NGAUS Legislative Alert #12-9; 14 May 2012

The Issue: Examining the award of the TRICARE Western Region contract to the higher bidder.

Immediate Action Required: Contact your Senators and Representative and ask them to examine the Department of Defense process that awarded the TRICARE Western Region contract to the higher bidder and its possible consequences.

NGAUS asks you to contact your senators and representative to urge them to examine both the Department of Defense bidding process that awarded the TRICARE Western Region contract to the higher bidder and the possible consequences of that action on beneficiaries.

Earlier this year, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the award of the contract for the TRICARE Western Region to United Health over its competitor and lower bidder, TriWest.

TriWest has protested the award to Government Accontability Office (GAO), which will be conducting its review of the award process in the coming weeks before making its recommendation to DoD, the final decision-making authority in the matter.

There is concern among our TRICARE beneficiaries in the Western Region about whether the bid evaluation process fully weighed the bidders’ comparative cost and performance qualifications or the consequences of a possible transition to a new network of providers that will be critical for the continued delivery of services in a largely rural region.

Anticipating that the DoD will soon be deciding the matter, NGAUS is asking you to ask your senators and representative to pose to the secretary of defense the questions in the attached draft letter with the goal that the answers will confirm that the process was indeed fair and complete with the best interests of our military families fully taken into account.

Thank you for this effort and for your ongoing support of our citizen-soldiers.

TAKE THE FOLLOWING ACTION:
By using the Write to Congress feature on the NGAUS website at www.ngaus.org, you can IMMEDIATELY e-mail your elected representatives. A sample letter is included in our Write to Congress feature. You can e-mail the prewritten message or edit the sample letter as you desire. This is the quickest and most effective method of expressing your views to Congress. Also, contact your friends and family and urge them to use Write to Congress as well. For further information and background, visit our website at www.ngaus.org. Please direct any questions concerning this issue to Pete Duffy, NGAUS acting legislative director, at 202-454-5307 or via email at pete.duffy@ngaus.org.