Congress has heard the president’s State of the Union address and received the president’s budget proposal in early February.

The budget includes a $70 billion Iraq war supplemental appropriation request that is only the first part of the total supplemental request for 2009.

Now stay with me because Congress has not yet completed action on the 2008 supplemental.

Congress approved part of the supplemental request late last year, but $102 billion for the last half of FY 2008 has not been approved and the Pentagon says that portion must be approved by May to afford employee furloughs and other funding cuts.

If this supplemental mirrors the previous ones, the Army will get the lion’s share of the money and will use it to pay for operations and support costs with lesser amounts going to transportation costs, personnel costs and procurement.

While the supplemental wars rage, AUSA and The Military Coalition will be ramping up our legislative efforts to provide base budget supported increases in the size of our military forces, increase benefits for retirees and survivors, finish closing the pay gap for active duty soldiers, as well as fighting any erosion of military benefits – particularly health care benefits.

Last year, for the second time, Congress derailed Department of Defense proposals to establish a retiree enrollment fee for TRICARE Standard, double or triple Standard deductibles and Prime enrollment fees – and raise pharmacy co-pays. Any such increases were prohibited until Oct. 1, 2008.

Not surprisingly, the Department of Defense is mounting another offensive in preparation for the arrival of October.

The budget proposal includes underfunding of military health care to the tune of $1.2 billion on the assumption that Congress will allow it to impose increases in annual enrollment fees and deductibles for TRICARE Prime and TRICARE Standard.

AUSA and its Military Coalition partners believe that career military personnel and their families endure unique demands and sacrifices – including the willingness to put their lives on the line – during a 20- to 30- year career protecting the freedoms of all Americans.

The primary offset for such selfless service is a system of retirement benefits, in particular, health care coverage that is better than that provided to non-military workers – provided by a grateful nation to those who served the national interest for so long.

Comparing military health care costs to civilian costs is inappropriate for that very reason. The career demands of military service versus non-military service are not comparable.

The Department of Defense purports that rising health care costs are competing with weapons programs and forcing tradeoffs.

AUSA and The Military Coalition believe that our nation can afford to pay for both weapons and health care.

Our defense budget is less than four percent of gross domestic product – about half the peacetime year average since World War II.

If we can afford tax cuts and earmarks, we do not need to make military retirees pay more for health care in order to fund weapons.

The number crunchers in the Pentagon presume the proposed changes will save money by forcing a percentage of pharmacy users away from retail stores and by causing significant numbers of current beneficiaries to leave TRICARE over the next five years.

So, in essence, the savings are in large part to come from deterring beneficiaries from using their earned military health benefits.

Thanks for your service, but don’t try to use your benefits!

We will say it again: Congress has provided military retirement and health benefits that exceed civilian benefits as an essential offset to the unique demand s and sacrifices inherent in a military career, which far surpass the demands made on civilian workers.

At a time when recruiting is already a significant problem – DoD is spending almost a billion dollars a year in recruiting and retention incentives – and stresses on today’s forces compel any thoughtful observer to see considerable retention and readiness risks, AUSA will work to make Congress realize that this is hardly a prudent time to impose further financial sacrifices on military beneficiaries.

Congress has worked too hard to reverse the “erosion of benefits” mentality of the past to see that productive work undone.

Help keep this issue in the forefront on Capitol Hill by sending a letter to your representatives in Congress.

To add your voice to ours on this matter, go to the AUSA Web site, www.ausa.org. Click on “Contact Congress” then after “Elected Officials” type your ZIP code and when the prepared letters list appears, scroll down to “Stop Erosion of Health Care Benefits.”

Read AUSA NEWS each month for the latest information on what will be an interesting and contentious legislative year.