Memo says no Tricare increases in 2010 budget - Military News | News From Afghanistan, Iraq And Around The World - Military Times

Memo says no Tricare increases in 2010 budget

The Obama administration’s first defense budget will not seek an increase in Tricare fees, according to a White House statement and a representative of a major military organization.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Bill Matz, president of the National Association for Uniformed Services and a veteran of three battles with the Bush administration over its attempts to raise Tricare enrollment fees, deductibles and co-payments, said he received word from the White House on Tuesday night that Tricare fee hikes would not be part of the budget due to be sent to Congress on Thursday.

Matz said the exact words were: “We are not touching Tricare.”

“This is an important budget victory and shows that President Obama is willing to listen to the concerns of our nation’s uniformed service members and retirees,” Matz said. “Giving priority in the budget to the health-care promises made to our men and women who serve, and have served, in uniform is an important recognition of our nation’s commitment to those who serve and sacrifice in her defense, particularly, when we’re at war.”

However, the promise not to touch Tricare is good for only one year. “I did not hear the word ‘never,’ ” Matz said.

A statement provided to the association from Obama says: “We have a sacred trust to those who wear the uniform of the United States of America. It’s a commitment that begins at enlistment, and it must never end.”

Matz said he thinks he was among the first to receive word from the White House because he hand-delivered a strongly worded letter on Tricare fee hikes during a meeting with Obama in early April.

Omission of Tricare fee increases from the 2010 defense budget is not a complete surprise. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in early April that after Congress rejected Defense Department requests in 2007, 2008 and 2009 to increase fees for working-age military retirees and their families and to raise some fees for using retail pharmacies, there didn’t seem much point in asking again in the 2010 budget.

“Hit us over the head with a two-by-four three times, and we’re beginning to get the message,” Gates said.

Instead of proposing an increase, Pentagon officials plan to highlight the cancellation or delay of weapons systems and other large cuts in military spending and make an argument that the inability to hold down soaring health care costs is part of the reason for those cuts.

The idea, defense officials said, is that Congress may decide on its own that it is time to increase Tricare fees, which have not changed since the Tricare system was introduced in the mid-1990s.