LEGISLATIVE ISSUES COURTESY OF MOAA
Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 11:05 AM
by Legislative
COLA Fizzes Up>
This week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that consumer price index (CPI) for the month of April leapt 0.7 percentage points over March's value. Cumulative inflation now stands at 3.5% through
April - with five months to go in the year. Visit MOAA's Web site to view the month-by-month CPI track compared to last year...and eyeball where the number might go by the end of the fiscal year (Sept. 30).
Panel Acts on TRICARE, Commissaries, Survivors, Reserve Benefits. Check out what the House Armed Services Committee proposed this week on these topics and more.
MOAA Talks Priorities with Senate Leaders. MOAA President VADM Norb Ryan, Jr. (USN-Ret) got his oar in the water with Senate leaders on Wednesday concerning top priorities remaining for 2008.
War Funding Fiasco. It's a strange scenario when Republicans and Democrats combine forces to decline to fund an ongoing war, but that's what happened this week in the House of Representatives. But the House did approve a major improvement in GI Bill benefits as part of the war-non-funding bill.
Panel Acts on TRICARE, Commissaries, Survivors, Reserve Benefits. The House Armed Services Committee completed its draft of the FY2009 Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 5658) this week, approving a long list of changes affecting every segment of the military community.
Here's a summary:
> Health Care:
>
- Bar any TRICARE or pharmacy fee increases for FY2009 (see final note below)
- Authorize a pilot program to exempt certain preventive care (e.g.,mammograms, colonoscopies, vaccinations) from TRICARE copays and deductibles (Note: original reports indicated that Medicare-eligibles would be excluded, but Committee leaders resolved that problem)
- Add 1,023 to Navy manpower and 450 to USAF to restore
military medical positions previously civilianized
- Authorize chiropractic care for all active duty members (but not family members, retirees or survivors)
>
> Active Duty Issues:
>
- Authorize 3.9% pay raise for 2009 (vs. 3.4% DoD recommendation)
- Require military pay raises to be 1/2% greater than the average American's each year through 2013 (amendment offered by Rep. Thelma Drake, R-VA)
- Increase maximum temporary lodging/meals allowance to $290 per day per family (vs. current $180) for PCS moves
- Authorize an unpaid sabbatical from active duty of up to 3 years to pursue professional goals
- Authorize a second Family Separation Allowance payment (1/2 the normal rate) when both members of a dual-spouse couple are deployed
- Authorize "save pay" for officers reappointed in lower grade as medical officers
> Commissary Issues:
- Bar studies of commissary privatization through 2013
- Require DoD recommendation on selling beer and wine in commissaries
- Direct DoD recommendation on opening commissaries to disabled veterans with VA ratings of 30% or greater
> Guard/Reserve Issues:
>
- Require reduction in TRICARE Reserve Select premiums
- Direct DoD plan to simplify Guard/Reserve duty status categories - Authorize Reservists who retired with 20 years of active duty to switch to Reserve retirement if that provides greater retired pay, as of January 2009 (no retroactive payment)
- Authorize recomputation of Guard/Reserve retired pay
following at least two years of recalled active duty
- Extend Guard/Reserve income replacement authority through 2009
> Survivor Issues:
- Expand eligibility for Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance to
include survivors of members who died on active duty
- Restore SBP to survivors of members who died on active duty, but
whose SBP was switched to children (when children attain majority or
if remarriage ends)
- Rep. Thelma Drake's (R-VA) proposed amendment to eliminate the
SBP-DIC offset was blocked on a procedural ruling that it was not
allowed under the budget resolution guidelines.
Family Issues:
- Add $15 million for family support programs
- $65 million in education aid for schools attended by military
> children
- Authorize 200-lb professional books/equipment shipping allowance for
> spouses on PCS moves
- Provide tuition assistance/training for spouses seeking portable
> careers
- Authorize transportation of two family pets if evacuated from
> overseas location
> One final note: Fixing the TRICARE fee hike problem posed a technical
> budget challenge for committee leaders, because it required some level
> of "mandatory spending" offsets - either finding ways to increase
> revenues (e.g., selling DoD property) or cutting other mandatory
> spending programs (retired pay, TFL, SBP, etc.).
>
> Leaders came up slightly short on the revenue side and resorted to a
> budget maneuver that shifted 1% of retiree pay from September 2013
> into October 2013 (the next fiscal year). All involved acknowledge
> that there's no intent to allow this to actually happen (they have
> five years to come up with the required alternative offset), and it's
> not the first time such things have been done, and then corrected
> later.
>
> But retirees are very sensitive that past congressional actions
> actually have curtailed their retired pay, and MOAA urges legislators
> to resist getting used to such administrative maneuvers.
> MOAA Talks Priorities with Senate Leaders
>
> Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) invited MOAA and a number of
> other association leaders to meet with him and several top Committee
> chairmen to discuss priorities for the military and veteran
> communities.
>
> Among those attending were Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl
> Levin (D-MI), Veterans Affairs Committee Daniel Akaka
> (D-HI) and 21 other Senate democrats.
>
> First and foremost, the leadership pledged to continue full funding
> for VA and military health care, including fairer treatment of wounded
> warriors and their families.
>
> Among the association leaders, there was a consensus that Congress
> should aggressively pursue the recommendations of the recent Veterans'
> Disability Benefits Commission as well as an upgraded GI Bill. In
> addition, VADM Ryan urged:
>
- Quick action to reverse the 10.6% Medicare and TRICARE payment cut
> scheduled to take place on July 1 -- only 6 weeks away;
- Putting military health care principles in law to prevent
> annual budget-driven proposals for large increases in TRICARE
> fees; and
- Aggressive efforts to end compensation penalties imposed on
> disabled retirees and survivors.
> War Funding Fiasco
>
> We knew that Republicans and Democrats in Congress don’t agree on much
> when it comes to the war in Iraq. But it never occurred to us that
> they might work together to decline to provide funds for an ongoing
> war - yet that's what happened when Thursday's final House vote was
> tallied on the emergency wartime supplemental appropriations bill.
>
> Because of the anticipated disagreements, action on the bill was
> broken into three separate votes to let the various factions in the
> House get clear votes on the specific topics they cared about most.
>
> One was on a package of restrictions on the war effort, including a
> requirement to bring all of the troops home by the end of 2009 and a
> requirement for matching funding by the Iraqi government. Another was
> on a package of domestic program improvements, including a major
> upgrade to the GI Bill (which MOAA and virtually all other military
> and veterans associations strongly support). The third vote would be
> on funding the war operations.
>
> The anticipation was that the anti-war group would get their vote on
> the war restrictions package, but would lose, while a bipartisan
> majority of House members would approve the GI Bill and other
> improvements and also approve the war funding.
>
> But that expectation failed to give enough weight to the "inside
> politics" of the House of Representatives.
>
> Upset that the Democratic majority didn't give them much input in
> formulating the bill, the Republican leaders figured they'd teach the
> Democrats a lesson by demonstrating that they need Republican votes to
> pass legislation on most big issues.
>
> So they decided that Republican House members would abstain. Perhaps
> not a good decision in retrospect, since a majority of Democrats are
> unhappy with the war.
>
> In the end, the GI Bill package was approved as expected.
>
> But the package of war restrictions was approved by a majority of
> voting Democrats, but there weren't enough Democratic votes to approve
> the war-funding portion.
>
> So now the House will send a war supplemental funding bill to the
> Senate that includes no funding for the war and proposes bringing all
> the troops home within a year and a half - even though that's not what
> a clear majority of the House really wanted.
>
> Perhaps the whole House has been taught a lesson by this – that there
> are times when political games need to take a back seat to the serious
> business of funding wartime requirements.
>
> MOAA believes strongly that if we're going to put our troops in harm's
> way, we have to make sure they get the resources to get the job done.
> This week's action demonstrates that neither party in the House can
> say they put a priority on that.
