We all need to take action on this. Write your Congressmen regularly about these issues. These "options" (not recommendations) from OMB are nothing new, I happens every few years. So far, Congress has rebuffed them, but watch out after the current war declines. We must keep on our toes.
Art Oxley
Colonel, USAF (retired)
The following has been added to the Congressional Budget Office Web Site
(_www.cbo.gov_ (http://www.cbo.gov/) ): a. Budget, Options, Volume 1:
Health Care (_http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=9925_
(http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=9925)
For those who have never opened one of these web sites from OMB :
1. double click on the above URL
2. click on PDF
3. click on the binoculars
4. do a search for TFL
"Now here it is folks and I will guarantee if you sit around on your behind
and do nothing about it as they bring these options forward this coming
year, you will lose one of the best healthcare benefits that the Medicare
eligible retired military have. It is short of the promises made that we
fought so hard for back in the late 90s and early 2000s but it is still the best
healthcare program that anyone in the United States has, bar none.
People who are professionals always look for the channel of least resistance when it comes to cutting money out of the Federal and DOD budget. I can tell you this straight on, military retirees are one of those channels of least resistance noted for sitting around, doing nothing, and waiting for ole Joe to do it for them. You had better wake up. Your medical benefits are prime target. If you lose them, you have nobody to blame but yourself. Let me repeat that ... you have nobody to blame but yourself.
The way to secure your benefits is to write to your members of Congress and to keep writing and writing and writing. ONCE IS NOT ENOUGH!! Keep repeating the above statement until you are blue in the face.
Now I'm going to make one more statement to all of you younger people out there who are not yet eligible for Tricare for Life. HEALTH CARE WILL EVENTUALLY BECOME THE DOMINATING FACTOR IN YOUR LIFE. Remember that it will
impact you big time with the utmost in cruelty unless you are fortunate enough to die from a heart attack . . . or get run over by a truck.
Now, I am going to attach AGAIN exactly what OMB has in store for military retirees using TFL. This source is directly from OMB and is not something that I have dreamed up. They are telling you exactly what they are going to do with your benefits. If you do nothing, this is what you will get.
The service organizations will put up a fight and are aware of this and will put up a fight but, they will need your help and can't do it by themselves. I hope this makes it clear as to what you can expect if you do nothing.
To show you how stupid these professionals can be at times if you will read the attached document closely you will see that in spite of the MTFs (Military Treatment Facility) need to get patients back to keep their doctors busy and the hospitals from going to clinic status, these people from OMB would employ a means to keep retirees from using MTF facilities by charging them a fee for services. How dumb can you get.
============================================================================== A footnote: BG Bob Clement is known with affection as"P38bob". He flew P38s in WWII. He was one of the stalwart warriors that led effectively from the front when the hard battles were being fought to bring Tricare for Life to reality. I was honored and pleased to be a player in that effort by following P38 Bob's lead. (in those days I was known as&nbs! p; MilVe t99)
MilVets: it looks like we will again be confronted by the 'attack of the beancounters' who, by and large, wouldn't know (and probably never will know) genuine unselfish service to our country and are solely motivated by crunching numbers so that those numbers will reflect favorably on their bosses and their boss's causes. They have no thought to the havoc they would cause .
in many cases the loss of any amount of TFL benefits would be a an insurmountable hardship ..... and to some it would truly be a death sentence.
It is well that we gear up for the fight now. As P38Bob says, we must write, write, write and write. Once is not enough! In time I will be preparing letters for your use in writing to your elected officials and submitting them to the TREA Membership, and to others who may want to join the fight.!
Them Beancounters haven't seen anything until they've seen a united and angered group of MilVets. Lets do it and git 'er done!!!!! Your comments and inquiries are welcome.
Fred Langston, President (2008), Legislative Affairs Chair, Greater San
Diego Chapter 128, The Retired Enlisted Association (TREA),
_fglangston@yahoo.com_ (mailto:fglangston@yahoo.com)
Art Oxley 216-570-2183
Colonel USAF (retired)
Electronic Instrument Research, Inc.
ARO Measurement Systems LLC
artoxley@verizon.net
http://www.e-i-r.com
http://www.aromeasure.com