Posted on 08/11/2010 7:35:42 PM PDT by submarinerswife
Defense Secretary Robert Gates' vow to shut a major military command and eliminate thousands of contractor jobs to plug a "gusher of defense spending" will do little to reduce the Pentagon budget but will prove a breeze compared with cutting military health care costs.
Military analysts, including several who met privately with Gates this week, said that the uproar from Virginia officials over the closing of the U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) in Norfolk and the firing of defense contractors in the Washington suburbs will pale next to the national umbrage expected when it's time to tackle personnel costs.
"There are no sacred cows," Gates told reporters. "Everybody knows that we're being eaten alive by health care." Noting that military health care will cost $50 billion in 2011 and will rise to $65 billion by 2015, he said, "It's unsustainable, and therefore it has to be a part of our effort."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announces his effort to strip billions from the Pentagon budget during a news conference at the Pentagon on Monday.
Good luck with that.
(Excerpt) Read more at aolnews.com ...
This comes at a tme when my Husband just put in his retirement papers.
If this is true, HOW...IN...THE...HELL...IS...OBAMACARE...EVER...GOING...TO...WORK?
It is not. It is not designed or supposed to work. It is a back door way to get rid of [kill] the elderly and infirm.
I am surprised it is that low. I don’t know what he was including but right before he got canned Rumsfeld told an audience I was in that healthcare was costing $85 billion that year. Maybe he was including VA or something.
Dear Sec Gates, My friend, MSGT “Kill’em All” Kelly, says: “If you mess with my bennies it’s freaking war! I got two holes in me from the “slopes” and I want my bennies for my family and me.”
I hope the SECDEF is reading Brother Kelly’s comment!
And just wait until the pro-gay CHOICE crowd repeals Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and all the perverts want a sex change and more from the repeal of the policy and then they have to work in the extra STD vaccines and work with HIV and ARV drugs....hmmmmm.
So if there are 1 million on active duty, this comes out to $65,000 per person? Am I doing the math right?
They are protecting union healthcare and retirement benefits but going to cut retired military benefits? Wow.
I’m with you on that.....
I spent twenty-two years in the Air Force and came to three basic observations with TRICARE and the military’s version of healthcare. First, drug cost took up a fair amount of what they pay out. The newest and greatest typically got pushed out and then replaced after five years by the next generation of the newest and greatest. Second, approximately sixty percent of what folks have as a problem...could be seen by a nurse practitioner or physicians assistant (not a full-up doctor). Everyone has convinced themselves that we must have a vast majority of full-up doctors, when it’s simply not true. Third and final: there’s this growing number of folks over sixty-five and on ten different types of drugs...which are given out like candy and you can’t be sure that they aren’t hurting you more than helping you by this “mix”.
Elections have consequences.
Negative. Only ~40% of the officer corps, and a much smaller % of the elisted side stay to at least 20 and receive retirement entitlements.
My counter arguement to Sec Gates would be that my retiree TRICARE does not in fact cost $38 a month. It costs at a minimum 20 years of late nights, long days, sand, sun, misery, absence from family, and oh yeah, occasionally giving some bonehead the chance to play lead tag with you.
By the way, as I recall, those who are currently retiring stayed in during the go-go 90s economy when there “was no threat”, the DoD budget got axed, and their peers bailed to get an MBA and air conditioning.
No Sec. Gates, with respect, my retirement $$ are not “benefits” like a welfare queen receives, but in fact delayed compensation for doing what others did not care to do.
PS - if my wife continues to recieve pay after she is a widow, its because I paid ~5.5% of my retirement check each month to SPB, an annuity program.
PPS - FWIW, in 1993 I was offered a 100% medical discharge. Ok, I was an idiot an did not take it and served another 15 years. Too generous? Kiss my....
This alone says it all:
..but in fact delayed compensation for doing what others did not care to do.
Well said!!
Gates, the elite leaders of us sheeple and all govt. workers and unions have Mercedes healthcare. The rest of us have/will have 1930 model T care--can't get parts, i.e. treatment for breakdowns.
vaudine
Heritage or somebody needs to break the costs down further to really analyze things. One huge difference from the military of pre-1973 is that we really did not have the day care/single parent model of soldier services we have now. It’s very expensive to fund the medical costs of Joe’s seven unwed children at Forts Campbell, Hood, Eustis and Bragg. That BS gets expensive after a while.
rgr.
here’s the actual powerpoint and script to the defense business board brief.
http://dbb.defense.gov/meetings.html
Weird. Obama and Gates give free health care to illegal aliens who are doing the work Americans won’t do.
And now they’re taking health care away from the military who are also doing the work most Americans won’t do.
Weird.
Gates can go pound sand! On 2 Feb 1984 I took the oath of enlistment. I was promised if I did 20 years I would get a pension and my health care. I upheld my end of the bargain with 22 years of service. My body took a beating over that time. I wake up in pain every single day. I do not regret my service, I would do it all over again. But the Govt needs to uphold their end of their contract with me.
Pretty soon there will bw=e a few Freepers who will claim that real Conservatives would never take part in a Govt entitlement. So I will put a shot over their bow now. Those of us who retired, and those who are disabled vets earned this. We went to war for this country many of us have left our blood in some of the worst hell holes in the world for this country. We did waht we said we were going to do, our word was good. Now the Govt needs to make good on it’s word.
Semper Fi
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