Federal Daily News
Proposal would hike some Tricare fees, pharmacy co-pays
The Defense Department’s fiscal 2013 budget proposal includes a range of cost-saving measures aimed at trimming DOD’s growing healthcare expenses.
Among other things, the budget calls for increases to Tricare Prime enrollment fees, initiation of Standard/Extra annual enrollment fees, and adjustments to deductibles and catastrophic caps. The higher fees primarily affect military retirees.
The budget also modifies pharmacy co-pays to encourage the use of less expensive mail-order and military treatment facility pharmacies. Additionally, the budget calls for what the administration characterizes as “modest” annual fees for Tricare beneficiaries over age 65 when they transition to Medicare coverage and use Tricare for secondary coverage.
According to the administration, the changes would cut DOD costs over five years by an estimated $12.9 billion in discretionary funding, and $4.7 billion in mandatory savings in the Medicare-Eligible Retiree Health Care Fund.
The Military Officers Association of America is taking issue with many of the proposals contained in the budget—including fee increases which specifically affect the Tricare coverage of working-age military retirees.
“MOAA sees these large fee hikes as a significant breach of faith with those who have already completed arduous careers of 20-30 or more years in uniform,” said MOAA’s president, Vice Admiral Norb Ryan, Jr. (Ret.). “The administration and Congress already imposed a 14-percent increase last year, and Congress passed legislation stipulating that future fee hikes shouldn’t exceed the percentage increase in military retired pay.”
“These new increases, coming on top of last year’s changes, are a classic ‘bait and switch’ maneuver that would raise beneficiary fees by as much as $1,500 a year or more, depending on retired pay,” Ryan said.
MOAA also objected to a “tiered” Tricare fee structure for retirees contained in the proposal, which varies depending on the retired service member’s retired pay. Higher-paid retirees would pay more for their coverage.
“This kind of means-testing approach is grossly inappropriate for health coverage that’s earned by a career of service,” Ryan said.
“MOAA disagrees strongly with the stated purpose of these increases to ‘move closer to market rates,’” he said. “A military career is supposed to earn top-tier health coverage, not merely something on the order of the civilian median.”