Charles Lane; get your facts straight on Tricare

So, this fairly disingenuous fellow, Charles Lane, writes in the Washington Post opinion section about how we veterans don’t deserve Tricare as it currently exists. Apparently, we shouldn’t expect the government to honor it’s promises after we’ve fulfilled our commitment;

Since 2000, however, Congress has repeatedly expanded the access of former military personnel to Tricare. By 2010, the eligible population had increased from 6.8 million a decade earlier to 9.7 million — nearly 85 percent of whom were not active-duty service personnel, according to an excellent May 2012 Armed Forces Journal article by Brittany Gregerson of the Institute for Defense Analyses.

[…]

Once former military personnel turn 65, they are eligible for Medicare, like everyone else. But in 2002, Congress gave them “Tricare for Life” — essentially, a free Medigap plan. Roughly 2 million people take advantage of this perk, at a projected cost to taxpayers of $9.7 billion in the current fiscal year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Yeah, well the “expansion” of Tricare eligibility in 2002 was because in the 1990s, the Clinton Administration kicked veterans over the age of 65 off of Tricare and forced them into Medicare. So it wasn’t an “expansion” as much as it was a “restoration” of medical care. The Republicans only gave back to veterans that which veterans thought they had earned instead of tossing us into the confusing and completely alien Medicare system. You know, the last time the Democrats balanced the federal budget on the backs of veterans.

In anticipation of a lot of hate mail, I would note that I respect and honor America’s veterans. They should be well provided for, including reasonable health benefits. But no one — not even a veteran — is entitled to taxpayer support regardless of competing public needs.

In the case of Tricare, this is what the veterans’ lobbies have demanded of Congress, and what Congress has given them.

I wouldn’t bother mailing your ignorant ass, Mr. Lane. Especially someone who feels a need to say that he respects and honors veterans, you know, right before he throws us under the bus. That’s probably the most disingenuous statement one of these mighty mouths can make. I respect and honor journalists at the Washington Post, but they should all be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. See how that feels, Mr. Lane? At least he spared us the usual “My grandfather’s neighbor’s doctor’s dog’s mother’s owner was a veteran, so I respect and honor veterans.”

I wonder what Mr. Lane has to say about hiking costs of healthcare on Medicare seniors? Or Medicaid families? I don’t see anyone suggesting that healthcare should be more expensive for those groups in order to save the federal budget. How about we pick on another “group” of Americans who should be punished by raising the cost of their access to healthcare. Pick a group – how about miners or railway workers? How about we raise the healthcare costs of gay or transgendered Americans on Medicare?

Of course, I don’t think that we should raise healthcare costs based on any arbitrary societal measure, but while our president is promising that health care costs will be lower for every American because of his Affordable Healthcare Act, why would his administration want to hike the costs to one group? Why would the Washington Post and Mr. Lane want to pick out veterans from all of Americans to shoulder the burden of the federal budget alone, when there are no other Americans or group of Americans willing to take up part of the work that needs to be done?

Thanks to Chockblock for the link.

Category: Media, Veteran Health Care