THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290429
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines
The U.S. military has deceived generations of young Americans by leading them to believe they'll get free medical care for life if they make a career of the armed services, the Pentagon's top doctor acknowledged Tuesday.
Recruiters aren't supposed to make an explicit promise of free care, but ``it would be facetious to say that's not what recruits believe,'' Dr. Stephen Joseph told a congressional subcommittee.
In fact, several witnesses told the lawmakers, care through military facilities such as Portsmouth Naval Medical Center is becoming less available to retirees. Worse yet, a new health-care system that the Pentagon is implementing nationwide would force them to pay for services.
The new system, Tricare Prime, is being installed gradually and is not scheduled to reach Hampton Roads until 1997. A pilot version has been tested for the past two years in the area, however, on personnel at the rank of E-4 and below.
Tricare Prime is expected to workmuch like a civilian health maintenance organization. Military dependents and retirees desiring service will contact a Tricare office - there are three in Hampton Roads - when they need health services. They'll be referred to a military facility or a civilian provider in the Tricare network.
The Pentagon wants to charge retirees an enrollment fee of up to $460 for services under Tricare Prime. It may also impose user fees on services they receive at military hospitals, said Charles Partridge, a retired Army colonel. The Navy alone has nearly 30,000 retirees in Hampton Roads.
Partridge represents The Military Coalition, an amalgam of groups representing 3.75 million veterans and active-duty personnel. He said the military plans to use promises of improved access to care to induce retirees to pay the Tricare Prime enrollment charges. Then, he complained, the services will impose user fees to discourage them from taking advantage of that access.
``User fees will have a particularly negative impact on newly retired personnel, who would abruptly be confronted with an enrollment fee and user fees as well, where only days earlier he or she was exempt from these costs as an active-duty member,'' Partridge said.
Neil M. Singer, an analyst in the Congressional Budget Office, said his research suggests Tricare will be unable to offer all military beneficiaries access to its three coverage options. And some retirees, ``particularly those aged 65 or older, would receive fewer benefits and might actually find their out-of-pocket costs increasing under Tricare,'' he said.
While Congress has ordered the Defense Department to implement Tricare without increasing costs to beneficiaries or to the government, Singer said the system probably will increase the Pentagon's medical bills. If implemented fully next year, he said, the increase would be about 3 percent, or $300 million.
Singer and Partridge suggested that the government might solve part of retirees' problems with Tricare by requiring that Medicare reimburse the Pentagon for the cost of caring for military retirees who are eligible for Medicare benefits.
Now, when those retirees receive services in military hospitals, the cost is borne by the Defense Department. Making Medicare pay for their care, as it would if they went to civilian facilities, would pump about $2.7 billion into the defense budget by the end of the decade, Singer estimated.
Joseph, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, pictured military medical officials as trying to balance their obligation to care for retirees against ``our need to be able to pay for a system.'' Lifetime free care would cost more than the taxpayers are willing to provide, he suggested.
And Joseph took sharp exception to a suggestion by Singer that the military might reduce its medical costs by drastically reducing its peacetime medical services.
The care they provide to service members and retirees in peacetime, Joseph said, keeps military doctors and facilities ready to deal with wartime situations. by CNB