By MOAA Staff

Regardless of where you get your news, it’s likely the lead story hasn’t focused on a key bill that should be top of mind for all members of the military community.

This week, as lawmakers return from recess, conferees will shape the FY20 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). In so doing, they have the chance to work toward enacting meaningful reforms for servicemembers past and present, and their families.

MOAA continues its efforts to ensure critical language reaches the final version of this bill. If you haven’t joined these efforts, do so now; if you have, share this story and the previous link with others in your network to help spread the word.

MOAA is working toward a bipartisan NDAA that would:

• Delay a proposed reduction of up to 18,000 military medical billets until Congress conducts a full and transparent assessment of how this proposal would affect military health care.
• Eliminate the “widows tax,” a $12,000-a-year financial penalty faced by more than 65,000 military survivors.
• Improve early Guard and Reserve retirement credit for troops activated under certain orders.
• Call for the Government Accounting Office to conduct an independent review of the business case analysis supportive of merging the military’s commissary and exchange systems.
• Establish essential rights for military families in privatized base housing.

Language supporting these positions already has cleared a major hurdle – reaching the conferee stage of the NDAA process. However, while many of the above proposals have overwhelming bipartisan support, their inclusion in the final bill is far from a sure thing. That’s why MOAA continues to push, and why your voice remains necessary.

So send a letter and spread the word. Need more details? Visit MOAA’s advocacy news page for the latest on these issues and others.