TRICARE Affirmation Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. DAVIS of Kentucky. Mr. Speaker, today the House is considering H.R. 4887, the TRICARE Affirmation Act. While I support the bill we have before us, I'm disappointed in another display of rushing the process. Speaker Pelosi said that we need to pass the health care bill so we can find out what's in it. This is, fortunately, one that was found before it was passed. Think of how many other hundreds and hundreds of possible errors there may be in that bill because of being forced through quickly and being ill considered.

Moreover, as a former member of the 82nd Airborne Division, I'm deeply disappointed that we had to leave out veterans. Those who have served our country would actually become victims of a policy that the Congress is enacting--inadvertently and not by any malice aforethought. And I certainly thank and share my greatest appreciation with the distinguished chairman, Mr. Skelton, of the Armed Services Committee, who I served with for several years, for catching this and correcting this wrong.

The bill wasn't added to the schedule until close to midnight last night. Beyond the immediate process issues, the addition of this bill to the calendar points to a troubled future if the Senate health care bill passes the House tomorrow. We're many votes away from health care reform becoming law, but already, as I mentioned, we're seeing fundamental flaws in this Senate bill that require amendment.

As we all know, the health care bill that we'll consider tomorrow contains a new requirement that every single American in this country enroll in a health care plan that the government approves. President Obama said that if you like your doctor, you can keep him--if he approves. Now we have the IRS and we have Federal agencies that are going to get into our private affairs, and now it's affecting our veterans. If an individual does not have this coverage, they will be subject to a penalty and even the possibility of prosecution through the IRS.

H.R. 4887 essentially amends the not-yet-passed Senate health care bill to clarify that all TRICARE plans are considered as minimal acceptable coverage under the bill. It is the least that we can do for our veterans. Defining TRICARE as such is important because it exempts its enrollees from the individual mandate in the Senate bill.

As most know, TRICARE is a complete medical care benefit program for active duty members and retirees of all seven uniformed services and their dependents. TRICARE is currently open to about 9.3 million potential beneficiaries. Active duty military, their spouses, and dependents are automatically enrolled in TRICARE Prime. Retirees can choose between TRICARE Prime or two other options. Then there is a fourth subset called TRICARE for Life. These beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare, but TRICARE serves as a secondary payer.

Unfortunately, in the Senate health care bill, Democrats do not deem TRICARE programs for servicemembers and military retirees under age 65 to provide minimum acceptable coverage. H.R. 4887 would clarify these programs and make sure that they're included in this definition.

It's surprising to me that these programs were left out originally. This is an important change to make, but I think this is only a foreshadowing of what is to come for hardworking Americans.

The Senate health care reform bill has not even been signed into law and we already have to fix it. If Democrats were originally willing to adversely impact the health care coverage of these Americans who have honorably served our country, you have to wonder whose health care is safe.

These oversights occurred because this process is too big, too fast, and being done against the will of the American people. I support this amendment. It's critical that we protect our military families.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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