Veterans' Drug Bills May Soar

Pentagon budget documents indicate retirees may be asked
to pay $10 - - up from the current $3 -- for each 90-day
generic prescription filled by mail through Tricare, the
military's health insurance program. Tricare's current
$9 co-pay for a three-month supply of each brand-name
drug would jump to $20.

The proposal would also impose charges for drugs the
retirees now receive free at military hospitals and
clinics. There would be a $10 fee for each generic
prescription and a $20 charge for brand-name drugs
dispensed at those facilities.

"You're tampering with a benefit that was earned by
people putting their lives on the line," fumed James F.
Lokovic, a retired Air Force chief master sergeant and
deputy director of the Air Force Sergeants Association.

Lokovic's 136,000-member association has already sent
Bush a letter warning of "significant backlash from
millions of retired military voters" if the plan is
included in the 2005 defense budget the administration
will unveil in a few weeks.

A Pentagon spokesman declined Wednesday to comment on
the drug plan, calling it "pre-decisional." But word of
the proposal was being spread at the speed of light by
veterans service organizations, who were e-mailing their
thousands of members to solicit calls and letters of
protest to the White House and members of Congress.

"It's something that we're going to look at very closely
when we return," said Tom Gordy, chief of staff for Rep.
Ed. Schrock, R-Va. The House is to reconvene on Jan. 20.

"Somebody just isn't paying attention," the Military
Officers Association of America said in a "special
alert" sent to its 390,000 members. "The 'war on
terrorism' is reminding the nation of servicemembers'
sacrifices every night on the evening news ... and yet
the Bush administration seems to continue going out of
its way to penalize the military community."

The Military Officers Association of America alert and
an Internet site run by the Sergeants Association recall
attempts by the Bush administration to impose a $1,200
deductible for care provided to most military retirees
at Veterans Affairs hospitals and the Pentagon's long-
running opposition to bills providing for "concurrent
receipt" of military pension and VA disability payments.

Bush and lawmakers agreed earlier this year on a
concurrent receipt plan, a move widely seen as an
attempt to shore up support for Republicans among
military-minded voters. Military veterans and retirees
are generally seen as providing Bush his 2000 margin of
victory in several key states, including Florida.

The budget documents circulating Wednesday gave no hint
of the current status of the plan or the thinking behind
it. Military retirees -- those who served 20 years or
more -- had no prescription drug coverage until April
2001.

But the documents indicate that the proposed charges
would considerably ease the burden of prescription drug
costs on the defense budget. The new co-pays would
generate more than $728 million in 2005, the Pentagon
estimated, and nearly $4.2 billion by the end of 2009.

The proposed fees also would bring the military's co-
pays into line with those imposed by the VA, the
documents assert.

But spokesmen for veterans groups noted that the VA
fills prescriptions for service-related illnesses and
injuries at no charge.

Its $7 co-pay applies only for medicines given to
outpatients for ailments unrelated to their service. And
even those prescriptions are provided free when the
veteran receiving them has an annual income of less than
$9,690 if single and $12,692 if married.

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