Military Update

The only way to achieve VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s goal for 2015 — that every disability compensation claim gets processed within 125 days and with 98 percent accuracy — is to shift to a paperless claims system. And that transformation has begun.

That was the testimony Tuesday, Jan. 24, by VA’s top claim processing official before the House veteran affairs’ subcommittee on disability assistance.

Tom Murphy, director of compensation service for the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), an agency for the Department of Veterans Affairs, acknowledged the claims backlog has grown in recent years.

The armed forces have enlisted nearly 70,000 non-citizens since the attacks of 9/11 and, as a group, their washout rate is much lower than that of American citizens who enlist, according CNA, a think tank that studied attrition data gathered by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

Within three months of entering active service, 8.2 percent of citizen enlistees have been discharged. That is more than double the 4 percent attrition rate of non-citizens who volunteer to serve in America’s military.

Congress has known for a decade that the formula it set in 1997 for adjusting physician payments under Medicare — and by extension the fees paid to civilian doctors under TRICARE, the military’s health insurance program — is seriously flawed and can’t be allowed to take effect.

But rather than replace the formula, which the American Medical Association says would have cost $48 billion in 2005 but would exceed $300 billion today, Congress chooses year after year to delay its effect.

Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) paid to a million service members living off base in stateside areas will rise an average of 2 percent Jan. 1.

BAH for a typical enlisted member, in pay grade E-6 with dependents, will increase by an average of about $35 a month. BAH for a typical officer, a married O-3, will climb by about $40 a month.

Actual BAH rates for individuals, as well as the size of increases for 2012, will vary widely, determined by changes in local rents, a member’s rank or pay grade, and dependency status. Those who are married or have children will draw the higher “with dependents” rate in all housing areas.

Despite adding billions of dollars for mental health care to Department of Veterans Affairs budgets the last four years, and the hiring of 7,000 more mental health professionals at VA clinics and hospitals, many veterans with severe combat-related stress still face long waits to get the care they need.

And some VA facilities might be “gaming” appointment dates so they appear to comply with a rule that veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, begin treatment within 14 days of seeking care.

The "super committee" that Congress and President Obama created in August to make tough budget choices and slow America's runaway debt has left military people confused and divided over whether to cheer for its success or pray for its failure as its Thanksgiving deadline nears.

Success will be achieved if seven of 12 lawmakers on the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction agree by midnight Wednesday on a plan to trim projected budget deficits by at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade.

But that success plan could include higher out-of-pocket health care costs for military retirees and their families, and a hike in beneficiary co-payments on drug prescriptions filled through the TRICARE network of retail pharmacies. Also, all federal retirees, Social Security recipients and disabled veterans might see annual cost-of-living adjustments dampened a little each year through adoption of a new "chain" COLA formula.

A congressional "supercommittee" tasked to slow the nation's rising debt appears to have reached consensus on dampening future cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for federal entitlement programs, including military retirement, through use of a "chain-weighted" Consumer Price Index.