U.S. military (Ret.): Tell lawmakers not to gut your benefits - Military Retirement - Navy Times

U.S. military (Ret.): Tell lawmakers not to gut your benefits

We’re heading toward the end of a tumultuous year for military pay and benefits, with lots of talk about overhauling military retirement benefits in particular.

Nothing has changed, but the signs point toward some kind of reckoning in the next few years as Congress tries to rein in the runaway federal deficit.

Potential changes in health care benefits are a big concern for retirees as the cost of providing those benefits now tops $50 billion a year, up from just $19 billion in 2001.

This fall, the first fee increase since Tricare was created in the mid-1990s took effect, when the Tricare Prime annual enrollment fee went from $230 to $260 for individuals and from $460 to $520 for families.

That’s just a few dollars more each month, not a huge increase. The concern among retirees is what may come next — whether this is just the tip of the iceberg.

A fair number of military retirees who have written to me recently remain adamant that they were promised “free health care for life” in return for serving a full career and will not accept the idea of any health care fees, much less fee increases.

But a good number of others recognize the dire financial situation that our nation is in and say they would pay a little more for their health care — as long as they feel they are treated fairly.

Fairness is the key. Retirees should not be faulted and should not be made to feel guilty for defense officials’ incredible lack of foresight in not building some kind of modest fee increase mechanism into the Tricare program when it first launched more than 15 years ago, which has been a prime factor in the Pentagon’s escalating costs.

I get the impression that this is a critical concern for retirees: that they are being singled out simply for using their earned benefits and are about to be hit hard as the Pentagon seeks to make up for its long-ago planning error.

I think most retirees are willing to be a little flexible as long as they know their sacrifice is being shared across a large swath of the nation’s population. But singling out retirees for deep, arbitrary cuts in their promised benefits would be a severe and unforgivable breach of faith.

Defense officials must tread carefully. Troops who volunteer to serve at least 20 years in uniform — often in locations and conditions that most civilians can’t even imagine — deserve a generous and robust retirement package. Otherwise, the military may find out the hard way that the number of people willing to stick it out for 20 years quickly plummets.

In the meantime, the best thing retirees can do is make their views known to their elected representatives.

Retired Command Master Chief Alex Keenan served 28 years in the Coast Guard. Email him at retired@militarytimes.com.