Rising Military Health Care Costs

Here's a story about the rising cost of providing health care to military retirees and the families of active duty members. SECDEF Gates--with whom I have had some serious strategic disagreements on this blog--has said that these costs are "eating us alive".  I agree with him.  I've written elsewhere about America's growing addiction to entitlements, and the over-subsidized retiree and family health care systems in DoD are prime contributors.

Of course, my "right" to pay $260 a year in medical premiums for Tricare Prime HAS to be supported by someone, and in this case, we have Mr. Strobridge of the Military Officers Association (MOA).  His words: 

"Military people pay a large part of their health care premium upfront in service and sacrifice — and pay at a level that no one else in the country pays."  I take a backseat to no one in my esteem for our forces, but the suggestion that this ALL VOLUNTEER FORCE is somehow OWED something--irrespective of what it is they did while on active duty--is loony.  There is no free lunch, and our ability to organize, train and equip the world's best fighting forces IS impacted by the amount of money paid out to military retirees whose "service and sacrifice" may have --upon closer inspection--really not amounted to much putting of one's life in danger.

 

Several studies have shown that active duty military compensation has largely caught up with civilian wage rates, so the suggestion that somehow our active duty service men and women cannot afford to pay higher TRICARE premiums for their families rings hollow against the backdrop of an entire nation wrestling with healthcare costs that dwarf the average monthly outlay for a military member.  

 

I remain amused at the irony of a fighting force dedicated to the protection of freedom and democracy which has within itself, embraced so many features of the socialist workers paradise (socialized medicine, provided housing, subsidized shopping, etc).   People like Mr. Strobridge run the risk of alienating the wellspring of support for the military among the citizenry, if he and others like him continue to insist that there is something approaching a human right to low premium high quality healthcare for life for retirees and families, while the rest of the nation struggles with premiums that are out of control.  

Mr. Gates is right to focus on this issue.

Bryan McGrath