Noteboom The Law Firm

Veterans Left Unprotected By Health Care Reform

April 20, 2010 - Congress recently assured those beneficiaries under Tricare they will not be penalized under the new health care reform law for having military group health coverage. Congress did not, however, allow veterans the same exemption.

The Health Care Reform Act requires purchase of private health care insurance and if the private policy is not purchased, a $750 annual penalty is incurred. The Tricare Assurance Act leaves Tricare beneficiaries free from this requirement as Tricare qualifies as being able to provide the minimal essential coverage required under the new health care laws.

S-3162 is a Senate-passed bill providing the same exemption for all veterans' health care programs. The bill includes health care coverage under the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) not mentioned as being essential under the new health care reform law. The final draft of the reform act signed into law did not include protections for people using military and veteran health care from being negatively affected. Having the President sign S-3162 will fix that omission.

Essentially Tricare and all VA health care programs were not included in the final passed bill as meeting the minimum required standards under the reform bill. The reform bill will, however, help those veterans not qualifying for Department of Defense (DoD) or VA health care. As a result, legislative patches were required to be passed.

There has been some resistance to including legislative passes specific to veterans. It is possible an executive order from VA Secretary Eric Shinseki would be enough to declare VA health care as meeting the minimum requirements. Only time will tell what will happen, but what is clear is something needs to happen to protect the veterans left unprotected by the health care reform.