July 23, 2010
| Concurrent Receipt Stripped At the last minute before passage, Congress stripped a breakthrough concurrent receipt provision from the legislation extending unemployment compensation benefits. |
| Career Spouses Barred from Education Program MOAA will seek congressional help to push the Pentagon to reopen the popular My Career Advancement Accounts to spouses of career officers and enlisted members. |
| New Tack on TRICARE 26 MOAA and The Military Coalition are pushing to change a provision in the Defense Authorization Act to continue TRICARE coverage for eligible children until age 26, without any premium penalty. |
| MOAA Voices Concerns to Senate Leaders VADM Norb Ryan asked top legislators to protect against taking troops’ and families’ longstanding sacrifices for granted in considering likely deficit commission proposals for benefit cutbacks. |
Concurrent Receipt Stripped
MOAA was encouraged about prospects for near-term concurrent receipt progress when this week’s arrival of newly-appointed Sen. Carte Goodwin (D-WV) provided the 60 votes needed for Senate passage of H.R. 4213, the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010.
Already passed by the House, the legislation included President Obama’s proposal to phase-out the disability offset to military retired pay for severely disabled medical retirees.
But last-minute negotiations to nail down the necessary votes led to removal of all provisions – including the concurrent receipt fix – other than the extension of federal unemployment benefits through November 30.
The concurrent receipt language would have phased out the offset for all Chapter 61 (medical) retirees, regardless of years of service, whether the disability was combat-related or not.
H.R. 4213 provided a golden opportunity for further concurrent receipt progress, and its removal on the eve of passage is yet another bitter disappointment on the road to winning fair treatment for all disabled retirees. But it still doesn’t rule out progress this year.
MOAA is working with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), the long-standing concurrent receipt champion, to introduce the same provision as an amendment to the 2011 defense authorization bill, which the Senate is expected to take up in September.
Career Spouses Barred from Education Program
MOAA strongly disagrees with the Pentagon’s July 20 decision to severely limit military spouses’ eligibility for the wildly popular My Career Advancement Account (MyCAA) program.
Last year, the new program was offered to all military spouses, authorizing up to $6,000 for servicemembers’ spouses to enroll in a wide variety of educational, licensing, and credentialing programs to help offset employment disruptions caused by military-ordered moves.
Caught by surprise when more than 130,000 spouses applied, and fearing the program would run out of money, the Pentagon abruptly suspended it without any advance warning in February.
Following an uproar from outraged spouses, the program was reopened on March 13 to already-enrolled spouses, pending further Pentagon review of the program’s fate.
At that time, MOAA strongly urged defense leaders not to disenfranchise spouses of career members – those who suffer most because of multiple military moves.
Unfortunately, that advice went unheeded. Under the new rules that will take effect October 25, 2010, only the most junior servicemembers’ spouses will be eligible (E-1 through E-5 in the enlisted grades, warrant officers in grades W-1 and W-2, and officers in grades O-1 and O-2).
In addition, the program will be restricted to covering licensure and credentialing programs and courses leading to an associate’s degree. Reimbursements will be limited to $2,000 a year, with total payments not to exceed $4,000 per eligible spouse.
MOAA believes strongly that restricting eligibility to spouses of first-term personnel – many of whom won’t stay for military careers – misses the whole point. Covering courses leading to associate’s degrees, but not bachelor’s or master’s degrees that are essential for nursing, teaching, and other portable careers seems equally incongruous.
“When the program first kicked off last year, spouses were excited and grateful that the Defense Department was finally acknowledging it had some obligation to help them ease their own personal sacrifices,” said MOAA Government Relations Director Col Steve Strobridge (USAF-Ret). “That’s why they were so angry when the program was suspended in February, because they saw it as backtracking on the only funded career program they ever had.”
“The program restart in March offered a new ray of hope, but this new restriction yanks the rug out from under career spouses yet again,” Strobridge said.
“MOAA believes longer-serving spouses deserve fairer treatment, and we’ll be asking Congress to help them get it.”
New Tack on TRICARE 26
National health care reform legislation authorized children to be covered under their parent’s healthcare plan up until age 26.
In order to bring TRICARE into compliance with this new policy both the House and Senate included provisions in their versions of the FY2011 National Defense Authorization Act to allow dependent children to remain in TRICARE until age 26 (nicknamed “TRICARE 26”). These provisions would require parents to pay additional premiums for their children’s coverage to be set by the Pentagon.
At the time the logic was, “if gray area reserve retirees will need to pay a full premium, aged-out dependents probably should too. Why give a small group of dependents who happen to be aging out this particular year a special premium break that won’t be allowed for them next year or for other similar dependents aging out in future years?”
Our assumption at the time was that civilian insurance plans implementing the new requirements for coverage of children until age 26 would also require a special additive premium for that coverage.
But that’s proving not to be the case. Many civilian plans are implementing the extended coverage already without charging any extra premium, and FEHBP is doing the same for children of federal civilians (i.e., if they already have family coverage, there won’t be any extra charge to add the extra dependent(s).
To us, that changes the scenario. Military parents under the new law shouldn’t get socked with extra premiums if civilian parents aren’t.
For this reason we’re working closely with legislators on an amendment to the defense authorization act for a permanent law change to allow the dependent children of currently serving and retired servicemembers to continue on TRICARE coverage until age 26 without an additional premium.
MOAA Voices Concerns to Senate Leaders
On July 21, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and 21 other Democratic senators, including the Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committee Chairmen, invited MOAA President VADM Norb Ryan and other association leaders to discuss military and veterans’ legislative issues.
Key topics of discussion were the need for aggressive measures to help wounded warriors get disability claims resolved promptly and fairly and help returning vets find employment.
Noting that the unemployment rate for new veterans is over 12%, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asserted, “Our vets were first in line to sign up when we needed them in wartime, and they shouldn’t be waiting in line when they return and are looking for a job.”
Attendees expressed support for Sen. Max Baucus’s (D-MT) and Sen. Patty Murray’s (D-WA) veterans jobs bill and Sen. Daniel Akaka’s (D-HI) initiatives to improve Post-9/11 GI Bill coverage, caregiver protections, and claims improvements.
There was a consensus that the disability claims system needs a fundamental overhaul, in close consultation with stakeholder veterans’ associations. In addition, attendees urged Hill and Administration leaders to more actively invest in veterans’ employment. “We spend lots of money on recruiting and training and the GI Bill,” said VFW Executive Director Bob Wallace, “but we spend zero on marketing veterans’ skills to employers.”
Admiral Ryan expressed MOAA’s disappointment that President Obama’s concurrent receipt proposal was removed from the unemployment compensation extender bill at the last moment before Senate passage. He urged the senators to include it in the defense authorization act and make sure that important legislation is given priority in this wartime environment.
Ryan also expressed concern that many in government have become desensitized over time to our troops’ and families’ terrible and continuing sacrifices, and the need to guard against any insensitive proposals by the upcoming deficit commission for deep cuts in military and VA benefit programs.
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