Armed Forces News

Denying charges that the administration is trying to make money from military retirees with its plan to more than triple pharmacy payments, a Defense official says the idea is just to implement “best business practices” and to “help guide people to mail order and generic drugs.” The response of James E. Lokovic, spokesman for the Air Force Sergeants Association, was: “These people earned it and the government owes them. It’s disgusting that they would even float this notion.” The government has a debt to military retirees, he continued, and ought to be budgeting for it. You cannot run military benefit programs like a business, he concluded. Meanwhile, in a separate initiative, Defense officials plan to establish a uniform formulary around April, which would include a three-tier co-pay plan. Drugs not in the formulary would cost beneficiaries $22 for a 30-day supply.