The Bogus Case for Military Vesting Master Sergeant Evans, Defense officials and others have called for changes in the military retirement system to be "fairer to people who leave service before completing 20 years of service." Others worry about being fair to long-serving troops who may be forced out in a coming drawdown. MOAA Government Relations Director Steve Strobridge's November "As I See It" column separates the reasonable arguments from the bogus ones in the context of changing the military retirement system.

In This Issue

Tax Military Families First?

MOAA calls a foul when one Super Committee plan puts steep military TRICARE fee hikes at the top of its revenue-raising list.

MOAA, AMA Push Doc Fix

MOAA and the American Medical Association joined forces this week to ask Congress to find a long term fix to the recurring Medicare/TRICARE physician reimbursement rate issue.

Vet Jobs Bill Moving

President Obama and House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee leaders have agreed on compromise legislation that combines two MOAA-supported bills to promote hiring of returning veterans.

Tax Military Families First?

As the November 23rd deadline rapidly approaches, many political observers in Washington and across the nation are doubtful the Super Committee will be able to secure a plan to reduce federal spending by some $1.2 trillion over ten years.

One of the challenges has been the broad differences between Super Committee Republicans and Democrats on the desirability of raising revenues vs. cutting spending. By and large, Republicans have rejected proposals to raise taxes on anyone, including corporations and billionaires.

More recently, Republican Super Committee members have indicated an interest in breaking the impasse by offering alternative sources of additional revenue.

On Monday, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and others offered a package of new revenue initiatives that included sale of public lands, postage increases, new energy leases...and significant increases in military families' TRICARE fees, among other things.

Now hold on a minute here. The Toomey plan is vague on the last item, but some proposals on the table would jack up military families' TRICARE fees by $3,500 a year or more. (See the special TRICARE alert box in the right margin of this update.)

MOAA has a big problem with anyone who says they oppose raising taxes in principle, including for international corporations and millionaires, and then jumps at the chance to hit military families with a $3,500 annual health care tax as their first “revenue-raising” priority.

This population already has been made to bear 100% of the nation's wartime sacrifice (600,000 of today's retirees served since 9/11/01) through decades of service. Military retirees also have been made to forfeit thousands a year in retired pay, having retired under pay table depressed by annual budget-driven capping of military pay raises throughout the 1980s and '90s.

Legislators of either party have their priorities seriously out of whack when they offer up military families – who have sacrificed more for our country than any other segment of Americans – as the first target to absorb a major new tax on their hard-earned health coverage.

MOAA, AMA Push Doc Fix

This Veterans Day, MOAA and the American Medical Association (AMA) joined forces to ask Congress to step up and stop a 27 percent cut in Medicare/TRICARE physician payments to protect health care access for seniors and America's military families. Congress has until January 1 to pass a fix.

TRICARE ties its physician payment rates to Medicare, so the scheduled 27 percent cut would hurt the nearly 10 million military family members who rely on TRICARE for their health care needs.

"This payment cut is the number one threat to military beneficiaries' health care access," said MOAA President Vice Admiral Norb Ryan, Jr., USN-Ret. "Having just returned from visiting with our troops in Afghanistan earlier this month, I know the last thing our deployed servicemembers should have to worry about is whether their sick spouse or child will have a difficult time getting the health care they need."

Physician payments under Medicare and TRICARE have been nearly frozen for a decade, leaving a 20 percent gap between payment updates and the cost of caring for seniors. A drastic cut of 27 percent is the largest ever scheduled and will force many physicians to limit the number of TRICARE and Medicare patients in their practice.

Use our alert system to send your legislators a MOAA-suggested message asking them to find a long term fix to this recurring problem.

Vet Jobs Bill Moving

Senate and House Veterans Affairs Committees leaders struck a deal this week to combine the Hiring Heroes Act, S. 951 (Senator Patty Murray D-WA) and the Veterans’ Opportunity to Work (VOW) Act, H.R. 2433 (Rep. Jeff Miller, R-FL), which cleared the House earlier.

The bi-partisan, bicameral VOW to Hire Heroes Act includes a range of measures to support veterans' readjustment, counseling and job training by:

• Making attendance at a transition assistance program (which offers career counseling options, resume-writing assistance, etc.) mandatory for most separating personnel

• Allowing service members to begin the federal employment process prior to separation to allow easier transition to jobs at VA, Homeland Security, and other federal agencies

• Offering job training benefits and additional education options for up to 100,000 older (age 34-64) unemployed vets to help them qualify for jobs in high-demand sectors, from trucking to technology. It also provides disabled vets up to a year of additional Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Benefits

• Requiring the Department of Labor to help match military skills and training to comparable civil-sector jobs and make it easier to get the licenses and certification needed in the marketplace

• Adding the Administration's proposal to offer employers tax incentives of up to $5,600 for hiring veterans, and up to $9,600 for hiring disabled veterans

In related action this week, MOAA staff participated in a White House event Monday where the President announced three new initiatives to assist veterans in transition. They include a Veterans Job Bank, a military skills "translator" into civilian jobs called My Next Move For Veterans, and a "Gold Card" given access to Department of Labor-sponsored job counseling services.

MOAA strongly supports the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, and the veteran jobs plan announced by the Commander-in-Chief.