Military Update: Tricare fees, GI Bill transfers eyed for ’09

[unhappycamper]

Military Update: Tricare fees, GI Bill transfers eyed for ’09
By Tom Philpott, Special to Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Saturday, February 9, 2008

President Bush’s final defense budget, for fiscal 2009, asks a reluctant Congress for a third time to raise Tricare co-payments on drugs dispensed at retail pharmacies and to increase Tricare enrollment fees and deductibles for working-age military retirees and their families.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, soft-pedaled arguments for fee increases this year while presenting the ’09 budget to the armed services committees Tuesday.

Indeed, both said they will re-examine the Defense Department’s opposition to Virginia Democratic Sen. James Webb’s bill for a World War II-style GI Bill education package for the current force. Meanwhile, Gates said, DOD will get behind some sort of expansion to a program that allows transfer of unused Montgomery GI Bill benefits to spouses and dependent children.

Savings of $1.2 billion from higher Tricare fees are assumed in the budget, even though Defense officials aren’t ready to share specific details. Tina Jonas, the DOD comptroller, said the fee increases will be based on recommendations of the Task Force on the Future of Military Health. But Defense officials have given themselves until June to study those recommendations and decide which ones DOD wants Congress to approve.

“My gut is that there are very few, if any, members either on the personnel subcommittee or the full committee who want to do this,” said New York Rep. John McHugh, a ranking Republican on the House armed services’ military personnel subcommittee.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52318