Bill Passes -Good News for Retirees

Bill at: http://thomas. loc.gov/cgi- bin/query/ D?c110:9: ./temp/~c110OMtF WV::

www.TREA.org
Partial reprint... full report at:
http://www.trea. org/leginfo/ printable/ 20071214. pdf

More Detail On The NDAA-On Wednesday the full House of Representatives passed HR 1585 this year’s NDAA by a vote of 370 to 49. While I am writing this article, the Senate has not yet acted on the bill. It is expected to be passed by the Senate and sent to the President for his signature before the Christmas break. But, of course, that may still change. Last week I wrote a very quick article on the NDAA when the bill came out of conference on Friday. Now here is more detail:
· Freeze on any enrollment fee or co-pay increase-This was a huge success; and a huge fight. It applies to all retirees under the age of 65 who are enrolled in TRICARE Prime or using TRICARE Standard, and applies to everyone who uses the TRICARE Pharmacy program (active duty and their families, all retirees including those in TFL and survivors). But please remember this is only for this fiscal year. This will surely come up again next year (indeed please see the article on the Task Force on the future of Military Health Care for proposals on just that thing).

· Improvements in the Montgomery GI Bill-The NDAA includes many changes in the MGIB. Most of the improvements are focused, (not surprising) on the Guard and Reserve MGI bill. The changes include: 1) allowing mobilized members who earn entitlement under Chapter 1607, 10 years of post-service use 2) allowing the same right to “buy-up” that the active duty now has. They can contribute $600 in $20 increments and receive up to $150 more a month in their package. 3) Permitting former reservists with Chap. 1607 benefits who rejoin the G-R to recover their Chap. 1607 entitlement and to have the new 10 years post-service access to them after finishing up their new contract. However, with these and other changes they did not recodify the Reserve’s MGIB and move it under the VA Chapters.

· Concurrent Receipt/Combat Related Special Compensation- The NDAA includes two great improvements in this area. It allows Chapter 61 (Medically Retired) military retirees to participate in the Combat Related Special Compensation program with no limits in the years served and no end date for the program. They also, after years of pushing, made IU (Individual Unemployability) 100% VA Service Disabled retirees eligible for full 100% concurrent receipt. And they made it effective January 1, 2005.

· Survivor Benefits-The NDAA provides a $50 a month to respond to our push to end the SBP/DIC offset. This allowance to replace a small part of the SBP payment will go up in small increments each year until it reaches $100 a month in 2014. However, this allowance then ends in 2016. Therefore we will need to keep working on permanently ending the full offset. While this clearly is a very small payment, it is an important “foot in the door”. It was crucial that we made some progress this year-and we did.

2) Senate VA Committee Votes on General Peake’s Nomination to be Secretary of the VA-On Thursday the Senate VA Committee unanimously approved the nomination of Dr. James Peake to be the new Secretary of the VA. They then sent their recommendation to the full Senate. It is expected that Dr. Peake will be confirmed before the end of the year.

3) Task Force On The Future Of Military Health Care Finishes Its Report-This week I attended a public meeting of the Defense Health Board where the Task Force gave a briefing where they gave a general description of what their recommendations to the Secretary of Defense and Congress are going to be. (They will not present any specific numbers etc. until they present the report to the SecDef on December 19). While they were not a surprise; they are a real disappointment and worry for the future.

· Along with many structural changes the Task Force made clear that they are going to suggest increases in enrollment fees and deductibles for retirees under 65 enrolled in TRICARE Prime

· A new “modest” yearly enrollment fee for TFL

· Changes in the incentives for everyone using the TRICARE Pharmacy program (that translates into making co-pays to direct patients to choose the mail order pharmacy plan or the MTFs)

· Automatic increases in enrollment fees, cost shares and deductibles every 5 years

We will have much more on this when we see the report on December 19. Remember these are just recommendations- nothing is final. But it is clear that there will be much more work to do on this again next year.

4) Small Business Administration puts out Public Service Announcement-



PSA ADVISORY
PRESS OFFICE
____________ _________ ___

Release Date: December 12, 2007
Contact: Dennis Byrne (202) 205-6567
Release No.: MA07-38
Internet Address: www.sba.gov/ news

SBA Releases PSA on New Vet Loan Program

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Small Business Administration today released an audio public service announcement (PSA) encouraging veterans and other members of the military community to become entrepreneurs and take advantage of SBA’s new Patriot Express Loan program to start or expand a small business.

The 30-second spot for rebroadcast by radio or internet, also tells listeners where to find more information about the program on the SBA website.

The audio PSA is available in a downloadable MP3 format on the SBA Web site at http://www.sba. gov/idc/groups/ public/documents /sba_program_ office/patriotex press_12- 10-07_video. mp3

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