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Defense Bill Kickoff
House OKs improved reserve health care in the FY 2007 Defense
Authorization Bill. Concurrent receipt and Survivor Benefit Plan
hopes hang on Senate action.
■ The House has completed action on the FY 2007 Defense Authorization
bill, but the Senate timetable for action was uncertain at press time.
Last year, the defense bill wasn’t finished until Christmas. Hopefully,
Congress will do better in an election year.
The full House passed the FY 2007 Defense Authorization bill
(H.R. 5122) May 11, authorizing $512.9 billion for national security
and weapon programs, $50 billion for the war in Iraq and
Afghanistan, and a variety of compensation and benefit adjustments
aimed mainly at active duty, Guard, and Reserve servicemembers.
In the Senate, the Armed Services Committee approved its version of
the defense bill (S. 2766) in early May. The committee adopted many
of the same provisions but also included provisions that would
implement 30-year paid-up Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) coverage and
end the deduction of VA survivor benefits from SBP annuities,
effective Oct. 1, 2006.
At press time, Hill sources indicated the Senate might take up the
bill as early as mid-June.
In step with recommendations by MOAA and The Military Coalition,
both the House and Senate bills would bar DoD from imposing any
increases in TRICARE Prime or TRICARE Standard fees during FY 2007.
But both call for a study of military health cost issues and
alternatives that could lead to fee increases in future years.
In an effort to encourage use of the TRICARE Mail Order Pharmacy —
which is significantly cheaper than other pharmacy sources for both
the Pentagon and beneficiaries — both bills would eliminate most
copayments for drugs in the mail-order system, while raising
copayments for beneficiaries using retail pharmacies.
See pages 38-39 for a comparison of major bill provisions approved
by the full House of Representatives versus those adopted by the
Senate Armed Services Committee. Some additional provisions of the
two bills are summarized below.
- Physical evaluation boards (PEB). House: Reform PEB
process (which awards military disability ratings) to ensure
consistency, timeliness, and full feedback for Guard, Reserve,
and active duty servicemembers. Senate: no similar provision.
- Voluntary separation incentives. Senate: Authorize
military services to offer payments up to four times involuntary
separation pay amounts to encourage voluntary separations to
achieve force reduction requirements in designated skills or
other populations. House: Similar provision, except maximum
payment is two times involuntary separation pay.
- Study of Army tour length. House: Require the Army to
study potential benefits of converting from 12- to six-month
deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Senate: not addressed.
- Reserve housing allowance. Both bills authorize
payment of additional housing allowances for mobilized Guard and
Reserve members who are not provided housing while serving at a
location far from home.
- Defense organization. House: Redesignate the
Secretary of the Navy as the Secretary of both the Navy and
Marine Corps. Senate: not addressed.
- Moving household goods. Senate: Require DoD to
provide full replacement value for lost or damaged household
goods in contracts with movers by March 1, 2008. House: not
addressed.
Health Funding Faces Shortfall
MOAA urges reversal of TRICARE budget cuts.
Testifying before the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee
May 24 on behalf of The Military Coalition, MOAA Government
Relations Director Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret., emphasized the
urgent need for the subcommittee to correct a whopping $735 million
shortfall in the defense health budget.
“Both the House and Senate Armed Services committees have
categorically rejected Pentagon plans to double or triple military
retiree health fees for FY 2007,” Strobridge said.
“However, the president’s budget already reduced defense health
funding by $735 million for the coming year in the expectation that
these fees would be imposed, and they would dramatically reduce
beneficiary participation. That’s not going to happen this year, and
the $735 million needs to be restored or military medicine will run
out of money next summer.”
Strobridge further noted that the House of Representatives already
had completed its work on its version of the defense health
appropriations bill and didn’t restore the money, so now the Senate
has to act to avoid a significant funding shortfall for this vital
program.
Strobridge’s testimony also highlighted the need to fully fund
initiatives already approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee,
including increased military manpower levels and upgraded pay
raises. He urged funding levels to ensure that housing, school,
child care, and other family support requirements are met for the
thousands of military families who will be relocating as a result of
base reduction and closure actions or other global rebasing plans.
Support programs for Guard and Reserve families who don’t have
access to military installation services must be a continuing
priority.
Note: The Defense Appropriations Subcommittee’s purview is limited
to so-called “discretionary” funding issues. “Mandatory” spending
initiatives such as concurrent receipt and survivor benefits aren’t
normally addressed in appropriations bills.
VA Data Theft Sparks Reviews
MOAA supports legislation to protect affected veterans.
VA Data Theft: What You Can Do
■ Check out the VA Web site,
www.va.gov/opa, to obtain information and get answers to frequently
asked questions about what actions veterans can take. The VA also has a
toll-free hot line at (800) FED-INFO (333-4636).
In hearing that a computer containing 26 million veterans’
personal data was stolen from a VA employee’s home, MOAA’s first
reaction was, “How could this happen?”
At scathing House and Senate hearings in May, legislators took VA
Secretary Jim Nicholson to task for a data security program that has
been criticized for years. They also expressed their unhappiness
about the three-week delay between the theft and public
notification. They made no bones that the VA’s data security problem
has to be fixed — and fixed fast — and those responsible for the
incident need to be disciplined.
Nicholson expressed his own anger about the situation and vowed
“decisive action” after an investigation by the VA Inspector
General.
“We still hope this was a common theft and that no use of this data
will be made,” Nicholson said. The VA has placed notices on its Web
site at www.va.gov/opa, including a letter of apology from
Nicholson, information about what actions veterans can take, and a
list of answers to frequently asked questions. The VA also has a
toll-free hot line at (800) FED-INFO (333-4636).
In the meantime, MOAA has endorsed the Veterans’ Identity Protection
Act of 2006, introduced in the Senate as
S. 2970 (Sen. John Kerry,
D-Mass.) and in the House as
H.R. 5455 (Rep. John Salazar, D-Colo.).
This legislation would provide one year of free credit monitoring to
veterans whose personal information was stolen in the recent theft,
with one free credit report each year for the following two years.
To urge your legislators to support these bills, visit
http://capwiz.com/moaa/issues/bills.
Click on S. 2970 and
H.R. 5455 under “Veterans’ and Other Issues.”
In the interest of leaving no stone unturned, MOAA President Vice
Adm. Norb Ryan Jr., USN-Ret., directed a renewed review of MOAA’s
internal practices to ensure our membership data is protected from
disclosure or intrusion.
Concurrent Receipt Update
Further progress depends on Senate floor amendment(s).
The House-passed version of the FY 2007 Defense Authorization
Bill contained no provisions to address remaining inequities in the
compensation of disabled military retirees.
Last year, a House-generated provision changed the law to provide
full concurrent receipt by Oct. 1, 2009 (versus 2013), for disabled
retirees deemed “unemployable” by the VA. This year, House sources
indicated they could not generate any further advance under the
tight House rules that control “mandatory” spending programs such as
military retired pay.
The version of the defense bill approved by the Senate Armed
Services Committee also contained no new concurrent receipt
provision for the same reason. That means any further advance this
year will have to come through an amendment to the defense bill once
it comes up for action on the Senate floor.
MOAA is working with concurrent receipt champion Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)
on two possible amendments. One would provide full concurrent
receipt immediately for the “unemployable” retirees. The other would
expand eligibility for combat-related special compensation to
members whose combat wounds forced them to retire from service prior
to attaining 20 years of service. Under current law, such members
have no relief at all from the disability offset to retired pay.
MOAA Staff Transitions
Key lobbyist moves up; departments swap talent.
Col. Lee Lange, USMC-Ret., deputy director of MOAA’s Government
Relations Department since 2001, is moving to MOAA’s Council and
Chapter Affairs Department to assume duties as director after the
first of the year. As MOAA’s principal lobbyist on survivor and tax
issues, Lange played a key role in winning elimination of the age-62
Survivor Benefit Plan annuity reduction and elimination of capital
gains tax penalties for military homeowners, among many other
accomplishments. Now, MOAA will take even greater advantage of his
leadership and planning skills in his important new position.
Cynthia Thompson, who has overseen the legislative action portion of
the MOAA Web Base, also is moving to assume duties as the chapter
affairs specialist in the Council and Chapter Affairs Department.
Thompson has filled several important roles in her more than six
years with Government Relations, including preparation,
distribution, and management of legislative mailings and the weekly
Legislative Update.
Bret Shea, who has proven his mettle by handling most of the
legislative inquiries for MOAA’s Member Service Center over the past
year, now joins the Government Relations team to assume
responsibility for oversight of legislation and benefits content for
the Web and other media. We’re most fortunate to have the kind of
talented and dedicated staff that allows this mutually beneficial
crossover and helps MOAA grow on all fronts.
MOAA Pleads Widows’ Case
VA, DFAS hear ideas to ease pain of recoupments.
MOAA was pleased to host representatives from the Defense Finance
and Accounting Service (DFAS) and the VA April 26 for a discussion
of problems experienced by Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) annuitants
who are also eligible for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC)
from the VA.
Current law requires deduction of DIC (paid when death was
service-connected) from any SBP annuity. Because the two are paid by
different agencies and because survivors typically are unaware of
the deduction requirement, many SBP-DIC widows encounter terrible
problems in the recoupment process.
In some cases, survivors receive a large retroactive DIC check from
the VA, then a large bill from DFAS to recoup years of undeducted
amounts from SBP, and then a later lump-sum refund of SBP premiums
from DFAS for the share of SBP that they will no longer receive.
The VA and DFAS representatives were sympathetic and interested in
trying to find reasonable solutions to these confusing situations.
They also were frank in acknowledging the problems of having 50
separate VA area offices communicate with DFAS and the challenges of
changing a highly automated DFAS system that’s already struggling
with recent SBP and concurrent receipt changes.
For the VA, MOAA suggested consolidating SBP-DIC processing
responsibilities in a smaller number of the best-performing regional
offices to improve consistency and timeliness of communication with
DFAS. For DFAS, MOAA suggested consolidating recoupment and refund
notices to survivors to reduce confusion and allow the survivor to
deal with a single notice of the net recoupment or refund, rather
than getting a large bill and later a large refund.
The VA and DFAS representatives agreed to bring those proposals and
others back to their agencies for discussion.
Pressing the Issues
MOAA council and chapter presidents from all 50 states and Puerto
Rico joined forces in Washington March 28-30 for the annual Council
and Chapter Presidents’ Seminar. A highlight of their gathering was
the annual Storming the Hill event, in which MOAA’s state leaders
team with members of the national board of directors and
headquarters staff to visit most of the 100 Senate and 435 House
offices on Capitol Hill. This year, nearly 130 individuals formed 60
teams to lobby legislators. Their message was twofold: resist the
large TRICARE fee increases proposed by DoD and support fixes to the
Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP), including immediate implementation of
30-year, paid-up SBP coverage and an end to the deduction of VA
survivor benefits from SBP annuities when the servicemember’s death
was caused by service.
Their visits helped boost sponsorship of Reps. Chet Edwards’
(D-Texas) and Walter Jones’ (R-N.C.) House TRICARE fee bill (H.R.
4949) by nearly 80 percent (from 77 to 138) within one week after
the Storming event.
— Contributors are Col. Steve Strobridge, USAF-Ret.,
director; Col. Mike Hayden, USAF-Ret.; Col. Lee Lange, USMC-Ret.;
Col. Bob Norton, USA-Ret.; Cmdr. René Campos, USN-Ret.; Cmdr. John
Class, USN-Ret.; Cynthia Thompson; and Cass Vreeland, MOAA’s
Government Relations Department.
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