Webb not yet willing to raise Tricare fees - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Webb not yet willing to raise Tricare fees

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel said Wednesday that while he is looking for personnel-related savings in the 2012 defense budget, he is not ready to raise Tricare health care fees for retirees.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a Marine combat veteran who grew up in a military family and whose son is an Iraq veteran, said he continues to believe that higher health care fees are a mistake because medical benefits are part of a “moral contract” with service members.

He said he would “keep an open mind” but isn’t ready to back the Pentagon’s latest call to raise fees.

Defense Department officials have proposed modest increases next year — no more than $5 a month — for retirees under age 65, with future increases tied to medical inflation. Full details on future increases have not been made available.

Tricare fees aside, Webb said he is prepared to cut spending.

He said he would be reviewing personnel programs to determine “what they cost and whether they are achieving their goals.”

Those that aren’t successful “should be eliminated,” Webb said. “Those that are successful should be kept and even expanded.”

Webb said he was reviewing programs to do his part in a larger congressional effort to cut federal spending — an effort from which “DoD is not immune.”

When Webb finished describing his plans for reviewing personnel programs, Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., asked the subcommittee to help pass decade-old legislation that would allow survivors of service members who die on active duty to receive full military and veterans survivors benefits without offset, if they are eligible for both payments.

Nelson’s plan, supported by major military associations including Gold Star Wives, would cost $6.6 billion over 10 years. Nelson said he does not have a way to pay for ending the current dollar-for-dollar offset made in military survivor benefits for those also eligible for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation paid by the Veterans Affairs Department.