we know if we do this, and we do it right, we will save our health affairs and our tricare management some very significant dollars in their health costs. so i leave you that little tid bit if you can go back to your communities and think about it, it not only supports military children but your future citizens. thank you. >> thank you very much. miss thompson touched on an issue for our next speaker that is very important. and i know as mayors we see veterans by no choice of their own, homeless or in trouble with the law because of their lack of resources. whether it be mental health issues, access to jobs or even just simple access to a roof over their head. and i was excited to hear about this next speaker. matt is a fourth generation marine who received combat action in iraq. following his discharge from the marine corps he attended oklahoma state university where he received his bachlt in political science. an m.a. from the university of oklahoma. matt is here to talk about veteran treatment's court and how they are impacting the lives of military families in our communities. i k

we know that if we do this and we do it right, we will save our health affairs and tricare management and some very significant dollars in their health costs. so i leave you that little tidbit that if you can go back to your communities and think supports military children but about it i think it not only supports military children but it supports all of your future force, and your future citizens. thank you. >> thank you very, very much, ms. thompson. ms. thompson also touched on an issue for our next speaker that is very important. i know as mayors we often see veterans by no choice of their own homeless, or in trouble with the law because of the their lack of resources, whether it be mental health issues, access to jobs, or even just simple access to a roof over their head. i was really excited to hear about this program. our next speaker is actually matt steiner. he's the director of development and outreach for justice for veterans. matt is a fourth generation marine who received combat action ribbons for his service in "operation iraqi freedom." following an honorable discharge

if we do it and do it right we will save our health affairs and tricare management and some very significant dollars in their health costs. so i leave you that little tidbit that if you can go back to your communities and think about it i think it not only supports military children but it supports all of your future force, and your future citizens. thank you. >> thank you very, very much, ms. thompson. ms. thompson also touched on an issue for our next speaker that 1 very important, and i know as mayors

many of you may know that even if you are working age retiree and have access to tricare as reserves or a garden, or what have you, or even as a retired active duty person, you may still be able, even if you have the ability to get health care with your employer, your private sector employer, you can still stay on tricare and not take the private sector coverage. that means that the department of defense is caring a lot of health care costs that would otherwise be borne by private sector employers. and while in principle, you know, you could make an argument for that, the truth is in reality what happens is that is money that is not being spent on capabilities, on equipment, unreadiness, one of the kinds of programs for our personal. and so we really need to look at this in a holistic way. similarly on retirement. no one is going to change the contract on someone who is already serving, but we have asked congress for an authority, for a commission to sit down and look at his holistic lead to ask the question of whether we can have a better system. the majority of our military members

i have military benefits in the form of tricare. this is a controversial topic. is a term mccain is trying to make the co pay higher. i paid $4 a year -- 400 a year. it covers everything. >> are you married with children? how many children? >> two. >> they are covered. if you go before your wife goes, does she get coverage? >> not medical. she will get half of my retirement. it is something you can pay for. it is an insurance policy. we're talking about the level of benefits for those of a dedicated themselves to the transformation. it is substantial. >> we got this from your website. this is the kind of money that e1, e2, e3. if you come into the navy as a listed man, you are just getting trained. you make $16,000 a year. if you are the top of a line, you make $65,000. what are we missing? what are you getting besides that? >> if i am in afghanistan, you get hazard pay. >> how much? >> in the case the things i nuclear power, it is probably 1/3 more than that number. then there are elements of locality. you have what is called the basic allowance for housing, dep

even though i'm in favor of rethinking military pensions, tricare for life, etc., it is a little troubling to me that we're getting this whole locomotive going full steam while we haven't yet found a way to talk about broader social security reform and medicare and medicaid reform in the nation writ large. in other words, if we're still -- [applause] we need to ask everyone for collective sacrifice, and it doesn't really make sense to focus on the entitlement benefits and the retiree benefits of those who have served at a time when it's politically untouchable to focus on the the other 90% who haven't serbed. -- served. [applause] >> south america, central america have not been center on the defense establishment's radar scope over time, but we have it as the nexus of narcoterrorrism, we have a continent-wide populism movement that is changing the governments. hugo chavez is rumored to be on the last years of his life. when do you see -- what do you see are the implications of this hemisphere in our national defense? >> boy, that's a great -- >> and homeland security and national security.

on this spigot even the white in favor of rethinking the military pensions, military health care, tricaremedicare reform of the nation at large. in other words if we are still -- we need to ask everyone for the collective sacrifice, and it doesn't really make sense to focus on the entitlement benefits and the retiree benefits of those who have served at the time it is politically untouchable to focus on the other 90% who haven't served. [applause] south america, central america had not been the center of the defense establishment radar scoop over time but we have it as the nexus of marco terrorists and continent wide populist movement that is changing by government. hugo chavez is rumored to be on the last years of his life. what do you see as the implications of this hemisphere in the national defence? >> that's a great question to the is finnegan homeland security and immigration. spigot all comes together. an answer needs to touch all that. i have to be brief and not as comprehensive as i should be but i would begin by saying there is a lot of great stuff going on in latin america we n

this is going on and we were told there now is a need to increase the contribution from veterans for tricare, we find out there's $5.2 billion been sitting there unspent, unobligated for the last couple of years, department of justice, $1.9 billion here that we have them coming in before our committee whining and moaning about all of the millions and millions of dollars they need, turns out they've got $1,900,000 that they could use instead of coming begging here for more money to congress. $82 billion unobligated, unspent. the office of personnel management, $55 billion. i know that the administration spends more money than any other administration in history, far and away a lot more, but you would think they woobt have to come demand -- wouldn't have to come demanding more and more money and putting pressure on harry reid in the senate because they can't live on the $55 billion slush fund they had in the last couple years unspent. international assistance programs, $45 billion. i've said it over and over but it is absolutely true, i've seen it firsthand going around. you could even see som

beginning their careers in the united states navy so they are on a different health plan right now, tricare, and i see what they are doing. and health care costs are impacting everybody across the board. and i submit to be smart about how we rid the system of access support for his cause. i want to get to the point in time and i think implications of medicare are very real. to where patients can visit the docs offices with some information and some level of transparency about what is being offered. they can choose what procedures are available to them. and what the cost and locations are. when was a lasting walk into a docs office, you had a doctor explained the procedure and the cause. nobody knows what health care costs are. not the patient, not the doctors right away. that thing has to be coupled, that better knowledge of real cause with an ax -- insurance program that does what insurance companies are supposed to do they're supposed to take a risk and are supposed to offer us a affordable accessible policies which they are not doing. and i see this is the other big part of the problem.

to take new appointments of medicare beneficiaries and are curtailing access for both medicare and tricare patients all across the state of connecticut. so, clearly this is not an issue which can wait until the last minute. people are already voting with their feet and it's effecting access to health care literally as we sit here today in the house chamber. i also would like to remind the gentleman from new york that the measure which the republicans passed in december which supposedly addressed this issue paid for the s.g.r. fix by taking $40 billion out of the hospital accounts in medicare. so in the name of protecting physician fees, they butchered the other part of the system, an essential part of the system, in terms of hospital access which provides emergency care all across this country and the american hospital association and others clearly warned this chamber and the senate that this cut would be extremely damaging and catastrophic to the american health care system and the fact that the senate did not just rubber stamp what the house did in my opinion shows that they acted appro

we know that if we do this, and we do it right, we'll save our health affairs and our tricare managementyou that little tidbit that if you can go back to your community to think about it, i think it not only supports military children, but it supports all of your future force and your future citizens. >> thanks. thank you very, very much. ms. thompson touched on an issue for the next speaker that is very important, and i know as mayors we often see veterans by no choice of their own homeless or in trouble with the law because of the lack of resources whether it's mental health issues, access to jobs, or just simp access to a roof over their head, and i was really excited to hear about this program. our next speaker's actually matt steiner. here's a fourth generation marine receiving combat action ribbon for his service in iraqi freedom, following an honorable discharge from the marine corp. attended oklahoma state university receiving a ba in political science receiving an ma in public administration from the university of oklahoma. matt is here to talk about veterans' treatments courts

tricare is something else that i think can be reformed. it is not that i want to cut back on benefits for service people, but that is also some that needs to be reformed. >> in a recent debate on foreign policy, you broke once was some of your competitors and said that you supported waterboarding, had no problem with that. is the notion of torture being acceptable go with your general faith and values? >> well, i do not accept your premise that that was torture. >> you do not? what do you think it is? >> it was called enhanced interrogation technique that we used to bring about information. i go back to the example of harry truman. harry truman was asked about his decision to drop the bomb in japan. that was a terrible decision he had to make. he made it. and he said if i had to kill 1000 japanese to save one american life, i will. so he made that decision. so let me finish. in that vein, and i was president of the united states and there was a terrorist and waterboarding was done on khalid shaikh mohammed, the admitted mastermind of 911,