Vet panel seeks end to retired pay offsets - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Vet panel seeks end to retired pay offsets

A congressionally appointed veterans’ benefits commission decided Wednesday, by a one-vote margin, to recommend ending the much-despised restrictions on granting full military retired pay and full veterans’ disability pay to anyone eligible for both payments, regardless of disability rating.

But the “concurrent receipt” recommendation passed by the commission would not protect troops who receive compensation for combat-related disabilities unless they served more than 20 years before becoming disabled. As such, it would leave out troops placed on medical disability retirement short of 20 years of service.

The 13 commission members, meeting in Washington, also decided that it’s unfair that the family members of troops who paid for a Survivor Benefit Plan annuity, to replace the service member’s income after death, should have any of that payment offset by the amount of a separate monthly Veterans Affairs benefit paid if the troop died while on active duty under certain circumstances.

If Congress eventually enacts the recommendations, it would largely end the more than 100-year-old practice of requiring military retirees to have their retired pay reduced dollar-for-dollar by any amount received in veterans’ disability compensation paid by the VA.

Congress enacted a plan several years ago to begin phasing out the offset for many troops, but many others still have their retired pay reduced.

The commission, however, stalemated on a version of the active-duty concurrent receipt plan that would have recommended expanding eligibility for concurrent receipt to those with less than 20 years of service — so-called Chapter 61 retirees.

It also would have expanded Combat Related Special Compensation to Temporarily Early Retirement Authority retirees — mostly officers who were offered early retirement during the 1990s drawdown to thin the ranks. CRSC, paid to eligible disabled retirees whose conditions were the result of combat or combatlike training, is designed to replace any offset in their retired pay. TERA retirees generally are ineligible for CRSC, because recipients must have served 20 or more years.

A congressional adoption of the spousal concurrent receipt issue would boost income for the roughly 63,000 surviving spouses who have some or all of their Survivor Benefit Plan annuities offset by the amount they receive in VA Dependency and Indemnity Compensation.

DIC is a monthly benefit paid to survivors of a service member who died while on active duty, or a veteran who died due to a service-related injury or disease, or died from a nonservice-related injury or disease and who was receiving or about to receive VA compensation for a service-connected disability rated as totally disabling.

All told, 313,000 surviving spouses are paid a total of about $4.1 billion in DIC each year, according to the commission. Eliminating the offset would cost taxpayers $660 million annually.

The Veterans’ Disability Benefits Commission was established by Congress in 2004 to study all benefits related to death or disability brought about by military service. The Washington meeting of the commission is one in a series, all open to the public. Its final report is due to Congress on Oct. 1.