GyGsMailbag: Veterans Want Congress To Guarantee Free Medical Care

(Via Milinet)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 7, 2000

Veterans Want Congress To Guarantee Free Medical Care

By Jeff Nesmith, Cox Washington Bureau

Washington --- Wheelchair-bound and ticked off, Joe Priestley
keeps
churning out the e-mail, calling on his fellow military retirees
to
meet him Thursday for a "muster on the Mall."

Priestley, 70, of Panama City, Fla., is a retired Navy
lieutenant
commander and one of nearly 2 million old warriors who say the
U.S.
government has a promise to keep: lifetime medical care in
return for
at least 20 years of active duty.

The planned demonstration is Priestley's idea of one way to
press
Congress for favorable action on a pair of bills that would
provide
funds for the Defense Department to deliver care for older
retirees
and their dependents.

Nearly everyone, including Defense Secretary William Cohen,
agrees
that Americans who retired from military careers that began
prior to
June 1956 were promised lifetime medical care by recruiters and
retention officials.

But "the promise," as Priestley and others call it, has fallen
victim
in recent years to base closings and tight Pentagon budgets. At
a
point in life when medical care is increasingly important,
retirees
are told they must purchase Medicare's Part B coverage at $49.50
a
month and supplemental plans to cover deductibles.

Defense Department lawyers have acknowledged in court that
recruiters
and others routinely promised the lifetime health care in return
for
career commitments, but courts have ruled that the promises do
not
constitute "binding contracts" with the federal government.

The bills, one of which has been signed by more than 250 House
members, would require the Defense Department to provide paid-up
medical coverage for the retirees under the Federal Employees
Health
Benefits Plan.

A Senate version is opposed by Majority Leader Trent Lott of
Mississippi and Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of
Virginia, and had only 27 signatures last week.

Estimates of the cost of funding the health care range as high
as $8
billion a year, a figure that would be expected to decrease
rapidly
as recipients die off.

Nobody knows how many retirees will show up for Priestley's
planned
muster on the National Mall --- maybe a few hundred, maybe a few
dozen, maybe just Priestley.

"So many of our veterans across the country are too ill, lame
and
broke to show up for something like this," said Priestley.

Priestley was pretty far along with plans for the demonstration
when
he learned he had to have a permit from the National Park
Service to
use the mall for a public event.

He applied for the permit but was turned down. Officials told
him
sponsors of the Million Moms March for handgun control on May 14
had
the mall tied up all next week with preparations for their own
demonstration there.

He called around and found that he might be able to hold the
veterans' rally on the West Terrace of the Capitol Building but
would
have to get a permit from the Capitol Police Department. By late
last
week, the permit had not been approved, but Priestley was moving
ahead.

Since thousands of retirees who ordinarily would be eligible for
the
care if it were available die every week, Priestley thought it
would
be a good idea to stage a mock military funeral.

"Then they said the coffin couldn't have a bottom in it because
we
might be hiding dynamite in there or something," he said. "I've
got a
guy making a bottomless coffin. A lady has loaned me the flag
that
lay on her husband's coffin."

The Retired Officers Association of Alexandria, Va., has offered
to
provide a loudspeaker and a bus to transport the veterans from a
hotel to the Capitol. Several members of Congress have said they
will
attend.