Free Republic

The Pentagon is downsizing or closing 50 medical clinics, including 12 on Air Force bases, in a move the department says will “increase the readiness of our operational and medical forces.” But the change will also force families and retirees away from some USAF facilities and into TRICARE civilian providers. The Fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act called on the Pentagon to analyze its hospital and clinic footprint, and the department screened 343 facilities inside the United States. Of those, 77 were selected for additional assessments and 50 ultimately chosen for “restructuring.” The majority of those facilities will transition from...

The Obama administration is threatening to veto the 2014 defense authorization bill unless health care insurance premiums and co-pays are increased, Investor's Business Daily said Wednesday. The administration also wants to reduce the proposed 1.8 percent pay increase for military personnel. According to the Army Times, the administration says the bill is "too generous with military pay" and not generous enough for civilian employees. The administration only wants to give service members a one percent raise. "A 1.8 percent increase would keep pace [with] the average increase last year in private sector salaries, while the 1 percent raise would create...

On April 1, 2013, the TRICARE West Region contract will transition to and be managed by United Healthcare Military & Veterans (UHC M&V). To make sure you understand the timing and key information about the TRICARE transition, visit the TriWest Transition Update Center.

In an effort to cut defense spending, the Obama Administration plans to cut health benefits for active duty and retired military personnel and their families while not touching the benefits enjoyed by unionized civilian defense workers. The move, congressional aides suggested, is to force those individuals into Obamacare, Bill Gertz reported at the Washington Beacon. Gertz added: The proposed increases in health care payments by service members, which must be approved by Congress, are part of the Pentagon’s $487 billion cut in spending. It seeks to save $1.8 billion from the Tricare medical system in the fiscal 2013 budget, and...

COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama began and ended his State of the Union address in January by heaping lavish praise upon the men and women of the military. He used words like "courage, selflessness and teamwork" to describe their ability to bravely accomplish each mission he set for them. The war in Iraq is over. Osama bin Laden is dead. Troops are coming home from Afghanistan. So now -- in a show of thanks -- the president wants to gradually triple their Tricare premiums. Tricare, according to its website, "is the health care program serving Uniformed Service members, retirees and...

VFW WASHINGTON WEEKLY April 9, 2010 In This Issue: 1. National Healthcare Update 2. VFW Urges Passage of S. 1963 3. Korean War MIA Identified 1. National Healthcare Update: The VFW continues to lead the fight to ensure all DOD and VA healthcare programs are recognized as meeting minimum essential coverage standards under the new national healthcare law, but we still need your help. Congress reconvenes next week and it is imperative that they pass two bills to protect the integrity and viability of all DOD and VA healthcare programs. VFW is asking members, families and friends to contact their...

Quite an explosive leak! I wonder how this will affect things? It is certainly a thuggish and dangerous thing for Obama to play with National Security over this craptacular idea of socialized medicine. Quite a desperate move. According to a Senate aide, the White House is now threatening to put Nebraska’s Offutt Air Force Base on the BRAC list if Nelson doesn’t fall into line. Offutt Air Force Base employs some 10,000 military and federal employees in Southeastern Nebraska. As our source put it, this is a “naked effort by Rahm Emanuel and the White House to extort Nelson’s vote.”...

SAN FRANCISCO -- If John McCain is elected president, wounded veterans could be in for a world of hurt. On the campaign trail, the Republican's presumptive nominee has talked of a new mission for the Department of Veterans Affairs, suggesting that veterans with noncombat medical problems be given vouchers to receive care at private, for-profit hospitals. In other words, McCain is seeking to cut off the kind of universal health care that the government has guaranteed to veterans for generations. "We need to relieve the burden on the VA from routine health care," McCain told the National Forum on Disability...

Rising medical costs and the expansion of health benefits for retirees, Guardsmen and Reservists, and their families, are putting a strain on the military health care system, Defense Department health and personnel officials told members of Congress April 21. "Rising health care costs are not unique to the military health system; it's a national concern, and we are struggling with it," Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said in testimony before the personnel subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee. David S. C. Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, also testified at the...

CHICAGO, Dec 21 (Reuters) - A rare and sometimes deadly pneumonia has hit 18 U.S. soldiers deployed in Iraq, and Army medical investigators are at a loss to explain the cause, according to a study published on Tuesday. In a report appearing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the Walter Reed Army Medical Center said two of the soldiers had died from the rare illness, called acute eosinophilic pneumonia, or AEP. No common source was found for the outbreak that occurred between March 2003 and March 2004 among the soldiers in Iraq. The study covered only...

WASHINGTON -- Mark Ammend of Collierville can't talk about it now. The former fire chief for the 164th Air National Guard unit based at Memphis International Airport got vaccinated against anthrax five years ago. Now, as he lies in a specially designed bed, the only thing he can move is his left eye. Fully conscious and aware, Ammend, 55, is a quadriplegic with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease. A new book suggests he and many other soldiers immunized against anthrax during the 1991 Gulf War and since are suffering auto-immune diseases after receiving an illegal chemical adjuvant...

WASHINGTON -- For the second time in a year, a federal judge ordered the military Wednesday to stop requiring anthrax vaccines for U.S. military personnel. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan said the Food and Drug Administration violated its own procedures when it gave final approval to the vaccine last year because it failed to give the public an adequate opportunity to comment. "The men and women of our armed forces deserve the assurance that the vaccines our government compels them to take into their bodies have been tested by the greatest scrutiny of all -- public scrutiny," Sullivan said....