Military Times Article Claiming TRICARE Increase Funds CDMRP is Factually Inaccurate

The email below is in response to a factually inaccurate Military Times article that stated the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) were being funded through raised TRICARE rates.

The U.S. House Appropriations Committee clarified that assertion is false.

The email is from Mark Vieth, who represents two rare disease organizations and has taken a leading role in lashing together a broad coalition of CDMRP support groups.

--Anthony Hardie, Madison, Wis.

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Dear Friends, 

Many of you may have seen an article published in Army Times or Navy Times that suggested that the CDMRPs are funded through reductions in the TRICARE budget.  

I asked Brooke Boyer on the House Appropriations Committee if there was any validity to this, and I wanted to share her response below:

“This article is not factually correct. 

 "Every mark in our bill is done on an individual basis; one mark that decreases funds does not have anything to do with a mark that increases funds elsewhere.  Furthermore, the $330 million that was reduced is FY12 money in the budget request, not FY11 money. 

 "TRICARE funding is operation and maintenance funding, which is only available for one year.  The Committee believes that the budget request overestimates the amount of TRICARE funding necessary in FY12, hence the reduction.”

Mark D. Vieth, Senior Vice PresidentCavarocchi Ruscio Dennis AssociatesWashington, DC

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The flawed information in the Military Times article appears to have been based on the following Senate hearing testimony:

Rick Jones, National Association for Uniformed Services - “And after hearing, for more than a year, that Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs say that rising costs retiree health care was crippling our nation's national security, we read that the House Appropriations Committee intends to use $330 million of unexecuted money in the TRICARE health program for funding additional congressionally-directed medical research programs, many of which are outside traditional battlefield medicine, and/or duplicate subjects covered by the National Institute of Health. It's not appropriate.  Our folks might be outraged when they hear this, that their health care (inaudible) pay more for the monies going for additional research in areas unrelated to military”