Wounded Reservists Not Held to Age-60 Retirement

If a reservist has over 20 "good" reserve years for retirement, through a combination of active duty and reserve time, and gets activated and injured in the combat zone, is he or she entitled to military disability retired pay immediately?

Reservists normally enter the grey zone after they have enough good years and wait until age 60 to start collecting retirement. But what if a reservist gets activated and seriously maimed? And let's assume the reservist has gone through the Medical Evaluation Board/Physical Evaluation Board process and is found to be more than 30 percent disabled.  

As you know, a lot of reserve soldiers are deploying today into the heat of battle. The cliché of weekend warrior is long gone.

MARILYN SUCCOP
Via e-mail

If a reservist [or National Guard member] becomes disabled from a service-connected injury, illness or disease, and the disability rating is 30 percent or greater, the reservist receives his or her disability retired pay immediately, regardless of number of years served, according the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs.

But if the disability is rated at less than 30 percent, and the reservist has 20 or more years of qualifying service, he or she has the option of taking severance pay and being separated from military service (the normal disability evaluation system procedures) or transferring to the retired reserve and receiving his or her reserve retired pay at age 60. The pay is computed using either the disability rating percentage or the years used to compute reserve retired pay (based on the total number of points earned), whichever is more favorable to the member. – Tom Philpott

RAISE CARE QUALITY TOO

Defense Department plans to increase TRICARE fees for retirees under age 65 would affect my family. I am a military retiree who is self-employed so I have no employer health plan to assist me. My wife works for a small business, so there is no health plan available to her either.

My daughter, who just turned 18, dislocated her knee during cheerleading practice. She went to the emergency room that evening. Next day we called our primary care manager and requested a sports orthopedic doctor through TRICARE. It wasn’t authorized. She was authorized to visit the local military treatment facility where she saw an orthopedist.

He couldn't fully examine her due to the pain and he couldn’t say how extensive the damage was. But he also refused to request an MRI until the next visit, which would push her back three weeks. Then he will determine whether to ask for an MRI. Scheduling the MRI, due to demand, will delay possible treatment another three to four weeks at the very least.

In the interim, who knows what damage could develop. I care this standard of care unacceptable. Yet I have no recourse because I am a retirees and I have TRICARE Prime.

What congressman would accept this if it were it to happen to a family member? To paraphrase my wife, dependents of a military retiree feel they are at the bottom of the food chain.

I have no problem accepting higher TRICARE fees, provided the standard of care also rises.

P. R. SALM
Lieutenant Commander, USN-Ret.
Pensacola, Fla.

I am a recent Air Force retiree who just accepted a position with a major defense contractor. I had a choice for medical benefits. I could stay with TRICARE and the contractor would pick up all of my out-of-pocket expenses, or I could sign up with the company's good, nationwide provider network and pay 16 percent of the cost.

For most civilians, the nationwide provider option is a great deal. But my employer offers an incentive to military retirees: Stay with TRICARE and the employer will pick up all out-of-pocket medical costs. It’s a win-win situation for everyone except TRICARE which finds itself in a quandary.

TRICARE had expected a certain number of retirees to be hired by major corporations and to use corporate health plans. It did not anticipate what a free-market would do to encourage use of TRICARE benefits.

TRICARE now sees costs rising and does the normal government thing, which is to raise taxes, in this case TRICARE user fees.

Retires working for corporations likely will continue to enjoy TRICARE and be reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses by their employers. The big loser will be retirees who don’t have employers to make up the difference.

So how does TRICARE persuade corporate employees to lower TRICARE costs? Why not agree to pay the corporate employees’ costs – 16 percent in the above example – so they use corporate health benefits? In other words, give these retirees an incentive not to use TRICARE.

TRICARE costs would go down, retirees would be happier, company health costs would be the same whether they hired a military retiree or a civilian. Finally, military retirees could avoid the TRICARE fee increases.

I don’t expect a government-run health care organization like TRICARE to conform to this dynamic environment, however. It will just raise our fees.

J.R. RUDMAN
Fort Walton Beach, Fla.

DOD officials are "alarmed" at the fact that under-65 military retirees are shifting towards TRICARE and away from private sector health insurance. I am one of those, having retired in 2000 after 23 years in the USMC.

I elected to continue to use TRICARE for my family and myself, and to avoid private sector health premiums which were $700 a month to buy family coverage comparable to TRICARE.

The math is easy. I just have a problem with the logic of people being forced out by higher TRICARE rates. I have always viewed lower TRICARE rates as reward for military service.

I don’t make the "free health care for life" argument. Even with the proposed increases, we are way ahead of the curve. Go ahead, raise them. But it would be nice not to feel we are a burden because we aren’t forced out by these higher fees.

JOE SHIRGHIO
Gunnery Sergeant, USMC-Ret.
Hayes, Virginia.

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