Military Health, Tricare programs - Military Times

Lawmakers: Health care reform won’t affect vets’ programs

Six major veterans groups have warned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that they will oppose a national health care reform bill unless major changes are made to protect veterans and their families.

But lawmakers said they’ve already taken steps to ensure that any reform effort does not affect health benefits delivered by the Defense Department’s Tricare program or the Veterans Affairs Department health system.

In a July 30 letter, the six veterans groups said HR 3200, the America’s Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009, could raise veterans’ health care costs, limit treatment options, deny coverage to their families and “threaten the quality of health care offered to veterans through the VA health care system.”

But in a statement issued one day later, the House Education and Labor Committee said the groups’ concerns already have been addressed in the health care reform legislation itself, as well as in amendments approved as the committee drafted its bill.

And in a private meeting Aug. 4 with leaders of the American Legion, the nation’s largest veterans group, President Barack Obama pledged to keep the VA health care system “essentially as is,” said David Rehbein, the Legion’s national commander.

Rehbein said he got a “very strong assurance” from Obama that VA, “as our veterans know it, will continue to exist. It will not be diluted or folded into some sort of national system.”

A major concern has been that military and veterans health care could be taxed as an employer-provided benefit, and that types of treatment covered might be subject to oversight by a government board that has no experience with military or veterans health care.

The House bill would require all individuals to have minimum health insurance coverage or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of gross income. But the education and labor committee said the bill specifies that Tricare and VA health care are considered “acceptable minimum coverage,” so no one enrolled in those two systems would be penalized.

The committee also accepted amendments by Reps. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., and Joe Wilson, R-S.C., “to further clarify” that the VA and Tricare systems “will be exempt from” the legislation.

The committee also addressed another concern of veterans groups: Family members of veterans who do not have health coverage “will be eligible to find appropriate coverage” through new national or state “health care exchanges,” the same as all other qualified Americans.

AmVets, Blinded Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, Jewish War Veterans, The Military Order of the Purple Heart and Vietnam Veterans of America — organizations that have worked together on veterans budget and health care issues in the past — signed the letter to Pelosi that expresses “grave concerns” about how veterans might fare under HR 3200.

“By virtue of their service and sacrifices, veterans have earned special benefits that are separate [from] and in addition to benefits the government provides to other citizens,” the letter read. “Enrollment in VA health care, especially in the case of service-connected disabled veterans, should never become a bar or obstacle to the receipt of benefits that nonveteran citizens receive in this or any other bill.”

DISCUSS: Health care