MILITARY UPDATE
Compromise on disability pay will benefit ex-spouses, too

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, 50, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.

By Tom Philpott

Divorced military retirees and their ex-spouses don't usually cheer for the same legislation. An exception occurred in 2002 when retirees with disabilities and their former spouses prayed that Congress would lift the ban on concurrent receipt — that is, end the dollar-for-dollar offset of military retirement when a retiree draws VA disability compensation.

The compromise enacted into law Dec. 2 will give some still limited number of retirees — those with disabling war wounds and with serious combat-related or combat-training-related injuries or illnesses — a new monthly payment, called Combat-Related Special Compensation.

CRSC will take effect Memorial Day for eligible applicants with payments to begin July 1. Defense officials are drafting implementing regulations and preparing application forms. This spring they expect to survey retirees to get some sense of how many will apply.

CRSC, however, is a far cry from concurrent receipt. It is extra pay rather than restored retired pay. It likely will go to thousands of retirees rather than to many tens of thousands, thus disappointing most retirees with disabilities deemed service related by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Perhaps the most disappointed are some former spouses of disabled retirees who saw their court-ordered share of military retirement decline or disappear as VA raised their ex-husbands' disability ratings over the years.

Under the Uniformed Services Former Spouses Protection Act, military finance centers are allowed to divide only disposable retired pay with former spouses when presented with valid court orders. The law defines disposable as what remains after deductions for VA disability pay, federal and state income taxes and other qualifying debits.

Judy Easterbrooks of Seattle is an ex-spouse who understood what was at stake as Congress debated whether to restore full retired pay to her disabled ex-husband. Last November a finance center notice announced that the value of her 31-percent share of his retired pay had dropped by more than $300 a month because VA raised his disability rating. A higher rating raised tax-free disability pay for the retiree but lowered disposable retired pay by an equal amount, so that Easterbrooks' income fell.

Had she known at the time of her divorce how the disability offset law could whittle down her share of retirement, she said, "I would have fought, even dragged it out for years if I had to, to get 50 percent."

Had Congress enacted full concurrent receipt, as proposed by the Senate, or even a more limited version initially passed by the House, Easterbrooks' ex-husband would have seen his retired pay offset end and she would have seen the full value of her 31 percent restored.

Former spouse Katherine V. of Bossier City, La., said her 50 percent share of military retired pay disappeared in January 2001 when the VA ruled that her ex-husband's brain tumor was service connected. Had she known about his application, she said, she would have presented evidence to dispute an assumption that his job exposed him often to nuclear weapons, which the VA deemed a likely cause of the malignancy.

"I was not given an opportunity to use my lawyer to look into what was going on," she said. "They just took his word for it." Her income fell more than $700 a month.

Her lawyer, Carey Schimpf of Shreveport, said the ban on concurrent receipt remains, even after the CRSC compromise, and it will continue to surprise and disappoint ex-spouses such as Katherine.

Even if her ex-husband qualifies in June for CRSC, it is not restored retired pay and Katherine will not be entitled to an automatic share.

"It could double his income and she would still get zero," Schimpf said. "There's no avenue to reinstate what she lost. Her part is now in his pot."

Schimpf expressed sympathy for his client's ailing ex-husband but criticized a concurrent receipt law that continues to pit ex-spouses against disabled retirees for benefits that, he said, they both deserve.

TriWest thefts

Following up on last week's news that someone stole computer hard drives with personal data on 550,000 TRICARE beneficiaries in 16 states, officials said the stolen files include anyone enrolled with TriWest Healthcare Alliance Corp., back to Oct. 1, 1999. That means thousands of beneficiaries no longer in TRICARE's Central Region.

Names, addresses, phone numbers, Social Security numbers, claims information and more were stolen on the following categories of beneficiaries from the Central Region states of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming and western Texas:

• Current and former TRICARE Prime enrollees.
• Active-duty members who accessed services via a civilian provider or used TRICARE Prime Remote from October 1999.
• TRICARE Senior Prime (TSP) beneficiaries in the Colorado Springs TSP Demonstration.
• TRICARE Prime enrollees who attained age 65 and were disenrolled from TRICARE Prime.

No files were stolen on TRICARE Standard beneficiaries.

As of Jan. 1, no misuse of the stolen information had been reported.

TriWest announced a $100,000 reward for information leading to the capture and prosecution of those responsible. Beneficiaries can get more information as well as advice on protecting against identity fraud by phoning (888) 339-9378 or sending an e-mail to: computertheft@triwest.com.

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.