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Twelve year old girl has brain tumor removed results in rare condition Tricare and Anthem, will not pay to treat.

The White House this week urged the Senate to support its effort to increase the amount military retirees pay for their health insurance. The current version of the fiscal 2014 Senate Defense authorization bill does not include President Obama’s proposals to impose higher fees and create new enrollment fees for some plans in TRICARE, the military’s massive health insurance program. The White House believes its initiatives would “control the growth of health care costs” at the Defense Department “while keeping retired beneficiaries’ share of these costs well below the levels experienced when the TRICARE program was implemented in the mid-1990s,”...

Military members, retirees and veterans have a few more reasons to be wary of politicians who say their top priority is to cut federal spending. The Congressional Budget Office on Wednesday released a report of more than 100 options for reducing budget deficits. It’s a timely product as House and Senate conferees strive to negotiate by mid-December a new debt-cutting deal to replace automatic budget cuts of sequestration. More than a few of the CBO options are fresh ideas to roll back compensation for categories of veterans or to raise TRICARE fees for military retirees, on suggestions that the government...

Gentlemen; It has now been ten days since typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines causing almost total destruction of Tacloban, Leyte, (and other towns in Leyte), Eastern Samar, (the towns of Guiuan and Basey were severely damaged), Baco City, Oriental Mindoro, towns in the north portion of Cebu, Capiz Province in Panay, and many other areas. On 10 November, 2013 I asked that Tricare provide administrative relief to Tricare beneficiaries residing in the path of typhoon Yolanda/Haiyan. Specifically I asked for a relaxation of rules for providers to be certified, (which is a unique Tricare policy that no other...

<p>One of the most touted benefits of President Obama’s health care overhaul law is the provision allows parents to keep their adult children on their health insurance until age 26.</p> <p>However, Trace Gallagher reported on “The Kelly File” Monday, this benefit is not being extended to a significant group of Americans: members of the U.S. military.</p>

One of the most touted benefits of President Obama’s health care overhaul law is the provision allows parents to keep their adult children on their health insurance until age 26. However, Trace Gallagher reported on “The Kelly File” Monday, this benefit is not being extended to a significant group of Americans: members of the U.S. military.

The firestorm over President Obama's blanket false assurances on Obamacare is only going to intensify, as more groups discover they have lost either their coverage or their doctor thanks to the health insurance changes imposed on the country without a single Republican vote. One of the biggest, yet so far almost completely ignored, changes is the looting of Medicare to pay for Obamacare. Now, it is starting to hit home. Evan Gahr of the New York Daily News recounts a story that will soon become very common among America's senior citizens: Obamacare has a new message to seniors: Take two...

Tricare leaves thousands of beneficiaries without medical providers No, that headline is not hyperbole. It is true. In Angeles City, Philippines the two hospitals that beneficiaries are required to use, and the affiliated specialist at these hospitals, have cancelled their participation in the Tricare Demonstration Project, yet the beneficiaries are still required to use only these same medical providers for their medical care or forfeit reimbursement for their out of pocket cost for that care. Here are the details. On 1 January, 2013 Tricare started a Demonstration Project for beneficiaries in the Philippines. Tricare’s contractor, International SOS, (ISOS), was tasked...

At almost 4 months of age, little Brooks Dillard has spent more than half his short life in the hospital. For the last 8 weeks (as of 8/16/13), he has been at Seattle Children's Hospital. He has been on a ventilator the entire time, has had two major surgeries with another one in his near future. Brooks was born with a very rare congenital heart defect called Double Aortic Arch. Normally, the aorta leaves the heart and branches off to supply the arteries going to the arms and head. One of these branches then turns down to supply the lower...

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...

Politics: A veto of the defense authorization bill is threatened unless the president gets his way. He wants health care insurance premiums and co-pays increased for troops and scheduled military pay raises to be reduced. Being used as photo-ops for presidential speeches and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for your country apparently does not exempt our troops from the rising health care premiums that President Obama said, along with sea levels, would not rise under his administration. The next time a soldier hears "give me 50," it might be dollars and not push-ups. The White House has threatened to...

Priorities: Veterans of the war on terror will be rewarded with higher insurance premiums that favored unions are exempt from. Obama-Care must be served, after all, and that soccer field for Gitmo detainees must be paid for. For the soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and lost their legs from mines and improvised explosive devices, it is bitterly ironic news that detainees at Guantanamo, who helped maim them, will now be kicking around soccer balls at a new $750,000 field that is half the size of an American football field. This comes as the military is bearing the brunt...

Leadership: Lost in his gay marriage flip-flop was the president's claim that our armed forces fight for him, not their country. It was like following his spiking of the football over the Osama bin Laden kill with an end-zone dance. Few caught the revealing Freudian slip during President Obama's interview with Robin Roberts of ABC News in which he said he no longer considered what he described to evangelist Rick Warren in the election year of 2008 as the "sacred union" of marriage to be just between one man and one woman. But there it was, from the lips of...

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.

The military’s managed-care option — TRICARE Prime — will be ended Oct. 1 for retirees, their family members and for military survivors who reside more than 40 miles from a military treatment facility or from a base closure site, TRICARE Management Activity announced Wednesday. Most of these 171,400 beneficiaries will need to shift health coverage from Prime to TRICARE Standard, the military’s fee-for-service health insurance option. For beneficiaries who use more than preventive health care during the year, the shift will mean higher out-of-pocket costs. Defense officials expect the move to save the health care system up to $55 million...

Late-hour speeches by Republican Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and John McCain (Ariz.) on runaway military health costs led the Senate Tuesday to shelve a defense bill amendment that would have spared family members and retirees more burdensome co-pays on drug prescriptions filled off base. The timing of their opposition, in the last hours of consideration of the 2013 defense authorization bill when amendments were only being approved by unanimous consent, allowed Coburn and McCain to block the Senate from supporting the softer House-passed plan for raising prescription fees. There will be a second chance next week when House-Senate conferees iron...

The plan to discourage retirees and families from relying on TRICARE has some support in the Senate. CBO says restricting Prime access to retirees under 65 and their family members would save as much as $10 billion a year. The servicemembers and retirees should be aware that the deal to avoid the “fiscal cliff” is likely to impact their families as much as the sequestration itself.

Starting 1 January, 2013 US Military retirees and their families living in the Philippines will be ordered, (mandated), to use only doctors and hospitals that the Tricare Management Activity, (TMA), and their contractor, International SOS, (ISOS), have contracted with to provide medical care to retirees and their families in the Philippines. This is the roll out of the TMA Demonstration Project in the Philippines. The rules state that all retirees must use only the medical providers, (doctors and hospitals), that ISOS was able to beg to agree to be a contracted network provider. If the retiree uses a doctor or...

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.

The Pentagon is moving ahead with plans to slash its network of Tricare Prime providers, starting by eliminating the Prime option in three states and two cities in the Tricare West region. As of April 1, as many as 30,000 Prime beneficiaries — retirees, Active Guard and Reserve troops, and family members — in Iowa; Minnesota; Oregon; Reno, Nev.; and Springfield, Mo., will have to switch to Tricare Standard, a traditional fee-for-service health plan, according to a source with knowledge of the reorganization. Pentagon officials would not confirm that the five areas will lose Prime in April. The areas lie...