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The Need for Responsible Military Health Care Reform
March 21, 2000
WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Senator McCain today delivered the following remarks on the Senate Floor:Mr. President, I wish to express the need to support responsible, significant, military health care reform. I commend the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee and Republican leadership for making enactment of military health care reform a top priority in the Senate.
Our nation's military health care delivery system cries out for strong, meaningful reform. The military health care delivery system is facing some very unique challenges.
One of the critical challenges is how best to reconfigure the military health care delivery system so that it might continue to meet its military readiness and peace-time obligations at a time of continuous change for our base and force structure. In the process of deciding how to proceed, I met with and heard from many military family members, veterans and military retirees from around the country. I was inundated with suggestions for reform. In every meeting and every letter, I encountered retired service men and women who have problems with every aspect of the military medical care system -- with long waiting periods, with access to the right kind of care, with access to needed pharmaceutical drugs, and with the broken promise of lifetime health care for military retirees and their spouses. I heard these concerns expressed as I have traveled across the United States over the past several months.
My distinguished colleagues, the Republican Leader, Senator Lott, Armed Services Committee Chairman, Senator Warner, and Ranking Member, Senator Levin, introduced a bill that also addresses the military health care system. The bill is S.2087, the "Military Health Care Improvements Act of 2000." I applaud my colleagues in rising to this challenge, and I am pleased to see that portions of legislation I introduced last month were included in their bill. However, I can not cosponsor this legislation because it does not do enough to reform the military health care delivery system for our veterans, especially our oldest veterans, retirees, and survivors.
I have several concerns with the legislation introduced yesterday.
One of the areas of greatest concern among military retirees and their families is the "broken
promise" of lifetime medical care, especially for those over-age 65. S.2087 fails to meet what I think is the most important requirement, the restoration of the broken promise of free lifetime medical care promised to retirees and their families who entered the service prior to June 7, 1956. The major veteran service organizations share my view that the number one priority is to take care of these older military retirees and their spouses who were promised lifetime medical care benefits. I was proud to be an original cosponsor of S.2003 that restores the broken promise given to retirees who entered the service prior to June 7, 1956. I pledge to work with the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Committee on Armed Services to fully
restore the broken promise to our over-65 military retirees and their families.
In addition, there are some significant differences between S.2013, the "Honoring Health Care
Commitments to Service Members Past and Present Act of 2000" that I introduced in January with Senators Coverdell, Robb, Hagel, Jeffords and Bingaman, and the health care bill being introduced yesterday.
My legislation would help repair the "broken promise" given to Medicare-eligible military retirees and their families by restoring their access to military health care that was taken away when they turned 65. Additionally, S.2013 offers health care options to retirees and would provide additional benefits to active duty service members and their families. The hallmark of this legislation is that it offers several new choices to retirees and their families in their health care delivery services.
S.2013 was drafted with the help of The Military Coalition and The National Military and Veteran's
Alliance. The Military Coalition has strongly endorsed S.2013, stating, "We applaud your leadership in introducing comprehensive legislation aimed at correcting serious inequities in the military health care benefit."
While S.2087 promotes enrollment- expansion in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program (FEHBP) demonstration for Medicare eligible beneficiaries, it caps the enrollment levels to just 66,000 personnel. This would preclude world-wide or even nation-wide enrollment, a feature offered in my bill.
Additionally, S.2087 expands TRICARE Senior Prime sites to only the major medical centers, not nation-wide like my bill. This would exclude hundreds of thousands of our retired service members, only addressing the needs of Medicare-eligible retirees and their spouses who happen to live near a small number of hospitals.
Finally, S.2087 only has a mail-order option for pharmacy requirements of our Medicare-eligible retirees and their families and requires a $150 deductible. My bill offers both a mail order and a retail pharmacy option. The mail order option only helps Medicare-eligible retirees who require long-term medication like blood pressure bills. However, if the retiree or spouse needs medication in a timely manner, it makes sense for them to be able to drive or walk to their local pharmacy and have their prescription filled. The bill I have offered allows for this option; the one introduced by my colleagues yesterday does not.
Mr. President, I commend my colleagues for their efforts to address many of these important military health care challenges. Not lost on any of us is the urgent need to address the over-age 65 issue since there are reportedly 4,000 World War II, Korean and Vietnam War-era military retirees dying every month. It is imperative that as changes are made to our nation's military force and continue to be made in the future with regard to base structure, that Congress not only stay focused on bringing health care costs under control, but that steps be taken to retain the health care coverage so critical to our nation's active duty personnel, their families, retirees, and survivors. While the world situation necessitates a modified force and base structure transformed for the new millennium, it should not carry with it an abandonment of the responsibility that our nation has to assist those who have served our country to obtain access to the health care services they need.
Make no mistake, retiree health care is a readiness issue, as well. Today's servicemembers are acutely aware of retirees' disenfranchisement from military health coverage, and exit surveys cite this issue with increasing frequency as one of the factors in members' decisions to leave service. In fact, a recent GAO study found that "access to medical and dental care in retirement" was a significant source of dissatisfaction among active duty officers in retention-critical specialties.
I pledge to work closely with the Armed Services Committee, my respected colleagues from the committee, and from both sides of the aisle who have cosponsored my bill, as well as groups like the Military Coalition and the National Military Veterans Alliance, to work out our differences and not abandon the health care coverage needs of our nation's military retirees, their families, and survivors. We must pass comprehensive military health care reform to fulfill our broken promise to our military retirees while bolstering retention and readiness among today's servicemembers by assuring them that retention promises will be fulfilled once their active service is over.
Mr. President, this year will be, in the words of the Joint Chiefs, the year of health care reform. Whether my legislation, S.2013--fully supported by the major veteran service organizations representing over 9 million members--is successful or not will depend on several factors: Congress' ability to realize real health care reform and provide the necessary resources, the Pentagon's ability to work with private industry to control costs on pharmaceuticals and health insurance plans, and the military retirees who utilize the system coming together and galvanizing support for the future of military health care. We can not abandon the "greatest generation" who are responsible for the successes and riches we currently enjoy in this great
country.
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