MILITARY UPDATE
Debate over concurrent benefit receipt heats up
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.
By Tom Philpotts
Military associations have launched a coordinated campaign to raise support in the House for rescinding a century-old law that requires military retired pay to be reduced, dollar for dollar, by the amount of VA disability compensation retirees are paid for service-related injuries or illnesses.
As veterans groups lobbied, their standard bearer on the issue, Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R-Fla.), testified before the House Budget Committee that casualties from the war on terrorism show the unfairness of banning "concurrent receipt."
The case of Sgt. 1st Class Mike McElhiney, a 30-year-old Special Forces soldier, illustrates the point. McElhiney lost his right arm and suffered other wounds when an errant U.S. bomb hit friendly forces in Afghanistan last December. McElhiney, married with two children, told the Washington Post he intends to stay in the Army, on desk assignments, presumably until he retirees.
When he does retire after 20 years or more, McElhiney will get an immediate annuity based length of service. He also will be eligible for VA disability compensation for his lost arm. But given the ban on concurrent receipt, when monthly VA payments begin, his retired pay will drop an equal amount. McElhiney, in effect, will pay for his war-related injuries with retirement pay.
There's another side to the story, say opponents of concurrent receipt, not often discussed in open testimony. It is raised occasionally by non-disabled retirees and, more authoritatively, by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), which exists to give Congress non-partisan, objective analysis on legislative issues.
The other side of the story is that the VA is liberal in determining "service-connected" disabilities. Whether it's a heart ailment, arthritis, diabetes or a trick knee, if the condition arose while on active duty — regardless of family history or a member's lifestyle — it can be deemed service-connected and qualify the retiree for tax-free compensation. Ailments not found on active duty, but that doctors can link later to the stress and strain of service life, can be ruled service-connected many years after a member retirees.
Disability ratings can be adjusted as the retiree ages and conditions grow more severe. That's why 500,000 military retirees, more than 25 percent of the 1.98-million total of retirees, receive some VA disability pay.
If Congress wants to give combat veterans such as McElhiney full retirement plus disability compensation, must it do the same for the retiree with high-blood pressure and family history of heart disease, or the heavy smoker with emphysema?
As the concurrent receipt issue gathers steam, CRS has been swamped with requests from congressional staffs for information and guidance on this complex issue. The latest CRS issue brief on military retirement topics gives a lot of space to concurrent receipt, now an "object of intense congressional interest," it says.
Here are the major arguments that CRS gathered for lawmakers to either support or to oppose lifting the ban on concurrent receipt:
Reasons to support
• Military retired pay was earned for length of service; VA disability compensation for injuries or illnesses. They are two different programs so paying both to a retiree would not constitute a duplication of benefits.
• If cost is the big issue, allowing limited concurrent receipt could make sense, perhaps targeting the most severely disabled, or retirees with combat disabilities or retirees living on the edge of poverty. Lifting the ban only for 100 percent combat-disabled retirees would cost $50 million a year.
• VA disability pay recipients are entitled to other federal benefits, why not military retired pay?
• Persons drawing VA disability pay can receive full pensions from a wide variety of other sources, including federal civilian careers, without suffering an offset. Why target military retirees for an offset?
Reasons to oppose
• The cost of full, or nearly full, concurrent receipt would be enormous, almost $3 billion this year, $40 billion over 10 years.
• Ending or easing the offset would be 'letting the camel's nose into the tent,' that is, setting a precedent for reduction or elimination of all kinds of similar offsets of one or more federal payments, perhaps costing billions of dollars more.
• Although some federal programs do not require an offset for receipt of VA disability compensation, none of these programs involve both disability and retirement pay from the same job and agency where the disability occurred.
• VA disability pay is authorized on "much more liberal grounds" than other disability plans, and a disability can be certified many years after a person leaves service. As a result, concurrent receipt could lead to windfall payments for those whose disabilities have tenuous connection to their military service.
• Concurrent receipt was never promised to those asking for it.
Observers will note CRS lists an extra reason to oppose lifting the ban. Its Feb. 15 issue brief also warns lawmakers not to believe reports from some retirees of an alleged surplus in the Military Retirement Fund, available to help cover the cost of concurrent receipt.
Such assertions are wrong, CRS says, based on an invalid assumption about the amount of money the Defense Department has been required to set aside annually since 1984 to cover future retirement costs.
No accounting trick can hide the cost of concurrent receipt, CRS says. But a new report on the issue — ordered by Congress, commissioned by the Pentagon and being drafted by an outside team of analysts — could have a significant effect on this debate, CRS says. The draft report is due to the Pentagon in March.
Questions, comments and suggestions are welcome. Write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA 20120-1111, or send e-mail to: milupdate@aol.com.
