Readers of Tom Philpott’s Military Update column sound off.

VA Enrollment Freeze Stays for Low-Priority Vets

I have a Veterans Identification Card which allows me, a World War II veteran, to purchase medications and get treatment at veterans’ hospitals and clinics. I recently suggested to a friend who had served military time in the Aleutian Islands that he apply for a card. He tried, but he was told he could not get a card. Eligibility rules had been revised or something.

It seems odd that a veteran would be denied this benefit. Can you shed light on this?

HARRY TORGERSON
Great Falls, Mont.
 
Yes. Effective Jan. 17, 2003, the Department of Veterans Affairs suspended new enrollments in the VA healthcare system by “Priority Group 8” veterans. These veterans have no service-connected disabilities and also have incomes or net worth above the VA-established threshold and the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s geographic index.

Suspension of new Group 8 enrollments is into its third year with no sign of ending soon. The purpose is to ensure that the VA can provide care to veterans with greater needs, military-related disabilities or lower incomes. VA only opened its hospitals and clinics to Group 8 enrollees in 1996, at a time when only 2.9 million veterans were enrolled. That total shot up to 6.8 million by the time Group 8 freeze took effect.

Group 8 veterans who had enrolled in VA health care before Jan. 17, 2003, have not been impacted by the enrollment freeze and continue to receive VA care, as available, and medicines for modest co-payments. – Tom Philpott
 
UNIFIED MEDICAL COMMAND

As a retiree and TRICARE Prime enrollee, I would support and vote for a unified medical command.

Elimination of duplication of services would definitely be a cost saver. We already have seen improvements in care when VA and military hospitals utilize each other’s specialties to serve our vets more effectively. Integrated hospital commands could work easily.

I can see reasons to improve TRICARE, and support a more streamline, efficient system. Great story!

CARLTON T. TERRELL
Army Nurse Corps-Ret.
Via e-mail
 
SBP-DIC OFFSET

I read with great interest that the Senate Armed Services Committee has voted to end the dollar-for-dollar offset in Survivor Benefits Plan payments that surviving spouses experience when they also qualify for VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation.

I am one of those surviving spouses. Do you think this plan to end the SBP-DIC offset will be passed? If so, when this would go into effect?

LORETTA BOLDUAN
Everett, Wash.
 
This one is hard to call. Lawmakers know that the Senate provision to end the SBP-DIC offset is a priority for surviving spouses and military retiree associations. They have seen Congress relax the “concurrent receipt” law for military retired pay and VA disability benefits and say similar gains are overdue for surviving spouses.

On the other hand, the Bush administration has been pressuring Congress to stop expanding benefit programs, particularly for retirees and survivors. Rising entitlement obligations, Defense officials argue, are putting the squeeze on other defense spending.

The House defense authorization bill would not change the SBP-DIC offset. Its “big ticket” personnel initiative is to open a premium-based TRICARE plan for all drilling reserve component members. The Senate bill, so far, would not expand reserve health benefits, though that could be changed with a floor amendment.

Differences between the bills will be ironed out in a closed House-Senate conference committee. If only one of these initiatives is seen as affordable, the SBP-DIC initiative is less costly. But expect House negotiators to argue that improving TRICARE for reservists would have a more direct impact on readiness. The administration opposes both initiatives as too costly. – T.P.
 
REAL CONSERVATIVES

When I was a teenager in the 1960’s, my mom and dad left the Democratic Party. They’d had enough of street protests and flag burnings, and made for the shores of the party of Eisenhower and Nixon.

They’d seen Democrats try to solve all problems by throwing away money. The government, they reasoned, should conserve, and they were conservatives. They didn’t like a government in debt and were aghast a new thing called a “trade deficit.” The “Republican Revolution” of 1994 would have thrilled them with its push for small government and welfare limits.

But my parents were true conservatives. Yes, keep government out of your pocketbook but also out of unnecessary wars, your bedrooms and your telephone records. If they were alive today, they’d be appalled at the number of Republican members of Congress under investigation for corruption. They’d have called it stealing. They would have found the Republicans’ trillion-dollar boondoggle in Iraq as offensive as those useless Democrat-led government agencies of their own day. And the idea that a Republican president would move America from a surplus to this yawning, endless deficit would’ve made them furious.

Me, I’m a liberal and feeling a bit homeless in the current climate. But if my parents were alive, they’d feel just as adrift in today’s “Party of Abe Lincoln.”

LAWRENCE MINGS
Via e-mail
 
PROMISES, LAW, IGNORED

The Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Defense know, but have chosen to ignore, the fact that TRICARE for Life is supposed to be financed by the Treasury Department. They continue to bill the DoD for these costs, ignoring a provision of law enacted in fiscal 2005.

At a time when this nation is at war, these “leaders” in DoD still try to balance the military budget on the backs of the retired military community. What kind of a message does this send to our troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere? It says if you retire we will not honor any of our commitments to you with regards to promised health care.

It is not the retirees’ fault that health care costs have risen so greatly. If blame must be placed, lay it at the feet of members of Congress who have become beholden to big business interests, health care interests included. They no longer have any control over what goes on or how badly the health care industry is mismanaged.

A.C. PILGER
USN-Ret.
Cantonsville, Md.
 
Letters may be edited for clarity or length.  Write to Military Forum, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA  20120-1111, send e-mail to militaryforum@aol.com or visit www.militaryupdate.com