Military Update
House raises GI Bill benefits by 70% over three years
By Tom Philpott
Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 49, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.
With momentum enough perhaps to sway senators, too, the House on Tuesday unanimously passed a bill that would raise monthly education benefits under the Montgomery GI Bill by 70 percent over three years.
The 21st Century Montgomery GI Bill Enhancement Act (HR 1291) would raise the total value of GI Bill benefits from $23,400 to $39,600 by 2004. Monthly benefits for members who signed up for at least three years would jump from $650 to $800 in fiscal 2002, $950 in 2003 and $1,100 by 2004.
That should be enough, said Rep. Christopher H. Smith, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, to cover the cost of tuition and books at a typical public college or university. After 2004, benefits would rise yearly to keep pace with inflation.
Patricia Murphy, spokeswoman for Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services' Personnel Subcommittee, said her boss is co-sponsoring companion legislation in the Senate. He also plans a hearing on his other veterans education bill, S 937, which would grant service secretaries authority to entice members in hard-to-fill specialties to stay in longer by allowing family members to use up to half of the members' GI Bill benefits.
Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawai'i) is sponsoring a companion "transferability" bill in the House.
Meanwhile, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), will hold a hearing Thursday to consider Cleland's bill and also S 131, from Sens. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine). That bill would raise GI Bill benefits enough in a single year to cover average costs for a commuting student at a public university.
Rockefeller also will bring forward a bill that would make GI Bill benefits pay out more flexibly, to cover, for example, high-tech training in costly short-duration courses.
New TRICARE benefits
More than 1.5 million military beneficiaries, age 65 and older, will be mailed information packets in late July on new TRICARE for Life benefits, to take effect Oct. 1.
Steve Lillie, director of over-65 benefits at the TRICARE Management Activity, Falls Church, Va., said the TRICARE for Life information packets will include a wallet-size card to show providers, when necessary, explaining that there is no need to seek payment directly from beneficiaries because Medicare and TRICARE, like any Medigap insurance plan, will automatically send separate checks.
A survey form for beneficiaries to complete and mail, describing any other health insurance they intend to keep after Oct. 1, will also be included. By law, other health insurance will be billed second after Medicare, and TRICARE last.
For at least several months after the program begins, people carrying Medigap insurance still will receive an explanation of benefits from TRICARE, showing what TRICARE would have paid had they not had other health insurance.
Many military associations plan to stop offering supplements to Medicare and are advising elderly members that they can cancel their Medigap plans and save themselves the premiums. TRICARE for Life is indeed real and robust.
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