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When A Promise Is Not A Promise
By Thomas D. Segel
January 31, 2002

A promise is not a promise when it is given to members of the United States Armed Forces by their leadership. A promise is not a promise when the United States Congress can change its pledges into a different message having no meaning. A promise is not a promise when less is given than originally guaranteed.

From the day of their first enlistment, men and women who joined the ranks of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps were made promises by those senior in service. Even today, many feel the recruiters, the drill instructors, the career councilors all believed they were speaking the truth. Sadly, in most instances, what was said...what was promised... had no more value than today's Enron stock.

The words of least value, spoken to all career military personnel, were they would have service earned health care for themselves and their dependents for life. While on active duty, these promises where generally kept. It was with retirement they discovered a promise is not a promise when you are no longer of value to the country.

Retirees have continually fought the government on health care and other issues. First, they had to do battle with their own Department of Defense (DoD). This is a strange organization, for it cares nothing about the people who fought under its banner and gave twenty to thirty years of their lives to the country. The Department of Defense provides no support to retirees and opposes them on almost everything. DoD always sees helping these former warriors as wasted money. It wants to keep every tax dollar Congress appropriates for active duty concerns. Because of a mindset to hold its purse strings tightly, DoD denies it has the responsibility for assuring military retirees are strongly represented in the Halls of Congress.

Having no strong spokesman in the Secretary of Defense, our retirees are forced to lobby Congress, urging the politicians to right past wrongs and restore stolen promises. This is usually an exercise in futility. The retired military community has never organized itself into a strong enough voting block to have any impact in Washington. So, the age old political practice of paying lip service to requests continues day after day. In some cases bills are offered and members of both the House and Senate sign on as co-sponsors, but the restoration of benefits and promises seldom happens. There is never enough money to meet the needs of retirees.

Retirees over the age of 65 have seen some benefits restored. However, their Tricare for Life supplement to Medicare only came after a Class Action Lawsuit and the United States Court of Appeals decision that the government had made a health care promise and the contract had been broken. Even with new supplemental coverage, the promise remains unkept because all retirees and dependents must pay for their Medicare. This is not the lifelong "earned" health care which was pledged.

Those under the age of 65 find themselves in a more difficult situation. They have been placed in government programs called Tricare Prime and Tricare Standard, plus a few "hybrid" forms of Tricare for special circumstances. The "Prime" program is tied to a Military HMO type of plan, and still requires money out of the retiree's pocket. The "Standard" plan is even worse. There are also out of pocket costs, even when you can find a doctor who will honor the program. In most cases payment by the government is so low, doctors won't even accept a Tricare patient. Regardless of which bad plan we look at, they all remain poor, second class, substitutes for guaranteed treatment. There are still promises unkept, because the quality health care these military retirees need and deserve has not been provided.

The lesson to be learned here is...a promise is not a promise if it is made to you, me, or anyone by our government and does not have strategic or political value. The question to be asked is... why do Americans stand for such actions?