WASHINGTON — The government’s promise of lifetime health care for the military’s men and women is suddenly a little less sacrosanct as Congress looks to slash trillion-dollar-plus deficits.
Republicans and Democrats alike are signaling a willingness — unheard of at the height of two post-Sept. 11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — to make military retirees pay more for coverage. It’s a reflection of Washington’s newfound embrace of fiscal austerity and the Pentagon’s push to cut health care costs that have skyrocketed from $19 billion in 2001 to $53 billion.
The numbers are daunting for a military focused on building and arming an all-volunteer force for war. The Pentagon is providing health care coverage for 3.3 million active-duty personnel and their dependents and 5.5 million retirees, eligible dependents and surviving spouses. Retirees outnumber the active duty, 2.3 million to 1.4 million.
Combined with the billions in retirement pay, it’s no surprise that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently said personnel costs have put the Pentagon “on an unsustainable course.” Yet the resistance to health care changes is fierce.
Powerful veterans groups and retired generals are mobilizing to fight any changes, arguing that Americans who were willing to die for their country should be treated differently from the average worker. The American Legion has sent a letter to every member of the House and Senate pleading with them to spare health care benefits. The Veterans of Foreign Wars is delivering the same message.
The two groups were unnerved when both parties’ leaders on the Senate Armed Services Committee — Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz. — recommended that the special deficit-cutting supercommittee look at raising enrollment fees and imposing restrictions on the military’s health care program, known as TRICARE. Current military members would be grandfathered in.
McCain and Levin also favored creating a commission to look at military retirement benefits and make recommendations for changes.
“Any changes to TRICARE that put the burden back on the beneficiaries is not supported by the American Legion,” said Peter Gaytan, the group’s executive director.
“I think we have to look at whether savings can be achieved, but we have to keep our promise to people who were recruited based on those benefits, and we also ought to look at whether there’s ways to improve the benefit structure,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said last week.
That prospect has Joe Davis, a spokesman for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, fearful of the next step.
“All our worries are starting to come to fruition,” Davis said.
Levin and McCain support establishing an annual enrollment fee for TRICARE for Life, the health care program that now has no fee for participation. Obama had proposed an initial annual fee of $200.
Levin said future increases in fees should be tied to the same index used to determine hikes in the TRICARE Prime program, which has the lowest out-of-pocket expenses.
McCain also urged the supercommittee to consider restricting working-age military retirees and their dependents from enrolling in TRICARE Prime. The retirees could still enroll in other TRICARE programs. McCain pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that such a move would save $111 billion over 10 years. Active-duty personnel still would be enrolled in the program automatically.
In the House, lawmakers are less inclined to make any changes in health care benefits.
