TRICARE

This is from the Navy Times:

An e-mail is bouncing around cyberspace claiming the TRICARE for Life benefit is abut to be reduced or even eliminated. The e-mail’s originators claim the White House Office of Management and Budget is now making decisions to that effect, and they’re even insinuating that President Barack Obama has something to do with it—even though the source document for those claims originated weeks before Obama’s Jan 20 swearing in.

Many worried readers have contacted me to ask whether this is true. Here is what I can tell you.

There is something called the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan agency (it serves neither Democratic nor Republican masters) with two main missions: working up cost estimates for the many legislative proposals that come out of Congress each year and offering lawmakers annual options for cutting federal spending.

In December, CBO issued its first wave of annual options, focusing on health dare costs. Among the 115 options are three related to TRICARE.

One would nominally increase cost-shares for family members of active duty members. Another would do the same for “working age” military retirees under age 65. And a third would introduce nominal cost-sharing fees for TRICARE-for-Life users.

I cannot stress strongly enough that these are options. No one is actively working to implement these ideas. In fact, the vast majority of the options issued by CBO are never acted upon.

The White House Office of Management and Budget is not involved. OMB and CBO are in different branches of government and do not work together. Further, given all the other things Obama has on his plate, it’s absurd to think that TRICARE is even close to being on his radar screen.

Could some of the CBO options possibly gain traction at some point? Anything is possible. And it is always a good idea to keep your elected representatives apprised of your views on issues that are important t you. But again, very few, if any, of these annual CBO options go anywhere, and not one in a policymaking position is talking about eliminating or altering TRICARE for Life.

The Internet is one of greatest innovations in human history, but it also gives people a way to rapidly spread unfounded and inaccurate information. We face enough real uncertainties these days. We don’t need to unnecessarily scare one another with baseless rumors and speculations.