White House to Senate: Scuttle ‘Marriage Penalty’ on BAH
By Tom Philpott The Obama administration applauds several steps the Senate Armed Services Committee has taken to dampen military compensation growth next year, including support for a third straight...
View ArticleDoD: Reshape ‘Blended Retirement’ Plan to Better Protect AVF
By Tom Philpott Military leaders and Department of Defense pay experts have presented to Congress a reshaped version of that new “blended retirement” system for future service members, saying this one...
View ArticleSenate Action: Privatized Commissaries Killed; ‘Couples BAH’ Cut Survives
Senate Action: Privatized Commissaries Killed; ‘Couples BAH’ Cut Survives The Senate voted Wednesday to kill a plan hatched by its armed services committee to privatize five large commissary stores to...
View ArticleSenate Votes to End Hide-the-Food-Stamps Game Stateside
By Tom Philpott The Senate has voted to end a special food allowance stateside that was conceived 14 years ago primarily to avoid more news reports of military families using food stamps. On that...
View ArticleDoctor Readiness Factors in DoD Plan to Streamline Inpatient Care
Doctor Skills Factor in Plan to Streamline Inpatient Care The number of surgeries and other inpatient procedures done on base by military physicians trails the inpatient workloads of private sector...
View ArticleMilitary Hospitals to Seek More Challenging Patient Mix
By Tom Philpott The Department of Defense will ask Congress for new authorities to funnel more challenging cases into military treatment facilities, a move aimed at sustaining wartime specialty skills...
View ArticleVet Groups Warn Hill Not to Act on Aging of ‘IU’ Claimants
By Tom Philpott Representatives of The American Legion and Disabled American Veterans have warned lawmakers to reject calls to impose an age ceiling or other new cost control on VA compensation...
View ArticleVA Chief Counterpunches Over ‘Community Care’ Costs
By Tom Philpott The Veterans Choice, Access and Accountability Act of 2014, which Congress rushed to pass last summer to address a patient wait-time scandal at dozens of VA hospitals and clinics,...
View ArticleCompound Drugs Fleece TRICARE, Create Deep Budget Hole
By Tom Philpott Dodgy companies peddling pricey compound pharmaceuticals have fleeced the TRICARE program so severely this year, before tougher screening procedures took effect May 1, that they are...
View ArticleCommissary Reformers Eye Repeal of ‘Cost-Plus-5%’ Pricing
By Tom Philpott Defense officials appear ready to ask Congress to repeal a law that commissaries must sell products at cost plus five percent, a formula that for decades has ensured commissary shoppers...
View Article‘Force of the Future’ to Reward Talent, Diversity, Motherhood
By Tom Philpott Defense Secretary Ashton Carter next month will be presented with a package of detailed proposals for reshaping military and defense civilian pays, promotions and quality of life, all...
View ArticleThe Arguments Behind New Tech-Track Career Paths
By Tom Philpott Every year, hundreds of technically or tactically skilled officers and non-commissioned officers, trained at great expense, leave the military for the private sector, not because their...
View ArticleAttractions of Service Obscured by Hard Costs of War
by Tom Philpott Perhaps to a degree not seen before, news outlets, politicians of every stripe and wounded warrior charities have turned an intense spotlight on problems service members and veterans...
View ArticleDigital Innovation Team to Help Shape ‘Force of the Future’
By Tom Philpott Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s “Force of the Future” initiative is expected to include a unique Defense Digital Services office that, within a year, would hire up to 100 top designers,...
View ArticleCombat Medicine Advances When Experts Collaborate
By Tom Philpott Perhaps the most significant life-saving advancement in combat medicine in Afghanistan and Iraq was refinement of tourniquets and training to keep wounded warriors with shattered or...
View ArticleNew Commissary Reform Plan to Protect Shopper Savings
By Tom Philpott The Department of Defense is modifying its approach to reform the commissary benefit with new guarantees to preserve overall shopper savings and also to avoid pay cuts for current...
View ArticleDoD Resists Hill Push to Roll Back Compound Drug Rules
By Tom Philpott Thirty-one House members, most of whom, public records show, got campaign dollars from compound drug lobbyists, are pressing the Defense Department to soften rules set in May that block...
View ArticleConferees Shape Leaner Budget for Military Pay, Benefits
By Tom Philpott Military members and families have little to cheer from compromises House and Senate conferees reached as they finalized details of key personnel provisions in the fiscal 2016 defense...
View ArticleVA Chief to Hill: The Health Reforms You Seek Are Here
By Tom Philpott VA Secretary Bob McDonald told the House Veterans Affairs Committee Wednesday that a $68 million, 4000-page study of VA health care it ordered last year and accepted last month uncovers...
View ArticleAgent Orange Law Changes as New Cost Fears Surface
By Tom Philpott Two weeks ago, the House and Senate veterans affairs committees quietly allowed a provision of the Agent Orange Act of 1991 to expire. How significant that will be for Vietnam veterans...
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