Leahy: Guard And Reserve
Deserve Better Benefits
…Increased Reliance On Citizen-Soldiers Calls For Updated Benefits
WASHINGTON (Wed., Jan. 28) – On the
heels of a deployment of nearly 200 Vermont National Guardsmen and
Guardswomen to Iraq last weekend, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) joined
a bipartisan coalition of senators in a Capitol Hill news conference
Wednesday to unveil a new initiative to increase healthcare and
retirement benefits for the 800,000 members of the National Guard
and Reserves.
“We are going to work tirelessly to
pass this legislation, because if we don’t, our citizen-soldiers
will soon need to decide between tending to their sense of
commitment to their country or tending to their families,” said
Leahy, co-chair of the Senate National Guard Caucus. “These
soldiers will soon comprise 40 percent of our forces in
Iraq, serving seamlessly with their active duty counterparts,
but at times receiving a fraction of the compensation, benefits and
recognition for making the same sacrifices and taking the same
risks.”
Leahy, along with Sens. Tom Daschle
(D-S.D.), Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and
Mike DeWine (D-Ohio) told Congress Wednesday that these soldiers
needed the National Guard and Reserve Readiness and Retention Act to
increase healthcare benefits for citizen-soldiers and their families
and to make fair adjustments to an outdated citizen-soldier
retirement system. Leahy and other members of the coalition warned
that without the benefit upgrade, retention and recruitment rates
could drop drastically as the country asks for larger sacrifices
from its citizen-soldiers.
The four-pronged legislation increases
Guard and Reserve readiness and retention by:
-
First, making the health insurance
package enacted last year permanent -- guaranteeing that every
member of the Guard and Reserves has access to affordable health
insurance;
-
Second, expanding eligibility to
access the cost-share TRICARE program to every member of the
Selected Reserve;
-
Third, allowing families of deployed
reservists to keep their civilian health insurance while their
loved one is activated.
-
Fourth, fairly adjusting the
retirement structure of the Guard and Reserves. Under current
law, a reservist cannot access their retirement benefits until the
age of sixty. To address the needs of our troops and their
families, this bill will lower that age one year for every two
years a member serves after twenty years. For example, if a
reservist has 30 years of service, they will be able access their
retirement benefits at 55.
Last year, Leahy and other members of
the Senate fought successfully to ensure that no National Guard
member or Reservist was without health insurance. The measure was
called “…the most significant victory the Guard and Reserves have
had in Congress since the passage of the Montgomery GI Bill…” by
retired Maj. Gen. Richard C. Alexander, the president of the
National Guard Association.
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