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

No Need To Apply For Survivor Indemnity Allowance

How does a person affected by the SBP/DIC offset – that cut in Survivor Benefit Plan payments caused by receipt of Dependency and Indemnity Compensation -- go about receiving the new monthly Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance (SSIA) which takes effect this month?

Do I have to sign up for it or will they get the pay records from the government?

ELIZABETH DILDA
Via e-mail

 

No signup is required.  The SSIA, established by the National Defense Authorization Act Fiscal Year 2008, will be paid automatically to surviving spouses whose SBP is partially or fully offset by DIC.  The SSIA starts at $50 a month for fiscal 2009 and then increases each fiscal year by $10 until it tops off at $100 a month.  The program is due to terminate in February 2006.

Surviving spouses whose SBP annuity is suspended due to remarriage before age 55 are not eligible for SSIA for the period their SBP is suspended.  If the marriage ends and the surviving spouse regains SPB-DIC eligibility, they will also regain SSIA eligibility.  – Tom Philpott

 

No Chiropractic Care

Do you have more information about chiropractors being hired to treat deployed service members?  I am interested in doing that?

PATRICK CASEY, D.C.

Evans Army Community Hospital

Fort Carson, Colo.

 

Sorry to report I was misled by a House Armed Services Committee press release summarizing details of the agreement reached with the Senate on a final fiscal '09 defense authorization bill.  The release described a House-passed provision to establish a demonstration to provide chiropractic services to deployed service members.  It said the Senate bill contained so such provision.

Then it went on:  "The agreement includes the House provision with an amendment that would require the Secretary of Defense, not later than Sept. 30, 2009, to provide chiropractic services to active duty service members at 11 additional Military Treatment Facilities."

Not made clear in the release was that the House provision to provide chiropractic services to deployed members did not survived the House-Senate agreement.  I apologize for the confusion. – T.P.

 

No More 'Group 8' Veterans

I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs in New Mexico and there is no way the VA health care system here can take on more work patients by re-opening system enrollment to Priority Group 8 veterans (those who are not poor nor do they have service-connected ailments).

We can't even do what we are supposed to do now.  It would be extremely difficult to add more veterans and meet mandated performance measures for VA medical centers such as seeing new patients within 30 days.  I know first hand how difficult it is to get an appointment.  It usually takes me nearly four months and we are completely staffed to the hilt. 

New Mexico is a highly rural state with only one VA medical center.  It is responsible for patients in New Mexico, southern Colorado and west Texas.  Some of them travel very long distances for tertiary and specialty healthcare.

So I hope they plan on building another 152 medical centers to accommodate all these demands.  Otherwise, we will fail our veterans. 

Don't do it!

JAMES [withheld]

Via e-mail  

 

Is it true that once a retired military member reaches age 70, then he does not have to keep paying premiums for Survivor Benefit Plan coverage, that SBP is considered paid up?

A friend told me he was sure he had read that in your news column.

EDDIE PAYNE

Petty Officer First Class, USN-Ret.

Via e-mail

 

Correct.  The paid-up rule for SBP premiums takes effect this month.  SBP participants who are paid premiums for at least 360 months (30 years) and have attained age 70 no longer will see premiums deducted from monthly retired pay.  Retirees who benefit from the paid-up rule will maintain current annuity coverage at no further cost.  No action is required by the member to initiate termination of premiums.

Also, for retirees still paying SBP premiums, starting this month the Defense Finance and Accounting Service will include a "premium counter" on all Retiree Account Statements (RAS).  The counter will show total number of months of paid premiums credited to a retiree's account.  It will automatically increase in each month a full premium payment is made.  Each time a retiree receives a RAS it will display the current number of monthly premium payments to help retirees monitor their status under the paid-up rule.  – T. P.

 

Forgotten Widow

The most overlooked American victims of discrimination since World War II are surviving widows of veterans from that war who died of service-connected illness that were never recognized nor compensated.

The VA failed to classify as service-connected the malaria and Pott's Disease [tuberculosis of the spine] that killed my husband in 1979 at Wadsworth VA Hospital in California.  He had received no VA disability rating and not one dime of VA compensation went to me, his widowed wife of 34 years.

I contend his painful death resulted from gross negligence by Air Force and VA Doctors who were completely unprepared to treat malaria and the deadly Pott's Disease on his return from Assam, India in 1945.

Air Force doctors misdiagnosed my husband's left arm and shoulder pain as arthritis before he lost so much blood and they discovered the real cause of his pain, a large tumor attached to a tumor on his left lung that had become malignant after his return from India.

Because of the "no-pay VA" I have lived in poverty since his death.  All the VA gave me was a small flag to decorate his casket.

RUDY L. VANCE
Via e-mail

 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