Higher premiums for retired military
Higher TRICARE Premiums on Gates' Cost-Cut Agenda
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signaled that the department's fiscal 2012 budget request to be sent to Congress early next year will include recommendations to raise TRICARE premiums for some beneficiaries.
If past proposals are a reliable guide, the target of higher fees is likely to be military retirees rather than active duty families. The Bush administration had tried for three straight years to raise fees for working age retirees. Congress blocked those efforts.
Defense officials hope lawmakers, faced with mounting federal debt and tightening defense budgets, will be more receptive to the argument that TRICARE fees haven't been raised since they were set in 1995.
During a Pentagon press conference where he unveiled a host of initiatives to cut "overhead" in defense budgets, including shutting down the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., Gates said proposals to control burgeoning health care costs will be unveiled in the months ahead.
The issue arose when Gates was asked by a reporter when it would be time to control rising health care costs, either through TRICARE premium increases or reducing plan coverage. "Yesterday," Gates responded.
"Health-care reform is on my agenda," he added. It will be part of a new "track" of cost-cutting reforms identified by the Quadrennial Defense Review and endorsed by other reports for curbing defense spending.
