End Of TRICARE For Life?

[Phantom Blooper]

This is a "Heads Up" on a battle we are facing now and down the road
with the new Administration. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
has already drafted proposed legislation that would basically reduce
our TRICARE for Life benefits to a system whereby we pay deductibles
and co-pays up to $6,301 the first year for you and your spouse,
with future years being indexed to increase with inflation.

What can we do? The article below, obtained from an Air Force
Association and written by BG Bob Clements, best describes what we
can do. Please read it and check the links for CBO language and do
what Bob says-Send this email to every Military Retiree you know and
write and email your Congressman often. For those of you that might
have voted for "Change", you should do it more than often!

TRICARE FOR LIFE'S FUTURE....
TRICARE For Life was instituted to correct the broken promise that
military retirees would receive free healthcare coverage for life
and it covers the Medicare co-pay. Now a heavy assault has begun on
Veterans'/Retirees' benefits to pay for other programs our President
promised during the campaign. An it is a high priority of his
administration. The one item of most interest to Retired Military is
in Article 189. If approved by Congress the first assault wave would
hit in 2011 and would hit hard. It would initiate cost sharing to
require retirees to pay the first $525 of medical cost and 50% of
the next $4,725 for a first year cost of $2,888 per person. It would
be indexed to increase with inflation. A reason given for this
action (for PR effect) is "overuse" by Retirees.

For those of you who are covered by TFL you will want to pay
attention (Below) to what BG Bob Clements has surfaced about the
future of TFL.

In any case, on page 189 of the Congressional Budget Office report,
see the note below on how to get to that spot, there is a strong
recommendation to eventually eliminate the program as it is too
expensive.

Just another move to slight those of us who dedicated much of our
adult lives to the defense of our country.

Strongly recommend that you contact your elected officials and
register your strong opposition to the elimination of the TFL
program. Heads-up from BG Bob Clements,USAF Ret(P38 Bob) The
following has been added to the Congressional Budget Office Web
Site www.cbo.gov/
a. Budget, Options, Volume 1: Health Care (
www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=9925)

For those who have never opened one of these web sites from OMB :
1. double click on the above URL
2. click on PDF
3. click on the binoculars
4. do a search for TFL

Now here it is folks and I will guarantee if you sit around on your
behind and do nothing about it as they bring these options forward
this coming year, you will lose one of the best healthcare benefits
that the
Medicare eligible retired military have. It is short of the promises
made that we fought so hard for back in the late 90s and early 2000s
but it is still the best healthcare program that anyone in the
United States has, bar none.

People who are professionals always look for the channel of least
resistance when it comes to cutting money out of the Federal and DOD
budget. I can tell you this straight on, military ret irees are one of
those channels of least resistance noted for sitting around, doing
nothing, and waiting for ole Joe to do it for them. You had better
wake up. Your medical benefits are prime target. If you lose them,
you have
nobody to blame but yourself. Let me repeat that ... you have nobody
to blame but yourself.

The way to secure your benefits is to write to your members of
Congress and to keep writing and writing and writing. ONCE IS NOT
ENOUGH!!
Keep repeating the above statement until you are blue in the face.
Now I'm going to make one more statement to all of you younger
people out there who are not yet eligible for TRICARE for Life. HEALTH
CARE WILL EVENTUALLY BECOME THE DOMINATING FACTOR IN YOUR LIFE.
Remember that . . . . it will impact you big time with the utmost
in cruelty unless you are fortunate enough to die from a heart
attack or get run over by a truck.
The service organizations will put up a fight, but, they will need
your help and can't do it by themselves. I hope this makes it clear
as to what you can expect if you do nothing.

To show you how stupid these professionals can be at times just read
the data on the noted sites closely. You will see that in spite of
the MTFs (Military Treatment Facility) need to get patients back to
keep their doctors busy and the hospitals from going to clinic
status, these people from OMB would employ a means to keep retirees
from using MTF facilities by charging them a fee for services. How
dumb can you get.
Even if you are an Obama fan, and believe that changeth cometh, TFL
option from OMB will not go away. They need the money they spend on
you for other programs for people who produce nothing but votes to
keep their boss in office. If you know of anyone who is Retired
Military, please forward this on to them.

Remember- TFL is an "Earned Benefit" that's been granted by a
previous Congress.

[usmcthetop]

TRICARE USER FEE Update 33: Following is a letter sent by Sen.
Joseph I. Lieberman to a member of FRA Branch 20 in Groton CT in response to
his query on the rumored Tricare For Life budget cuts. It is self
explanatory and should be widely disseminated in the military community:

February 19, 2009
Dear Mr. Serabian:
Thank you for contacting me regarding rumored cuts in benefit
programs for military retirees, including TRICARE for Life. Currently, a
wealth of false and misleading information is being distributed on this
matter; and I welcome the opportunity to explain the source of the
confusion.
I am aware of several chain emails, online discussion boards,
blogs, and even articles in well-intentioned veterans' publications that
imply that President Obama and Congress plan on eliminating TRICARE for
Life. The insinuations put forth by these sources are false.
The source of these stories is a report issued by the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), entitled Budget Options Volume 1: Heath
Care, released in December 2008. Before jumping to conclusions about the
report itself, however, it is important to know exactly what the CBO is. CBO
is a nonpartisan federal agency, tasked with providing Congress with cost
estimates for the many legislative proposals considered each year. It also
periodically offers Congress suggestions for adjusting federal spending. CBO
is an information gathering body for Members of Congress. Its
recommendations about the budget are completely non binding; and its
officers do not draft actual policy, legislation, or law.
The Budget Options report in question offers a total of 115
options for reducing (or, in some cases, increasing) federal spending on
health care, only three of which relate to TRICARE. These options are merely
suggestions, not policy statements or actual legislation. Reports such as
this one are routine, and very few options or recommendations made by CBO
are typically acted upon. President Obama has not indicated support for the
three recommendations in this report related to TRICARE, nor has any Member
of Congress, to the best of my knowledge. Any suggestion that the
Administration is affiliated with this report ignores the fact that it was
drafted by the CBO - which, again, is an advisory body of the legislative
branch, not the executive branch.
You may also be interested to know that both the Reserve
Officers Association (ROA) and the Military Officers Association of America
(MOAA) have issued statements condemning the aforementioned rumors that are
being perpetuated through these chain emails.
I hope that you have found this letter informative, and I
encourage you to share this information with members of your community who
are concerned about issues relating to military retirees. As a member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, please be assured of my continued
commitment to protecting the various interests of all those who have fought
tirelessly to protect our cherished freedoms.
Thank you again for sharing your views and concerns with me. I
hope you will continue to visit my website at http
<http://lieberman.senate.gov/> ://lieberman.senate.gov
<http://lieberman.senate.gov/> for updated news about my work on behalf of
Connecticut and the nation. Please contact me if you have any additional
questions or comments about our work in Congress.
Sincerely,
Joseph I. Lieberman
UNITED STATES SENATOR

[Old Marine]

Until I see an official document on this subject I will continue on with my life and medical problems.

If nothing official surfaces, all this tells me is that some people are trying to discredit the President.

[usmcthetop]

I don't think it has anything to do with the President since this rumor started before Obama entered the white house. Although it may have started as another weak attempt to slam Bush but I don't think so. I think it boils down to people overreacting. I think everyone should be involved and track such items since we certainly don't want to lose any benefits that we have more than earned but I also think it's important to ensure things are correct before we spead the word like wildfire. I try to verify things at snopes before I ever forward them. Funny how when I find something to be crap and send it back to the sender they never forward the correction to their address list.