Beneficiaries may see costs climb

The Senate Armed Services Committee has agreed with its House counterpart to block the Obama administration's plan to phase in new and some significantly higher TRICARE enrollment fees and deductibles for military retirees and their families.

But the Senate panel has signaled that the administration can use existing authority to raise beneficiary co-pays on brand name prescription drugs filled through retail pharmacies or the TRICARE mail order program.

The absence of any new Senate prohibition, combined with the House committee's vote in May to raise at least some drug co-pays effective Oct. 15 this year, means TRICARE beneficiaries are almost certain to see prescription drug costs off base climb starting this fall.

Still to be determined is how steep the initial increases will be and how they will be allowed to rise in future years.

If a House-Senate conference committee accepts the Senate panel's stand on the issue, the Department of Defense could implement almost all of the prescription drug increases proposed in its five-year budget plan. In doing so the department would capture at least half of total projected health care savings it sought under the TRICARE reform package unveiled in February.

If the House committee's plan were adopted instead, drug co-payments would rise more modestly than the administration planned. But retirees eligible for TRICARE for Life, most of them elderly, would be required to have maintenance drugs for chronic conditions filled through the mail order program, at least for a year.

Mail order means cost savings to TRICARE and to beneficiaries. They would get a three-month supply of pills for the same co-pay charged for a 30-day supply at retail outlets. To date, retirees have been allowed to discover the cost-savings and convenience of mail order at their own pace.

The Senate committee considered the House approach to forcing older retirees to try mail order. It's a cost-saving maneuver that allowed the House bill to propose more modest drug co-pay increases than the administration's wants. In the end, a majority of senators on the panel decided it was "not good policy" to force only one-class of retirees to use mail order, a congressional source explained.

Both committees refused to accept the Department of Defense's plan to raise out-of-pocket costs on military retirees by raising their enrollment fees for TRICARE Prime, the managed care benefit; by establishing a first-ever enrollment fee for TRICARE Standard, the fee-for-service insurance plan option, or TRICARE Extra, the preferred provider network option; and by establishing a first-ever enrollment fee for elderly under TRICARE for Life, the prized insurance supplement to Medicare.

These proposals are dead, at least until after the November elections when lawmakers hope finally to muster the political courage to address the nation's debt crisis. By Dec. 31, Congress must negotiate a debt-reduction compromise or a "sequestration" mechanism, created by last year's Budget Control Act, will force across-the-board cuts. That would include an additional $500 billion from major defense accounts over a decade. Policymakers and lawmakers alike describe it as irrational, even "mindless."

Tom Philpott can be contacted at Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, Va. 20120-1111, or by e-mail at:

[email protected]