Washington, D.C.---The version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, which was introduced by Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard P. "Buck" McKeon (R-Calif.) yesterday, would allow the Department of Defense to increase TRICARE fees for working age retirees by “$2.50 a month for individuals and $5 a month for families.” The legislation would cap the Department of Defense’s ability to increase fees in the future though.
An article in the Army Times on May 6th outlined McKeon’s proposal to “set into law a strict formula” that would cap any Department of Defense attempts to increase TRICARE fees “each October by the amount that retired pay increased the previous December.”
The story continued, “That means the Oct. 1, 2012, TRICARE fee increase would equal the cost-of-living adjustment made on Dec. 1, 2011, in military retired pay. If there is no adjustment, as there has not been for the last two years, there would be no TRICARE fee increase.”
Further, the Army Times article points out that the proposal “does exactly what many associations had requested by allowing the modest increases—$2.50 a month for individuals and $5 a month for families—in fiscal 2012, marking the first fee hikes in 16 years, and then preventing retirees from being hit with massive annual increases in the future by making sure the percentage increase is linked to the retirement [cost-of-living adjustment].”
Chairman McKeon’s legislation would also make it clear that:
- “Career members of the uniformed services and their families endure unique and extraordinary demands and make extraordinary sacrifices over the course of a 20- to 30-year career in protecting freedom for all Americans; and
- “Those decades of sacrifice constitute a significant prepaid premium for health care during a career member’s retirement that is over and above what the member pays with money.”
For more information about the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, please visit the “NDAA Home” at ArmedServices.House.gov.
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