TriCare and the VA should be eliminated.
Veterans should be able to go anywhere for medical services at anytime. Give them a special healthcare card and let them choose their own doctors and care.
We treat welfare recipients better than veterans and their families.
I could not agree more.
My experience with TRICARE is exceptional.
“Veterans should be able to go anywhere for medical services at anytime.”
While I appreciate everyone’s military service - and I also served, this is a ridiculous suggestion.
I don’t have a problem with extended care for combat-injured vets, but that’s a small segment. The military medical system (and certainly the VA) is essentially socialized medicine, but to be fair, it was never advertised as anything more than that, and you know it.
Traditional military benefits/pension/medical after 20 years of service is not something that will survive in the long-term.
I know what the government “promised” - but taxpayers cannot and will not pay for military/federal/state/local retirees and welfare recipients “promised” benefits and do without medical coverage themselves in order to pay the taxes to pay for it.
Nobody feels sorry for the taxpayer, when they want something from the government.
Retirees of all kinds should get used to paying for the things that they need, government “promises” notwithstanding.
According to the Navy Times, Army Times they already have ADDED BIG NEW FEES. The fee increases were announced on Sept. 30 and took effect on Oct. 1, but the defense bill, HR 2647, includes a provision barring any fee increases until the start of fiscal 2011. We are talking about $7,000 per couple...not small change.
THIS IS NOT PART OF OBAMACARE but a 2008 DOD BILL!
MILITARY & Retired MILITARY
TRI CARE FOR LIFE This from a google search:
http://economicspolitics.blogspot.com/2009/05/tricare-for-life-is-obama-trying-to.html
Option 96 pg 187
This option would help reduce the costs of TFL, as well as costs for Medicare, by introducing minimum out-of pocket requirements for beneficiaries. Under this option, TFL would not cover any of the first $525 of an enrollee’s cost-sharing liabilities for calendar year 2011 and would limit coverage to 50 percent of the next $4,725 in Medicare cost sharing that the beneficiary incurred. (Because all further cost sharing would be covered by TFL, enrollees could not pay more than $2,888 in cost sharing in that year.) http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9925/12-18-HealthOptions.pdf
Impact of Medicare Reimbursement Rate Decrease on TRICARE
http://www.tricare.mil
On March 3, Congress passed emergency legislation delaying the 21.2 percent decrease in Medicare reimbursement rates for an additional 30 days. The TRICARE Management Activity greatly appreciates Congress’ swift action as it allowed more time to fully evaluate the impact the decrease in Medicare reimbursement rates will have on the TRICARE program.
Whatever the outcome, TRICARE will take at least 30 days to fully understand the impact on TRICARE and take appropriate action. While federal law requires TRICARE reimbursement rates to be equal to Medicare rates to the extent practical, the law does permit TRICARE to make exceptions to ensure an adequate network of providers or to eliminate a situation of severely impaired access to care.
More information about this legislation and its impact on TRICARE will be posted on the TRICARE.mil website as soon as it becomes available.
Congress plans to block Tricare fee increases (same article both news outlets.)
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_tricarefees_blocked_100709w
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/10/military_tricarefees_blocked_100709w/
By Rick Maze - Staff writer, Oct 7, 2009
Tricare fee increases imposed last week by the Defense Department will be repealed by a provision of the compromise 2010 defense authorization bill unveiled Wednesday by House and Senate negotiators.
The fee increases were announced on Sept. 30 and took effect on Oct. 1, but the defense bill, HR 2647, includes a provision barring any fee increases until the start of fiscal 2011.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bill Matz, president of the National Association for Uniformed Services, said the announcement of fee increases was shocking considering that the Obama administration promised earlier this year to hold off on any new fee Tricare fee increases until fiscal 2011.
“President Obama and DOD assured NAUS and the entire military family earlier this year that there would rightly be no increases in any Tricare fees” in fiscal 2010, Matz said. We took them at their word, and I can’t believe that a co-pay increase like this was allowed to go forward,” he added.