(COMMENT: The drumbeat to screw retirees continues…)
Tacoma News Tribune
August 14, 2010
Pg. 14
Military Update
Higher Health Premiums On Gates' Cost-Cutting Agenda
By Tom Philpott
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signaled that the department’s fiscal 2012 budget request to be sent to Congress early next year will include recommendations to raise TRICARE premiums for some beneficiaries.
If past proposals are a reliable guide, the target of higher fees is likely to be military retirees rather than active duty families.
Phi Beta Iota: Health is one of twelve core policies that must be managed as an integrated whole. We know that 50% of health care spending is waste; we know that we pay 100 times more (as mandated by Congress) for the top 75 drug prescriptions than the rest of the world less Canada (which only pays 10 times). We know the US Government does not manage its budget in relation to means, ways, and ends, only in relation to budget share for the recipients of taxpayer funds. We salute Arnold Punaro for the key point: it makes no sense to retire people at 20 years just as they reach full performance, and then pay them for another 40 years. It's time the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) got back in the business of managing, starting with Whole of Government Planning, Programming, & Budgeting along with tax reform (eliminate individual income taxes, eliminate loopholes and subsidies, nullify all federal regulations on state and local enterprises that do not do inter-state commerce, make all federal budgets subject to public ballot line item veto, etc. This is not rocket science. All it takes is one word: INTEGRITY.
