DATE: Thursday, August 7, 1997              TAG: 9708070729

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Military 

SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   65 lines

VETS IN "DEMONSTRATION" AREAS WILL BE ABLE TO ENROLL IN TRICARE BUT HAMPTON ROADS IS NOT LIKELY TO BE NAMED ONE OF THE TEST LOCATIONS.

Along with its well-publicized tax breaks for young families and those with kids in college, the balanced-budget deal passed by Congress last week contained some hopeful news for thousands of aging military retirees.

For at least the next three years, the law will permit retirees over 65 in six so-far-undetermined ``demonstration'' areas to use their Medicare coverage to obtain health care from the military medical system.

Those older retirees, like active duty personnel and retirees under 65, already are eligible for free care in military hospitals and clinics. But they can use those facilities only on a ``space-available'' basis and cannot enroll in Tricare, the managed care program that lets military beneficiaries receive care from participating civilian doctors and hospitals.

Instead, they must use Medicare, which covers hospitalization at no charge but requires those who want other medical coverage to purchase supplemental policies sold by private companies or accept a deduction from their Social Security payments.

In the demonstration areas, retirees over 65 will be able to enroll in Tricare, with Medicare reimbursing the military system. The retirees will not have to pay Tricare's usual enrollment fees.

Though it has a substantial concentration of military retirees, Hampton Roads is considered unlikely to be named as one of the demonstration sites. Frank Rohrbaugh, a retired Air Force colonel and lobbyist for the 40,000-member Retired Officers Association, said priority is likely to go to communities around several bases in Texas, Mississippi and several other states whose congressional representatives have championed the new program.

Texas Sen. Phil Gramm and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi are widely credited with pushing hardest to include ``Medicare subvention,'' as the experiment is called, in the balanced-budget package.

Congress put cost caps on the experiment, beginning with $50 million in 1998 and rising to $65 million in 2000. Subvention's boosters believe the program actually could save the government money because military hospitals and Tricare providers will accept lower fees than Medicare would pay for the same care in civilian facilities.

Rohrbaugh, whose group has been among several pushing subvention for years, said retiree advocates were elated over last week's success. But he acknowledged that even nationwide extension of the demonstration program probably would leave some 720,000 older retirees outside the reach of the military health system. That's the number who are believed to reside more than 100 miles from any military hospitals or clinics.

For those retirees, the best hope for lower cost care may be in proposals to extend the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan to cover the military. The Congressional Budget Office says that coverage could cost taxpayers more than $1 billion per year, though retiree advocates contend that the figure is exaggerated.

Rohrbaugh said his group is pushing for a two-site demonstration of such coverage under a bill introduced by Virginia Rep. James Moran, D-8th District. Sen. John W. Warner's office has expressed interest in the idea, and Warner may propose a companion bill in the Senate this fall, Rohrbaugh said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

File photo

Retirees already are eligible for free care at hospitals such as

Portsmouth Naval Hospital, but only on a space-available basis.

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