The House Armed Services Committee’s personnel panel will fire the opening salvo in a yearlong effort to reform military health care on Thursday with a hearing on the state of the current system.
Scheduled to testify before the military personnel subcommittee are Rrepresentatives from the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, the Military Officers Association of America and the National Military Family Association are sScheduled to testify before the military personnel subcommittee.
HASC members and staff have promised a complete review of military health care with a focus on reform since the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission made the issue a top recommendation in its proposal to overhaul military pay and benefits.
During a forum hosted by the NMFA last month, HASC lawmakers and staff said that the structure of military hospitals, clinics and Tricare “isn’t working,” according to HASC professional staff member Jeannette James.
“We must maintain the military health system so it can sustain our service members for their readiness, and we also need to make sure our families’ benefits remain intact,” James said.
The commission in January recommended an overhaul of the military health system, with active-duty and mobilized reserve members continuing to receive medical care from the U.S. military and commercial insurers providing care to whilefamily members, and retirees and their families get their care through commercial insurers.
The panel also recommended creation of a four-star Joint Readiness Command that would lead much of the portion of the Joint Staff responsible for readiness, including a subordinate joint medical function run by a three-star officer.
This structure, commissioners said, would improve coordination across the services in treatment, transportation and care for injured and ill troops.
Christopher Meyer, associate director of health benefits for the commission, said at the NMFA forum that the goal is to maintain medical readiness and reform the system.
“The military health system needs to evolve into the 21st century,” Meyer said. “This is an opportunity. T — the commission was given a charge: ‘If I was [creating a military health system] today, what would I build?’”
In testimony earlier this year, military advocacy groups responded with mixed reactions to the commission’s plan to overhaul Tricare and the military health system, with NMFA expressing conditional support but the while MOAA pressing pressed for a redesign of the system.
The HASC subcommittee on military personnel hearing can be watched live online at 10:30 a.m. Thursday.
