Lawmakers reached an agreement on S. 2943, the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act earlier this week and today the bill was overwhelmingly approved by the House. The Senate is expected to vote on the measure in similar fashion early next week. In brief, S. 2943 authorizes $618.7 billion in spending for national security ($611.2 billion in discretionary spending & $7.5 billion in mandatory spending) and $67.8 billion for overseas contingency operations (OCO) spending. Specific items in the bill:
• Provide a 2.1 percent across-the-board pay raise for military personnel
• Reauthorize over 30 types of bonuses and special pays
• Allows “variable pricing” strategies and “house brand” products at commissaries nationwide, but specifies current patron savings and satisfaction must be maintained
• Merge TRICARE Standard and TRICARE Extra into a new program called TRICARE Select
• Authorize higher TRICARE fees for future retirees who join in 2018 or thereafter
• Consolidate responsibility for military health care delivery, budgeting, and facilities under the Defense Health Agency
• Improve beneficiary access, care quality and system productivity i.e., eliminate preauthorization requirement for urgent care and mandate that on-base urgent care be available through 11 p.m. daily.
• Restore equity to the Reserve Component’s Survivor Benefit Program
• Direct DoD to conduct an extensive review of the department’s efforts to recover bonuses paid to members of the California National Guard.
• Extends the Special Survivor Indemnity Allowance through May 31, 2018
• Make military retired pay amount divisible with former spouses based on grade and years of service at time of divorce (future divorces only)
• Prevent a new round of military base closures; and
• Require DoD to study the feasibility of a single-salary pay system which would repeal the basic allowance for subsistence and the basic allowance for housing and report back to Congress by January 2018
Controversial provisions like requiring women to register for the draft and protections for the Sage Grouse were removed from the package to help reach consensus between the two chambers. Also not included in the bill were additional cuts to Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) or higher copays for prescription medicines and both were key legislative issues for this association. All-in-all, we are pretty happy with what we see so far and the House and Senate Armed Services Committees should be commended for their efforts in the face of very tight fiscal constraints. We’ll continue to review the bill and report on these other items in depth in some of our future newsletters.