SECNAV to Implement Sweeping Changes

[ReserveOfficerRecruiter]

The two parts of your post are not consistent.

I believe your pay is yours and whether you invest it or buy a house outside of your means or whatever is your business, not the Navy's. Which I think you are effectively espousing with the 2nd part. That being said, why should the Navy care whether you had to pay for childcare. It should only be concerned with compensating you commensurate with your value to the service.

The point I was making with the childcare comment is ultimately what you said, your pay is yours. It shouldn't matter if you are a dual military couple or a single sailor sharing a house with other military folks, you are entitled to that money. Who you marry shouldn't be a factor in the decision for receiving BAH.

 

[Spekkio]

I think the military should charge at least something for Tricare, just as I think BAH should be one rate (per rank), without regard to dependents. (And yes, both of these changes would cost my family money. And yes, we are one of the families who has lost a great deal of income due to military moves, so I am not oblivious to that factor.) I think most civilian workplaces require the employee to pick up at least some small part of the tab for providing benefits. If you want to have a Quiver-full, have at it. But each of those 19 kids is going to cost you $25/mo for health care. If you have benefits from some other source, like a spouse's workplace, you'd be free to turn down Tricare, just as you can currently do with dental.

Of course, my understanding is that part of the reason there is a housing allowance and probably part of the reason there is free and mandatory health insurance is they no one wants Ensign Timmy's work performance to suffer because he's worried about his wife living in a box while suffering from untreated syphilis. So allowing him to turn down insurance for her in order to save himself the cost of a weekly Starbucks doesn't protect him from himself. And not giving him a couple hundred dollars extra for housing supposedly increases the chances of box-living. (I don't know that I actually buy that, because where one person can live, two can live. And if you have 10 kids, the w/dep rate isn't going to go very far.) If the purpose of both programs is more "nanny" than it is "compensation", then I suppose in that context, they make sense. If not, then I think pay and compensation (to include health insurance, or at least some insurance costs) should be based on the work and on performance, not on decisions about marriage and procreation.

Even if employers are requiring contributions, they are subsidizing the cost for the employee = more pay for married people. I suppose the single people can try to negotiate higher salaries in the private work force if they don't need extra health care, but I'd like to see the numbers if employers are obliging. I'm guessing not because single employees tend to be younger, less experienced, and have more turnover.

On the civil service end, the military isn't giving anything healthcare wise that teachers, police, and other government employees also don't get. That is a more apt comparison than private companies who have largely frozen wages and cut benefits the last 15 years.

Are you going to protest city hall because your local police get more benefits for being married with kids?

 

[Spekkio]

I don't know if it is feasible, but I also think someone should look at urgent care/emergency medicine overseas. We have, essentially, not urgent care here in my corner of Germany. Sometimes, the small base clinic can squeeze you in, but sometimes not, and there is nothing after hours. Our only choice after 430 pm or on weekends is the German ER.

This is no different than American health care. If you get something after hours the doctor's nurse will call you back in an hour and her de facto, cya answer is to say go to the ER for every sniffle. This is off-base care... On base you just have to go to the ER, no nurse to call you.

Then the hospital bills Tricare $800 (out of which I pay $120) for the 4 hours you spent in the waiting room so a PA can look at your kid for 5 min and tell you to follow up with your physician in the morning cuz she doesn't feel comfortable giving prescription meds to toddlers.

Bottom line is that if you aren't in cardiac arrest or about to die of exsanguination then you will have to wait till morning to see a doctor.

 

[Flash]

...I don't know if it is feasible, but I also think someone should look at urgent care/emergency medicine overseas. We have, essentially, not urgent care here in my corner of Germany. Sometimes, the small base clinic can squeeze you in, but sometimes not, and there is nothing after hours. Our only choice after 430 pm or on weekends is the German ER. That's got to be extremely expensive. Having an on-call doc (or PA, if military medicine has those) seems like it would save a ton of money. In Japan, I believe you could call someone 24/7 for urgent but not emergent situations, and they would meet you at the clinic, even after hours. And that base was significantly smaller than this one. But this is probably drifting way too far off-subject...

I am going to assume that is a base/command policy and not a general one overseas. Even Whidbey had an on-call doc 24/7 when I was there and it was a small medical facility. With the massive personnel cuts that have occurred over the past 20 years in EUCOM that was just one more billet that was cut.

 

[villanelle]

Even if employers are requiring contributions, they are subsidizing the cost for the employee = more pay for married people. I suppose the single people can try to negotiate higher salaries in the private work force if they don't need extra health care, but I'd like to see the numbers if employers are obliging. I'm guessing not because single employees tend to be younger, less experienced, and have more turnover.

On the civil service end, the military isn't giving anything healthcare wise that teachers, police, and other government employees also don't get. That is a more apt comparison than private companies who have largely frozen wages and cut benefits the last 15 years.

Are you going to protest city hall because your local police get more benefits for being married with kids?

Dude, you seem to be taking this personally or something. I'm not going to protest city hall about police benefits. And I'm not going to write frothy letters to my congressperson about Tricare (or BAH). I just don't care that much. I have an opinion on what would be better, and I am interested enough to write about it on this fine internet forum, but it's not like I'm shaking my fist indignantly at what I feel is an utterly unacceptable situation. (About stuff from which I myself benefit, I might add.) I think a different way would be better. That's all. I think having the service member pick up at least some of the tab for dependents' benefits would bring us closer to =/= more pay for married people, which I think is the ideal. Maybe we can't get all the way there by having them pay 100%, but we can certainly get closer. Do you really feel it is unreasonable to ask someone to pay ANYTHING at all for their benefits? Does that go for both premiums and copays?

As for police benefits, my LE friends actually do pay a premium for their dependents, so I think that's a perfectly apt comparison. I worked at a state university, and we also paid part of the premiums for any dependents who got coverage, while our own coverage was free. So certainly that situation exists in the public sector.

This is no different than American health care. If you get something after hours the doctor's nurse will call you back in an hour and her de facto, cya answer is to say go to the ER for every sniffle. This is off-base care... On base you just have to go to the ER, no nurse to call you.

Then the hospital bills Tricare $800 (out of which I pay $120) for the 4 hours you spent in the waiting room so a PA can look at your kid for 5 min and tell you to follow up with your physician in the morning cuz she doesn't feel comfortable giving prescription meds to toddlers.

Bottom line is that if you aren't in cardiac arrest or about to die of exsanguination then you will have to wait till morning to see a doctor.

Bottom line is that people don't and often can't wait to see a doctor, so they go go the ER. I feel like you missed my point or read something into it that wasn't there. To be clear, it wasn't a complaint. I don't care, on a personal level. Care is available to me if and when I need it, so I'm good. I just think that it likely costs the government more to be paying German ER bills because Timmy has a fever on Saturday morning, than it would for them to have an extra body or two available for urgent care and urgent after-hours care. Maybe someone much smarter than I am has run the numbers and found that the current system is more cost-effective, but I doubt it. Something tells me the bills the Germans send to the DoD for our use of their socialized system are not small.

In the States, I could go to the Balboa ER if I had an emergency, or even a semi-emergency, like the time my contact lens tore in half and one half of it got wedged up under my eyelid. Not a 911 emergency, but not something that could wait until I could get an appointment in 10-14 days. So I trotted off to Balboa. (Well, husband came home from work and drove me because I couldn't see, and because I was in so much pain I resorted to tequila while I waited for him to come home so driving wasn't an option.) Here, without a military hospital, I go to the German ER for that semi-emergency. And I suspect that gets expensive (not for me--it is completely free to me as it is covered by Tricare Overseas Prime--but for Uncle Sam.)

So I wasn't complaining or pointing out in inequity or anything like that. It was just a tangental comment on what I suspect is an inefficiency in the system.

I am going to assume that is a base/command policy and not a general one overseas. Even Whidbey had an on-call doc 24/7 when I was there and it was a small medical facility. With the massive personnel cuts that have occurred over the past 20 years in EUCOM that was just one more billet that was cut.

It is definitely a base policy. As I said, In Atsugi--a much smaller base with overall many fewer resources--there was after hours care. I fell down the stairs and was concerned I'd broken something, and a doctor met me at the clinic after hours. I may also have had the option of going to the hospital in Yokosuka. It wasn't a bleeding-out emergency, but it also seemed like a bad idea to wait.

 

[Flash]

...On the civil service end, the military isn't giving anything healthcare wise that teachers, police, and other government employees also don't get. That is a more apt comparison than private companies who have largely frozen wages and cut benefits the last 15 years...

Ummm, are you joking? The military provides far and above what nearly all other government employees and their dependents get healthcare-wise.

 

[Spekkio]

No, I'm not joking. You should have become a cop or teacher in NY, they got free health care (with like a $15 copay) for all dependents up to 26 before Obamacare was even a thing.

 

[Spekkio]

So I wasn't complaining or pointing out in inequity or anything like that. It was just a tangental comment on what I suspect is an inefficiency in the system.

And I'm simply pointing out that the same inefficiency is not exclusive to Germany.

I think a different way would be better. That's all. I think having the service member pick up at least some of the tab for dependents' benefits would bring us closer to =/= more pay for marriedpeople, which I think is the ideal.

I was being facetious with the City Hall part, but the overall point is that it is extremely common to get more compensation for being married both civilian and private. Even when people pay a premium there is still a substantial discount paid by the employer.

You also get more take home pay because you get tax deductions and credits for children, so there's that too.

 

[Flash]

No, I'm not joking. You should have become a cop or teacher in NY, they got free health care (with like a $15 copay) for all dependents up to 26 before Obamacare was even a thing.

They don't have an entire medical system of medical personnel and facilities dedicated solely to them like the military, REALLY BIG difference.

 

[Spekkio]

That's a difference that makes it exponentially cheaper for the military to provide health care, so I'm not sure where you are going with that.

 

[Flash]

That's a difference that makes it exponentially cheaper for the military to provide health care, so I'm not sure where you are going with that.

I was responding to what you said below.

...On the civil service end, the military isn't giving anything healthcare wise that teachers, police, and other government employees also don't get. That is a more apt comparison than private companies who have largely frozen wages and cut benefits the last 15 years...

 

[villanelle]

And I'm simply pointing out that the same inefficiency is not exclusive to Germany.


I was being facetious with the City Hall part, but the overall point is that it is extremely common to get more compensation for being married both civilian and private. Even when people pay a premium there is still a substantial discount paid by the employer.

You also get more take home pay because you get tax deductions and credits for children, so there's that too.

So it isn't exclusive to Germany. I didn't say it was. I was pointing out an inefficiency in the system, which, on the surface, seems like it costs the government money while not only not adding value in some way, but actually creating a less desirable system (dealing with an ER visit in German). Nothing more than that. Not sure how this become a Thing, as it was kind of an offhand comment.

Oh, well if it is common that of course that means we should all keep on doing it. Never mind discussing whether it is sensible, fair, or equitable, as long as it is common!

I don't get a tax credit for children, as I have none. Or was that a global "you"? In fact, many married couples pay more in taxes than they would as singles--the marriage penalty. But of course, taxes are a different animal from employment compensation.

 

[Recovering LSO]

Say what you want about the mil-mil BAH policy, or the SASC's proposal to change it, but this is a great example of senior leadership in the age of social media. "We got this."

On a somewhat related note. Here's an interesting article on the very topic of senior leaders and social media.

 

[Spekkio]

So it isn't exclusive to Germany. I didn't say it was. I was pointing out an inefficiency in the system, which, on the surface, seems like it costs the government money while not only not adding value in some way, but actually creating a less desirable system (dealing with an ER visit in German). Nothing more than that. Not sure how this become a Thing, as it was kind of an offhand comment.

It's not as inefficient as you think. This person paid $48 for his ER visit in Germany.

Unless the U.S. can find a way to force pediatricians and primary care physicians to make appointments past 5pm, we're stuck going to the ER and incurring a $1,000 bill on "this side of the pond."

Oh, well if it is common that of course that means we should all keep on doing it. Never mind discussing whether it is sensible, fair, or equitable, as long as it is common!

It's common because it is all 3 of those things.

I don't get a tax credit for children, as I have none. Or was that a global "you"? In fact, many married couples pay more in taxes than they would as singles--the marriage penalty. But of course, taxes are a different animal from employment compensation.

It was the global 'you,' and if your joint AGI isn't in the top 15% of earners then you benefit by being married on your federal income tax.

 

[Gainful]

It's not as inefficient as you think. This person paid $48 for his ER visit in Germany.

Unless the U.S. can find a way to force pediatricians and primary care physicians to make appointments past 5pm, we're stuck going to the ER and incurring a $1,000 bill on "this side of the pond."

I pay out of pocket for all dependent care in my current job and tricare overseas refunds me. The social medicine does a great job keeping costs down. A pregnancy, complicated 24hr delivery, one week postpartum care in a private room and first 6 months of pediatric visits has cost me under 12k. It's amazing compared to uninsured US cost.