From:
WASP188@aol.com
Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 2:56 PM
Subject: House, House, Senate likely to OK concurrent receipt But legislation would come with limitations
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
Navy Times, 20 May 2002 issue
A two-decade fight by disabled military retirees for more pay is nearing what looks to be a victorious end for those with the most severe disabilities. Both the House and Senate versions of the 2003 defense authorization bill would phase out a required offset in retired pay for those who also get veterans’ disability payments.
But there are two limitations.
First, the legislation would apply only to those with service-connected disabilities rated at 60 percent or more. Second, it would not apply to anyone medically retired with less than 20 years of active service.
Those limits mean that of the estimated 500,000 disabled retirees whose retired pay is reduced dollar for dollar by the amount of their disability compensation, only about 86,000 will see extra money under the plan to phase out the offset, starting Oct. 1, 2002.
Under the current versions of the defense bill making their way through Congress, retirees with a disability rating of 100 percent would get to keep an extra $750 in monthly retired pay beginning Oct. 1, 2002.
Those with a 90-percent rating would get $500; those with a 70-percent or 80-percent rating would get $250; and those with a 60-percent rating would get $125.Each Oct. 1 over the following four years, the remaining offset in retired pay would be reduced by about 25 percent until it was eliminated in October 2006.
At the same time, the Pentagon would stop giving special compensation to some 37,000 severely disabled retirees who are eligible for such payments because they received disability ratings of 60 percent or more within four years of leaving active duty.
A more generous alternative?
Before a final version of the defense authorization bill is approved and signed into law this year, there is a slight chance that the so-called “concurrent receipt” restrictions also would be lifted for retirees with service-connected disabilities rated at 50 percent or less.Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is expected to offer an amendment to the Senate version of the bill that would do just that.
Reid has gotten similar legislation approved by the Senate twice before, only to see the provisions die in negotiations with the House.This year, the House version of the defense authorization bill, approved May 9, includes specific concurrent-receipt legislation because the House, for the first time ever, has set aside money to cover the costs of higher retired pay that would result from phasing out the offset. This includes $516 million for 2003 and a total of $5.8 billion over the next five years.
But congressional aides working on concurrent-receipt provisions said Reid likely will face the same problem as in past negotiations with the House because it would cost more than $2 billion a year to end the offset for all retirees — far more than what the House has agreed to set aside in its bill.Of the 86,000 retirees who would start getting payments this fall under the bills, about 75,000 served 20 or more years on active duty and receive traditional retirement pay, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office, a bipartisan arm of Congress.
Also eligible for payments would be 11,400 people who served more than 20 years and are receiving disability retirement pay, according to the estimates.
Included in that group are retirees from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Public Health Service and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (Editor’s Note: This story has been updated with a correction of information that appeared in the print version.)
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Submitted,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(Ret)