Tricare Premium Increase? Maybe not.

[mickeyd]

If you are covered by Tricare this may be of interest to you and yours. Looks to me like we may not be looking at an increase in what we are required to fork over each month. What follows is from a recent MOAA email.

In its April draft of the FY2013 Defense Authorization Bill (H.R. 4310), the House Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee was silent on the TRICARE fee issue, other than including MOAA-supported language expressing Congress' view that career military people pre-pay huge premiums for their healthcare through decades of service and sacrifice.
If the final defense bill sustains that silence, it would block DoD from implementing most of the large TRICARE fee increases proposed in the defense budget.
The big exception would be the pharmacy copay proposals (see the bottom of this chart), which don't require a law change to implement. All of the other proposals for TRICARE For Life, TRICARE Prime and TRICARE Standard would require new legislation.

 

[BLS53]

I think other benefit programs will take a haircut, before they go after veterans and military retirees. We seem to be the only ones exempt from the ever expanding definition of "welfare bum", put forth by the "my tax money" contingent.

 

[Nords]

I predict MOAA will extract maximum fear, uncertainty, and drama out of their breathless blow-by-blow "updates" as the Congressional session decides not to let DoD raise the rates by any more than they agreed to last year.

 

[jclarksnakes]

Oh geez, now what are all my old army buddies gonna have to bitch about?

 

[Nords]

Oh geez, now what are all my old army buddies gonna have to bitch about?

They could join the veterans' groups on Linkedin, and feel right at home with all the other bitching...