2012 Defense Act — Pay Increase, Changes to Special Pay and TRICARE

A pay increase across the board is nice but increasing the pharmacy co-pay is not especially when you have two children on two daily medications a day.  I guess I shouldn't complain as at least we have insurance.

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June 20, 2011 • TERRY HOWELL

The Sen­ate Armed Ser­vices Com­mit­tee has com­pleted their mark-up of the National Defense Autho­riza­tion Act of 2012 (HR 1540). The com­mit­tee approved the marked-up bill unan­i­mously on Thurs­day, June 16, 2011. It now goes to the full Sen­ate for con­sid­er­a­tion. The bill includes a 1.6 per­cent pay increase for all ser­vice­mem­bers, a change in spe­cial pay pol­icy and increased TRICARE Prime enroll­ment fees for mil­i­tary retirees.

The fol­low­ing is a list of the ele­ments that will impact mil­i­tary pay and ben­e­fits:

• Autho­rizes a 1.6 per­cent across-the-board mil­i­tary pay raise for all mem­bers of the uni­formed ser­vices, con­sis­tent with the President’s request.
• Allows DoD to increase phar­macy copay­ment increases. (See cur­rent TRICARE Phar­macy Rates)
• Allows DoD to increase mil­i­tary retiree TRICARE Prime enroll­ment fees in fis­cal year 2012. In addi­tion the Sen­ate mark-up lim­its future annual increases of the fee to the amount equal to the per­cent­age increase in retired pay (COLA) begin­ning on Octo­ber 1, 2012. (See pre­vi­ous reports on the pro­posed 2012 TRICARE Prime enroll­ment rate)
• Requires that indi­vid­u­als newly enrolled in the Uni­formed Ser­vices Fam­ily Health Plan after Sep­tem­ber 30, 2011, tran­si­tion to TRICARE for Life once they become Medicare-eligible due to age. (See pre­vi­ous reports on the plan to “Age-Out” future USFHP enrollees)
• Changes the rules for hos­tile fire and immi­nent dan­ger pay, pro­rat­ing the $225 pay­ments accord­ing to the num­ber of days spent in a qual­i­fy­ing area rather than be paid on a monthly basis. (Cur­rently HF/ID pay is paid-in-full regard­less of the num­ber of days spent in the qual­i­fy­ing area.)

Let your elected offi­cials know how you feel about the 2012 NDAA.

Read more: http://militaryadvantage.military.com/2011/06/senate-okays-pay-and-tricare-fee-increase/#ixzz1Q20ZwJ89
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