Changes to healthcare policy increase stress on military members about their family’s access to care – That kills operational focus and reduces resilience

General Ediger. Chairman Heck, Ranking Member Davis, and distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to appear before you today. The Air Eorce is truly grateful for the hard work of the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission. Many parts of the Commission’s recommendations will enhance and facilitate programs that serve our airmen, their families, and our veterans. Today I will speak to impacts in two areas of primary importance for the Air Eorce based upon our analysis of the Commission’s recommendations. I will begin with the impacts on the readiness of our medical force. We appreciate the Commission’s focus on the linkage between care provided in our hospitals and the readiness of our medical force. We found their proposal to identify and quantify readiness related essential medical capabilities helpful to focus efforts on the capture of specialty care for our hospitals. That concept builds upon the Readiness Skills Verification Program we have utilized in the Air Eorce for over 15 years to set clinical standards for the readiness of our medical force. However, we do not see the need for a joint readiness command, as existing processes jointly utilized by the services enable us to measure and assess the readiness of our force. We have significant concern about the impact the Commission’s health plan recommendations would have on the readiness of our force. We believe the proposal would shift family member and retiree care significantly to the private sector and thereby move care essential to our readiness out of our medical facilities. We also believe the proposal to place our medical facilities into competition with the private sector would drive up administrative costs and significantly detract from the focus on the operational mission in our medical facilities. The second area of primary concern centers on our support to Active Duty families. We believe resilient families with excellent health service support greatly enhance the resilience of all of our airmen. We support changes in the President’s budget to improve TRICARE while enhancing our readiness. Additionally, significant progress in the strategic line of efforts referenced by Dr. Woodson has occurred, and we are a progressive system of health and readiness as a result. 7 We are concerned that the Commission’s proposed change to the health plan would increase stress on airmen and families by requiring them to navigate a complex insurance marketplace on a recurring basis. We are concerned that the Commission’s proposal would shift family care significantly into the private sector, thereby creating a hole in the safety net commanders depend upon for Active Duty families under stress. Proper balance in the mix of our medical force is important to maintaining a ready medical force while providing safe and highquality health services. The National Defense Authorization Act of 2010 permanently prohibited the services from converting non-military essential Active Duty medical positions to civilian positions. Relief from this prohibition would enable the Air Force to judiciously increase the proportion of civilians in its force mix. I thank the committee for your continued support for Air Force medicine and the opportunity to answer your questions today. Dr. Heck. Thank you. Admiral Faison.