December 18, 2009
No Thanks For Your Service Members of the Guard and Reserve are spending more and more of their working lives serving their country. But the compensation for these servicemembers hasn’t changed to reflect the dramatically increased commitments imposed on them.
|
| Big Medicare/TRICARE Cuts Delayed – For 60 Days The Senate will vote on Saturday (Dec. 19) to delay implementation of a 21% cut in Medicare and TRICARE payments to doctors now scheduled to take place January 1, 2010. But the new law would only delay the cuts until the end of February, setting up a new crisis in two months. |
| Entitlements Commission Threat MOAA is concerned that legislation being proposed by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) would risk hasty and ill-advised cuts to Social Security, Medicare and military/federal civilian retirement, survivor, and health care programs. |
No Thanks For Your Service
Members of the Guard and Reserve are spending more and more of their working lives serving their country. But the compensation for these servicemembers hasn’t changed to reflect the dramatically increased commitments imposed on them.
MOAA Government Relations Director Steve Strobridge’s
December “As I See It” column calls for a fix for one particularly grievous inequity.
Big Medicare/TRICARE Cuts Delayed – For 60 Days
The Senate has been so consumed by the partisan politics of national health reform that other end-of-year crises have had to take a back seat.
In recognition of one urgent issue, the Senate will pause Saturday morning to pass the FY2010 Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 3326) – a mere 80 days after FY2010 actually started.
Included in that legislation is an emergency measure to delay a 21% cut in Medicare and TRICARE payments to doctors that otherwise would take effect on January 1.
Unfortunately, because Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on funding issues, the new legislation will only delay the Medicare/TRICARE payment cuts until the end of February.
That means two more months of wrangling in hopes that Hill leaders can work out a longer-term doctor payment fix. This is crucial to Medicare and TRICARE beneficiaries, because a 21% payment cut would cause thousands of doctors to stop taking them as patients.
Nobody in Congress wants that to happen. But their continuing squabbles over how to fund a fix – and their continuing games of last-minute budget “chicken” – continue to put millions of beneficiaries at risk.
Meanwhile, the Senate still hasn’t addressed another issue that will affect millions of Medicare-eligible beneficiaries if Congress doesn’t act in the next 13 days.
Under current law, people turning age 65 in 2010 and those with incomes above $85,000 ($170,000 for a married couple) will face
steep Part B premium increases (scroll to the middle of the page) as of Jan. 1. Other Medicare-eligibles are protected by a law that bars Part B premium hikes in years when there’s no Social Security COLA. But there’s no such protection for the 25% of beneficiaries who will first become eligible for Medicare next year or who have higher incomes. And those groups will get hit with extra premiums to help make up for the fact that the other 75% won’t be paying more.
The House passed legislation (H.R. 3631) in September to bar Part B premium hikes for all Medicare-eligibles. But the Senate has not acted on it because of an objection by Senator Tom Coburn (R – OK). You can press your senators for action by sending them a
MOAA-suggested message.
Entitlements Commission Threat
Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) plans to propose amending H.R. 4314 (a bill to increase the national debt ceiling) to create a special entitlements commission with the authority to recommend changes to Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlements programs (such as military and federal civilian retirement, survivor, and health programs).
Under the terms of the amendment, Congress would be forced to vote on the entire package of commission recommendations, without any chance for amendment and with only very limited time for review and debate.
During the entitlements-threat era of the 1990s, Sen. Gregg and others proposed such things as eliminating COLAs before age 62, capping COLAs below inflation, and means-testing COLAs.
MOAA is concerned that the kind of "fast-track" commission entailed in the Gregg amendment could lead to hasty and similarly ill-advised cuts to crucial benefit programs.
Please send your senators a
MOAA-suggested message to oppose the Gregg entitlements commission amendment.
Legislative Update Archives
Keep up to date on legislative action that affects you and your world. Subscribe to our weekly legislative update.
