Gates Suggests Raising Health Care Premiums for Employed Veterans

Wednesday, September 08, 2010
With the Department of Defense staring at enormous cost increases for its health care program, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is proposing raising premiums for the first time ever since the creation of the Tricare system in 1996.
 
Health care costs for the Pentagon have ballooned from $19 billion in 2000 to an estimated $50 billion for next year, and $65 billion by 2015. Gates wants to avoid increasing premiums for active-duty personnel and their families. Instead, he’s suggesting charging higher premiums and co-pay fees for retired veterans using Tricare who have access to private health care plans through their current employers.
 
Gates’ idea is likely to have a tough time gaining approval in Congress, where both Democrats and Republicans have been reluctant to lift Tricare premiums for any military personnel.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
 
Gates Gives Brutal Assessment of Tricare (by Kevin Baron, Stars and Stripes)
Higher TRICARE Premiums on Gates' Cost-cut Agenda (by Tom Philpo, Ogden Standard-Examiner)
Military Health Care Bills are Skyrocketing (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)

Comments

Grace Centauro 14 years ago
My husband is retired Army. Mr. Gates has no right increasing Tricare care benefits. First of all My husband went to his The VA hospital not feeling good this was back in 2001. He spent the whole day at the hospital. The next day he had a heart attack and was sent by by ambulance to the local hospital. Because his heart attack was so severe the local hospital sent him into a major Boston hospital where they had to operate. Three days later I get a call for the VA in West Roxbury MA telling me that I better get my husband back to the hospital that he is going to have aheart attack. WHAT THE HELL KIND OF CARE ARE YOU GIVING OUR VETERANS MR. GATES??? Again back in 2009 my husband went to the VA In W. Roxbury MA. He was there for 2 days. On the second day after being at the VA all day that evening he collapsed and again was sent to the Local hospital who immediately did a Head Scan and said that he had a Brain anerysum and again was sent to Boston. AGAIN WHAT KIND OF CARE ARE YOU GIVING OUR VETERANS MR. GATES. Now that my husbands Medicare days are running out I contacted the VA to help pay for the bills (my Husband is still in the ICU at the Brigham & Womens Hospital and will be there for sometime) and they are telling me that they his days Medicare days are almost and who is going to help???? My husabnd gave 25 years of his life to this wonderful country US Army)and acquired the Bronze Star in Vietnam and yet now no one will help him.
Major Richard Barnett, USAF Ret'd 14 years ago
Gate's is certainly no friend of the military. It is obvious he cares nothing about the commitments that were made to those of us who served. His total military experience was 1 years as a 2nd LT in the USAF. I guess he learned back stabing in his CIA career.

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