week-old conservative news site run by the Center for American Freedom, which he chairs.

This is a rag that is run by a certain Michael Goldfarb.

Lets look at him:

Michael Goldfarb is a neoconservate American political writer. He is contributing editor for The Weekly Standard and was a research associate at the Project for the New American Century.

Note the bold letters
This is not just some far right twistacon, he is a research associate for the literal mein kamf of conservatism (the trash outline that speaks of how America should basically take over the middle east and make the entire world kiss america's arse and let us control the entire world resources...amongst other things..hell, that is the more tame part).

So ya..gonna need some actual sources..not just a pointer to rush limbaugh's evil twin as the end all/be all of this discussion.
The best way to push a lie is cut it with 70% truth

One issue I have with the current obamacare model.
The more you involve government, the higher the prices..thats pretty much across the board

Consider the 300 dollar hammer...if the government comes to you and says they want to buy stuff, people tend to jack the price up to the sky, because the government has no oversight into the commerce...therefore, the order of purchase is given, and it doesn't matter the price, the government will purchase.

There needs to be lots of oversight and "corruption police"...price shopping..if they are going to push their fingers into something like healthcare, they need to do it as a corporation that demands the best bang for the buck, and not some legislation that auto-purchases something without concern for market value.

So let me get this straight. I could enlist in the service, serve my country for 10 years, suffer massive injury doing so, lose the use of my right eye and have 1 of my lungs that works at 30% plus live with constant headaches and neck pain, just so this POS of a president and the rest of his elitist buddies in DC can cut my benefits so that they could afford to support more dead-beats and send more billions to foreign nations? Just like how we were sending Pakistan 500 billion a year in foreign aid while all along they were intentionally hiding OBL in their country. Not to mention the long list of other nations that hate us that we send billions to.

I don't see any of these elitist assholes in DC going without the best in healthcare, not to mention when they leave office they get their full pay every year for the rest of their lives. Was my service to my country not worth a mere 35k a year for the rest of my life?

You know what I say to this? phk Obama, phk DC and phk the new America. I want my country back, the one I grew up reading about in history books, the America where we had a government that served the people of America, not the people of the world. The America that honored and respected those who had risked all and gave all to defend this great nation. The America that built our nation and made it stronger through American Exceptionalism and was proud of that exceptionalism, not the America that apoligizes to the world for being a country that was exceptional because we not only had exceptional people but because we had an exceptional government that allowed people to be exceptional.

This is an absolute shame. Shame on Obama, shame on DC, and shame on America for allowing this to happen.