
DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997              TAG: 9703120451

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: MILITARY 

SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:  117 lines

DOING BATTLE OVER HEALTH CARE RETIREES FIGHT FOR WHAT THEY CALL A PROMISE - FREE MEDICAL CARE.

``Health care is provided to you and your family members while you are in the Army, and for the rest of your life if you serve a minimum of 20 years of active federal service to earn your retirement'' - Army recruiting brochure, 1991

What Navy retirement means to you. . . Continued medical care for you and your dependents in government facilities'' - Navy ``Bluejackets Manual,'' 1969

Retirement. . . You continue to receive free medical and dental treatment for yourself, plus medical care for dependents.'' - Coast Guard Career Information Guide, 1991.

Promises, promises.

Like generations of other soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, S. Paul Hamaker figured he could count on Uncle Sam to keep the commitments made to him when he joined the service.

Now Hamaker, a Virginia Beach resident who retired from the Coast Guard in 1980, says he knows better. He's part of a growing group of retirees who are suing the federal government over policies limiting their access to military health care facilities and forcing those over 65 into the Medicare program.

In suits filed in Charleston, S.C., and Pensacola, Fla., communities that are home to thousands of former service members, retirees are seeking damages and court orders forcing the services to provide them with free care.

Hamaker is a member of the Coalition of Retired Military Veterans, the group bringing the case in Charleston. He said the promise of free medical care for him and his family, for life, was among the most important commitments a recruiter made to him in 1959.

``That meant everything in the world,'' he said.

``Everybody anticipated it was going to be a lifetime benefit,'' said retired Navy Capt. Jim Mulligan, a former pilot whose service includes seven years in a North Vietnamese prison.

Mulligan, who also lives in Virginia Beach, is one of more than 1,000 retirees who have contributed up to $100 each to support the suit brought in Pensacola, despite the fact that he pays out of his own pocket for civilian care. ``For me, it's a moral issue,'' he said.

Filed last summer, the Pensacola case is being pushed by the Class Act Group, led by another former Vietnam POW, retired Air Force Col. George ``Bud'' Day.

Day, 71, a lawyer and a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor, said he took the case partly in outrage at a military hospital's free liver transplant for former Illinois Congressman Dan Rostenkowski, now in prison on a corruption conviction.

``I just thought, these rotten SOBs,'' he said. ``This system is rotten, it's corrupt and I'm going to sue their ass.''

The Justice Department has urged dismissal of both cases, arguing that even if promises of care were made, as the Pentagon's top health official has acknowledged, they are unenforceable unless made by Congress.

Since 1956, Congress has approved free retiree care only when space is available to provide it.

In theory, that means Hamaker, Mulligan, and other military retirees in Hampton Roads can still get free care at the Portsmouth Naval Medical Center and other military hospitals. But because those facilities cater first to active-duty patients, retirees often must wait weeks or months, if they can get care at all.

The Pentagon is encouraging retirees under 65 to get their medical care from civilian doctors through Champus or Tricare, the military's health insurance programs. The programs require the retirees to bear part of the cost: Individual retirees under 65 pay $230 and families are charged $460 per year for coverage by Tricare Prime, the best of the military programs. It is slated to come to Hampton Roads next year.

But those over 65, a group that now includes all World War II veterans and many of those who served in Korea, are not eligible. The military is forcing them into Medicare, which provides hospitalization insurance at no charge but requires those who want other coverage to pay for it with parts of their Social Security checks.

While the lawsuits make their way through the courts, other groups are pressing for action.

In a recent hearing last week, the National Military Veterans Alliance and The Military Coalition, a group that represents 22 retirees' organizations, urged Congress to consider ``Medicare subvention,'' a plan under which Medicare would pay for care provided retirees in military facilities.

As an alternative, the groups said Congress could bring military retirees under the federal government's health plan for its civilian retirees.

Two Virginia lawmakers, Rep. James Moran, D-8th District, and Sen. John W. Warner, a Republican, sponsored legislation last year to do just that.Both measures failed.

The retirees won the sympathy of the House National Security subcommittee, which last year endorsed Medicare subvention only to see it die later for lack of funds.

Committee chairman Steve Buyer, R-Ind., promised to try again to secure subvention. But, he warned the retirees, money is short again this year. ILLUSTRATION: [Illustration]

JONH EARLE/The Virginian-Pilot

FOR MORE INFO

If you're a military retiree and want to support or get more

information on to one or both of the lawsuits seeking better health

care benefits, here's where to get it.

The Coalition of Retired Military Veterans, seeking payments of up

to $10,000 per retiree as reimbursement for their payments to the

Medicare program - call or write S. Paul Hamaker, 705 Fiona Lane,

Virginia Beach, 23464; phone: 757-420-9620.

Class Act Group, seeking order to stop Medicare premium deductions

from retirees' Social Security payments - write Class Act Group, 32

Beal Parkway, SW; Ft. Walton Beach, Fla., 32548-5398, or call