Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Posted on 12/24/2014 11:05:49 AM PST by NKP_Vet
Yeah, who didn’t see this coming; budget experts at the Pentagon say that the Department of Defense could save butt loads of money if they forced military retirees into Obamacare. We know that, but it’s not keeping faith with veterans who fulfilled their obligations depending on the government to keep their end up. From the Army Times;
[T]he budget analysts said the Defense Department could realize tremendous savings if it tapped into the resources offered by the general, civilian health care system and coverage available through federal or state exchanges.
“It’s a little radical, but should we be thinking about how some of the military system might transition some of their people to the Affordable Care Act exchanges, especially in sparsely populated areas of the country?” said Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget who now serves as a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution.
Some of you told me that I was crazy when I warned about this in 2008 before the election. There was a reason that they pumped so much money into the VA, so they could drive us away from Tricare. The Obama Administration claimed that they wanted to make healthcare cheaper for the entire country when they introduced Obamacare – well, everyone except veterans.
John Mayer, a military health and energy analyst with Booz Allen Hamilton, added the Pentagon should be under no obligation to continue providing “free health” care to those who have retired from military service and have access to health care either through their employers or the Affordable Care Act.
“Having a program where they can go in and get free health care, and do it as often as they want seems to be a burden that the American public shouldn’t have to bear,” Mayer said, speaking of the military retiree population who uses Tricare.
I absolutely challenge him to say the same about Medicaid or Medicare. Some of us made life decisions based on promises that the government had no intention to keep.
Maybe you realized it, but I was joking about “free” health care. When people use the phrase “free health care” on this conservative site, it usually comes with heavy dose of sarcasm.
You’re exactly right about Vermont giving up. If even a wealthy, well-educated state like Vermont cannot afford socialism, why should anywhere else?
I wish more people would say NO! to Obamacare too. “Free” care in Vermont is an epic disaster, but the trained Obama seals still love socialized medicine on the national scale.
If the Fools on the Hill can’t repeal 0bamafraud, they should be forced to be covered by/in it.
but...the retired military?????? I never, ever want to go there! (retiree’s widow)
sorry it was a joke. I do not think that vets (and widows) should move to Vermont. The state is a socialized medicine disaster.
Oh that didn’t bother me! You go ahead and joke anytime! I was shuddering because our imperial government really does want to absorb the retirees medical care into Obamacare.
thanks for the nice story!
We tend to see civilian doctors unless the injury or illness is service related.
The VA tends not to like this and harasses us to have our PCP be at the VA and refuses to make appointments for SRC unless we see a VA PCP every year.
I didn’t know that. I don’t think I’m eligible though because I’m a dependent.
Hey Dumba**! We don't get "free health care". Not even at the VA.
We have co-pays and out of pocket expenses. Even if we are on TriCare Prime we have to pay extra to be in that program.
Good. I wouldn’t want to be seen there! Besides, I see so many doctors, all sorts of specialties. They’d throw me out anyway. haha
I was once a consultant for a defense contractor much Like BAH. Here's how it works.
DoD hires consultants and outside "experts" to conduct studies to justify decisions they've already made. That way, they distance themselves from the bloodshed.
If DoD really wanted veterans to fly to the moon to get healthcare, I promise you there would be some defense contractor conducting an extensive and exhaustive study that would conclude that it is the best possible policy.
Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES would an employee of a high-powered consulting firm like BAH make such statements, particularly to the press, unless it was sanctioned by the client, in this case DoD.
First move all of Congress, their families, the staffers and all the alphabet agencies to O care without ANY additional financial payment. So it will be more like the rest of us peons.
The reason that the military is being moved to Obamacare is to give the healthcare political industrial complex another set of assets to tap:
• Just read Priceless by John Goodman. It explains how we are going to bleed.
Here is an email
I wrote him: This is a letter I wrote the author :
ME: I am reading your book Priceless By John Goodman and enjoying it. It is thoughtful. I am an older women with income property investments, own my own home, I work in health care, part time as a private practitioner and part time in a large healthcare complex.
One thing that seems clear about the current health care debacle is the control the health care industrial complex and the government will have over my assets. And there seems to be no way around it. Tell me if I am wrong to believe this. It will help me sleep at night.
I am being told that I must have Medicare and an insurance overlay or pay penalties. I pay extra for the overlay. If for some reason I cannot pay for the overlay, and require care I will be put on Medicaid, and given care and my assets forfeited to the state/healthcare complex.
Now I understand that this has been a way to manage folks with small assets, in our community giving a house to the town for taxes and bills has been common for years. Our towns use to let the elderly live in their houses until after the death, then foreclose.
However the current combination of insurers, healthcare entities, and government can provide a very different picture. The government has opened a window to previously untapped assets, older people who have previously been able to cover their healthcare insurance, keep their assets intact and provide a boost for the next generation.
It seems to me that all the government/insurer axis needs to do is change the insurance price point depending on the financial needs of the insurer or healthcare institution. Less people able to afford, more assets turned over.
The other part, is how prices in healthcare do not reflect reality but instead, a very unrealistic and non market based assumption. I see it in my own pricing for services in the market.
Now I am not opposed to paying for my own healthcare, but I damned sure refuse to be subjected to or pay unrealistic, manipulated and dictated prices, which affects everything from equipment, prescriptions and services.
Both these issues combine to provide a perfect storm of assets to be sucked out of the middle class. I would really like your opinion here. You have a reasoned free market perspective. You are also a good writer, rare in economics. Thank you for your time.
JGoodman: You have provided a very good description
of both problems.
ME: And my attorney tells me that there is no way to shield my assets from the government/medical/industrial complex. Very painful to hear.
Some consumers take themselves out of the market with healthcare medical bill sharing, I could do that and if they will have me, that will probably be my choice. I am not sure that the complex’s reach won’t make that a futile gesture though.
Thank you for confirming what I have tried to talk to people about to no avail.
Interesting that my acquaintance who has lives a rather dissolute life, who never paid off anything including her student loans, owes tons on her house, with a low payment, will be able to keep her house, and I would lose mine. Painful.
Retirees say as one “Sexual penetration be upon you, and upon the President, and upon the horses you rode in on.”
(H/T to Rush Limbaugh’s late caller Mick from the High Mountains of New Mexico for that line.)
I’m sure we have just seen the small tip of the “Shaft” that the left has waiting for us.
It’s all about money, they need more to pay for all the social programs. As you know “free stuff” cost the working person big bucks.
They must even out the playing field and we the military do not have anyone that will fight for us.
So we are free game to tax and pay our “fair share” to get medical treatment that was a basic part of our enlistment contract.
That is why I say I support “Term Limits”
One term in office, Two terms in Jail!!
:-)
What I don’t understand, more than anything else is the lack of response to this post. More older people than ever will lose everything to a manipulated market that feeds elites, leftists, and illegals.
Conservative response? Yawn.
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