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Senate warns against future Tricare fee hikes

Raising Tricare fees should be the final resort in the effort to hold down military health care costs, the Senate says in a resolution attached to the 2010 defense budget.

The resolution, passed by voice vote at the urging of Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., is not legally binding; it’s more of a warning.

For the first time in three years, the Defense Department has not proposed raising Tricare co-payments, deductibles or enrollment fees, so Congress does not have to act on behalf of retirees and their families to block anything.

However, Pentagon officials have made clear that the only reason they didn’t ask for a fee increase is that they are hoping to work out a compromise to do so in the future.

The House may be ready for an increase. Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., who chairs the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel panel, said some fee increases may be inevitable as part of a larger compromise that includes other initiatives to hold down costs. She said she anticipates a discussion about fee increases will come next year, during debate over the 2011 defense budget.

While Davis has not offered a specific proposal, aides said they don’t think it would be out of line to increase Tricare fees to keep pace with any increase in military retired pay.

However, linking increases in fees to increases in retired pay might not result in any increase at all. For 2010, government economists are predicting there will be no cost-of-living adjustment in retired pay. That annual adjustment is tied to the cost of goods and services, which have been falling, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Senate seems steadfastly opposed to fee increases except as a last-ditch effort.

Lautenberg, who led efforts to block proposed fee increases over the past three years, said nothing has changed his view.

“We owe our troops and their families the best quality health care at affordable prices,” Lautenberg said, taking credit for working with the Obama administration to have health care fee increases omitted from the 2010 budget.

Lautenberg’s resolution says the Defense Department “has many additional options to constrain the growth of health care spending in ways that do not disadvantage retired members of the armed services who participate or seek to participate in the Tricare program, and should pursue any and all such options rather than seeking large increases for enrollment fees, deductibles and co-payments.”

But by opposing “large” increases, such as the tripling of some Tricare fees proposed by the Pentagon over the last few years, the amendment may leave the door open for modest increases.

DISCUSS: Tricare