More Copayments for TRICARE For Life

Thanks to Morgan Johnson for this info:

If you are a military retiree or know one personally, this is important.

I dare you to really read this and not care.

Our new president and congress has set as a goal to greatly reduce the use of Medical facilities by military retirees. No, I didn't hear this from Rush Limbaugh. I read it in a congressional document detailing how they plan to help retirees understand the cost of medical care. Follow the embedded link in this document and search "TFL"; you will be surprised from the very first paragraph what the Democratic government thinks of us. http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/78xx/doc7821/02-23-BudgetOptions.pdf

You see, these pinheads in Washington seem to think that retirees like me take health care for granted; that we have nothing else to do but sit around getting frivolous treatment at government expense just for our own entertainment. This plan is to raise our costs so that we will be encouraged to take our business elsewhere. Military retirees are officially classified as "a burden on society." Spending twenty years plus of our lives in the service of our nation is no longer worthy of gratitude - unless those years are spent being pampered in Washington, D.C. The Democrats in Congress give better medical benefits to illegal aliens than they do for our veterans - and they don't have to pay anything! For this we should all be ashamed.

Morgan, Jr.

TRICARE for Life's Future:
Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2009 09:14:10 -0800

I received this through a "Fwd" and wanted to share it with all who use TFL as a supplemental insurance to Medicare. It came as quite a shock to me.

This is for real. The heavy assault has begun on Veterans'/Retirees'
benefits to pay for other programs. The word on the street is that
these indeed are a high priority of the Obama administration. The one
most of interest to Retired Military is in Article 189. If approved by
Congress the first assault wave would hit the beaches in 2011 and would
hit hard. It would initiate cost sharing to require retirees to pay the
first $525 of medical cost and 50% of the next $4,725 for a first year
cost of $2,888 per person. It would be indexed to increase with
inflation. A reason given for this action (for PR effect) is "overuse by Retirees."

For those of you who are covered by TFL you will want to pay attention
to what BG Bob Clements has surfaced about the future of TFL.

If you know of anyone who is Retired Military, please forward this on to
them.

I don't know how many of you partake of the Tricare for Life program
but here is a very interesting note on the subject. Seems as though our
President Elect has placed a priority on cutting it out of the budget as
a means to provide funding for those things he promised during the
campaign.

In any case, on page 189 of the Congressional Budget Office report, see
the note below on how to get to that spot, there is a strong
recommendation to eventually eliminate the program as it is too
expensive. I would ask that you contact your elected officials and
register your strong opposition to the elimination of this program.
Just another move to slight those of us who dedicated much of our adult
lives to the defense of our country. Thanks for listening.

Heads-up from BG Bob Clements, USAF Ret (P38 Bob) The following has been
added to the Congressional Budget Office Web Site http://www.cbo.gov/
a. Budget, Options, Volume 1: Health Care
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 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.

Even if you are an Obama lover and believe that change cometh, TFL
option from OMB will not go away. They need the money they spend on you
for other programs for people who produce nothing but votes to keep their
boss in office!

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
MilVet99)

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 [at] yahoo [dot] com