Contact: Josh Holly; 202.226.3988
McHugh Opening Statement for Subcommittee Markup of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel marked up the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (NDAA), which authorizes budget authority for the Department of Defense (DoD) and the national security programs within the Department of Energy. Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), Ranking Republican on the Military Personnel Subcommittee, released the following opening statement:
“Madame Chairwoman, the recommendations contained in your mark are the product of an open, bipartisan process. Furthermore, those recommendations represent significant policy and funding initiatives that address important issues of military personnel and quality of life.
“You have already provided the major highlights, but I want to also focus on some of the more important recommendations in the mark. These include:
“Active Component strength increases of 7,000 for the Army and 5,000 for the Marine Corps above the Fiscal Year 2008 authorization;
“Army Guard and Army Reserve full-time support increases of 500 for the Army Guard and 150 for the USAR;
“3.9 percent basic pay raise for military vs. 3.5 percent proposed;
“Education and training opportunities for military spouses—tuition assistance and other support as proposed in State of Union address;
“DoD Impact Aid: $50 million for heavily impacted districts; $15 million for districts impacted by base closure and global rebasing;
“Expanded eligibility for Survivor Indemnity Allowance to survivors of active duty deaths—a House provision rejected by the Senate in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008;
“Prohibition of increases in TRICARE fees, including pharmacy; and
“Requiring DoD to recalculate the premiums for TRICARE Reserve Select based on actual cost data from the preceding year instead of FEHBP premiums.
“As we discussed yesterday, I very much appreciate the efforts that you and the committee have made to get sufficient mandatory spending headroom necessary to continue the prohibition on TRICARE pharmacy co-pay increases. We understand that the House Leadership, the Budget Committee and the Committee on Ways and Means became involved. We, however, have not seen and do not understand the mechanism being used to provide the offset, and would like to know more of the specifics.
“My other concern is that in crafting a permanent set of preventive health care benefits and incentives, the chairman’s mark excludes TRICARE For Life (TFL) beneficiaries from those benefits and incentives, such as no-cost shingles vaccinations. I know that mandatory spending limits forced you into making this choice, but the TFL population is one that may have significantly benefited from such a preventive health care program. I am committed to working with you and other members of the subcommittee and full committee to allow the TFL population to be included in this new set of initiatives.
“I want to thank you for including several initiatives that I proposed, including the requirement to recalculate TRICARE Reserve Select Premiums based on the cost of providing the benefit.
“Overall, this is an excellent mark and I intend to support it.”
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