During a House Appropriations Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. John Rutherford (R-FL) questioned Master Chief Petty Officer James M. Honea of the Navy about healthcare for service members.
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00:00Thank you. Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, I want to thank all of you here this
00:12afternoon for your partnership, your responsiveness, your openness with me and my office. Thank you all
00:20for that. It's been an interesting meeting with all of you. Chief Master Sergeant Bidavania,
00:31I want to ask about Starcom. Space training and readiness command exists, I understand,
00:40to prepare combat-ready space forces through the deliberate development, education, and training
00:47of space professionals, develop that space warfighting doctrine, the tactics, techniques,
00:57and procedures, and the test and evaluation of your capabilities. Now, I understand that
01:06in 2024, space launch Delta 45 actually set the pace for space, as you all say, and was
01:17actually the world's busiest spaceport with 93 launches. That's amazing. So can you speak a little
01:26bit to the strategic importance of Starcom, that fact that we just mentioned, and relocating Starcom's
01:36HQs to Florida, and the quality of life investments that Space Force needs to make investments in to
01:45make sure that we not only get those professionals in, but then we retain them as well?
01:50Yes. Thank you, Congressman. I appreciate it. Yes, 93 launches out of the 45th space launch Delta,
01:58and this year we're going to break 100. That's what we're going to do. And this adds to my opening
02:03comments about just how busy the space domain has become, you know, when you talk about the number
02:08of launches out of the East Coast range that we have there. But Starcom, Space Training and Readiness
02:13Command, you know, as a strategic initiative moving into Patrick, you know, one of only three
02:20field commands that we have and responsible for not only basic military training and the sessions
02:25for officers, but the technical training, the development, the exercises, the simulation,
02:30the modeling, the doctrine is extremely important to the service, especially a little over five years
02:34into our journey. So partnering and having a basin decision to send it to Patrick Space Force Base
02:41and kind of join the space community that is in Florida is extremely strategic and important for us.
02:47And there's a huge modeling and simulation community that's there, University of Central Florida,
02:52also the National Training and Simulation Association is in the area. But in addition to that,
02:57we have the Joint Services Warfighting and Training community that's there as well.
03:01The Air Force Agency for Modeling and Simulation is there. The Naval Air Warfare Center for Training
03:06Systems Division is there. And Army Futures Command also has our synthetic training environment,
03:11all located within an area. So our decision and, you know, to put it down there is because of the
03:16importance of training and developing future guardians for the fight and for what the nation
03:22demands of us is going to take us to leverage the relationships, not only with the other departments,
03:27with academia, but also with the local community, you know, especially when you talk about right outside
03:32within Florida, Space Coast, Florida as well. But very amenable and want to make sure they embrace
03:38the men and women who are coming down there. The Advan team that is there right now, part of Delta 10,
03:43is about 57 personnel. But this summer, as we start to make some moves, we're hoping to expand to about
03:47144 personnel to stand the flag up, if you will. But in a few years, we're hoping to have almost 500
03:53personnel professionals that are there building a foundation for STARCOM as we need it. The other
03:59importance of this decision and move is to allow Space Training and Ratings Command to start to
04:04invest in the talent, especially on the civilian side, who now that they know they have a location
04:10where they can move their families to, they can start to build a relationship, you know, with the
04:14Space Force, but also build a relationship with their community. And that's why that move is extremely
04:18important. Because to your point, in order for us to attract and retain the talent that the nation
04:23has to offer, we have to have to offer them world-class training and prepare them for the high-end fight.
04:31And that is a job at STARCOM, and we're excited about the move to Florida this year.
04:35And listen, I will tell you, you mentioned the synergy that that all creates. What's going on in
04:41Central Florida? I know the ranking member is very well aware of that, too. It's an amazing
04:49opportunity, and I look forward to that. Master Chief Petty Officer, Honey, if I could talk to you,
04:59we talked a little bit about some of the TRICARE issues. On January 1 of 25, TRICARE implemented its
05:06new regional contracts. And this kind of goes back to the contract issue that the ranking member
05:14brought up about making sure we have good contracts. This one is known as T5, and it's with Humana
05:24Military as the contractor for the eastern region, and Tri-West Healthcare Alliance for the western
05:31region. In northeast Florida, where we have both, you mentioned Mayport and
05:36Naval Basin. We also have Naval Air Station Jacksonville, which is the Fleet Readiness Center
05:42Southeast. So we have a lot of use for TRICARE in Jacksonville. That contract, as I said, began on
05:54January 21, and our family members there in Jacksonville deserve to have these providers,
06:01outside providers available. But when I see providers not being paid by DHA, myself and
06:15Congressman Bean sent a joint letter to DHA, trying to get to the bottom of what is going on with these
06:25payments. When we've got providers, one is, I think, $100,000 upside down with DHA. We potentially can lose
06:39some of these providers that our men and women need. So can you talk a little bit about how that can affect
06:48the readiness? And, you know, how can we improve TRICARE's relationship with these investors or
06:59providers? How do we write better contracts so we can force these guys to pay their bills on time?
07:12Congressman Rutherford, I certainly could not speak to the contract negotiation that was assigned
07:18by the Defense Health Agency and their leadership, but I can speak to exactly as you were just
07:24describing, what those effects are to our people that are utilizing those services. And just as you
07:32described, as well as I described on my opening statement, that I have found many places where
07:38TRICARE is a low bill payer. And so we're having difficulty attracting new TRICARE beneficiaries,
07:45excuse me, providers for our beneficiaries, as well as I have taken a number of complaints
07:51from those providers in that they're not being reimbursed on time. And Defense Health Agency,
07:59to their credit, you know, have worked diligently with me with their contract to have those bills paid
08:06as quickly as possible. But as we're continuing through this transformation,
08:11we're finding more and more places that were challenged with health care providers. That's
08:17not just something that's unique to us with inside the military service. That's everybody in our country
08:23is challenged with that. The difference being is that your sailors, your soldiers, airmen, Marines,
08:30guardians, and their families, we don't choose where we get assigned. We're going to get orders to the
08:35Jacksonville area. And we're going to depend on the military health system or the extended health
08:40network outside our fence lines to see to our health care needs. And when that can't happen,
08:45that's going to have detrimental effects to our family, to our family readiness, and possibly even
08:51to our military readiness. Especially if we end up having to spend military readiness dollars
08:59toward making that account whole and seeing to those benefits, which are challenges that we're faced
09:06with today, sir. Thank you very much. And, you know, I'd love to be able to tell you what DHA's
09:13response is, but we haven't heard back from him yet. I yield back.