Retirees left vulnerable to hospital fee hikes - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Retirees left vulnerable to hospital fee hikes

Every day that Congress fails to pass the 2011 defense policy bill is a day the Defense Department could surprise military retirees with a massive cost increase for inpatient hospitalization.

In 2009, Congress blocked defense officials from imposing a $110-a-day increase in the inpatient hospitalization charges for military retirees. But the moratorium on fee hikes applied only during fiscal year 2010, which ended on Sept. 30.

Since the moratorium expired, the Defense Department has been free to increase the charge, but it has not acted because the pending 2011 defense authorization could again bar the fee increase, according to congressional aides.

Congress needs to specifically block the fee increase because permanent law allows the Defense Department to set charges for hospitalization. This makes the inpatient charges different from other Tricare fees, which require an act of Congress to increase.

The fee hike proposed last year would have been a 21 percent jump in hospitalization charges.

“There is nothing stopping the Defense Department from increasing the hospitalization charge right now, other than the fact we could retroactively ban it in the 2012 national defense authorization act, which would cause some headaches if the department had to repay people,” said a House aide, who asked not to be identified. “If it looks like there won’t be a 2012 authorization bill — and that certainly is a possibility — then there is nothing preventing the fee increase.”

The Association of the United States Army has issued an alert to its members about the risk of not passing the 2011 defense bill that says the Defense Department “will impose” the hospitalization fee increase if the bill does not become law.

Work on the defense bill stalled for six weeks while Congress took a break for the November elections, but it is unclear whether the bill will pass because of partisan disagreement over the White House’s push to repeal the military’s ban on openly gay service members. Senate leaders expect to make an attempt to pass the bill after Thanksgiving, shortly after the Defense Department releases a much-anticipated report on how the military would adopt a policy allowing gays to openly serve.

Pentagon officials have given no indication of their plans about the hospitalization charge, but defense and service officials have been increasingly vocal about raising other health care related fees, like the enrollment fees and premiums, deductibles and copayments for Tricare. The 2012 defense budget that will be submitted to Congress next year is expected to include some specific recommendations for fee increases.