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ARMED
FORCES NEWS |
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| OMB Rejects Retiree Pharmacy Increases, For Now Reacting to an outcry against a plan by the Office of Management and Budget to more than triple copays for most Tricare drugs and to impose the same fees at military treatment facilities, OMB backed down for the fiscal 2005 budget year. Nevertheless Defense officials have insisted that the idea will be back on the table for fiscal '06 budget planning -- which will occur after the November general election. James D. Staton, Air Force Sergeants Association's executive director, wrote President Bush in a Dec. 29 letter that the plan would break faith with "those who sacrificed a good portion of their lives for this nation and sends "an awful signal to "those currently serving and considering a military career." He added that "military veterans and retirees are beginning to waver in their support of this administration in light of repeated gestures of indifference and disrespect." More on OMB's Retiree Drug Scheme Denying charges that the administration is trying to make money from military retirees with its plan to more than triple pharmacy payments, a Defense official says the idea is just to implement "best business practices" and to "help guide people to mail order and generic drugs." The response of James E. Lokovic, spokesman for the Air Force Sergeants Association, was: "These people earned it and the government owes them. It's disgusting that they would even float this notion." The government has a debt to military retirees, he continued, and ought to be budgeting for it. You cannot run military benefit programs like a business, he concluded. Meanwhile, in a separate initiative, Defense officials plan to establish a uniform formulary around April, which would include a three-tier co-pay plan. Drugs not in the formulary would cost beneficiaries $22 for a 30-day supply. |
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