(Army Times) Opinion: Cover rape kit costs now

[unhappycamper]

Cover rape kit costs now

For all the Pentagon’s efforts in recent years to confront the problem of sexual assault, some inexplicable blind spots remain.

Case in point: Tricare refuses to pay for forensic examination kits — “rape kits” — when military family members are treated in civilian health care facilities.

This is not the case for service members. Nor is it the case if family members are treated in military facilities

Tricare, Pentagon officials explain, covers only “medically and psychologically necessary” services. And forensic exams “are not conducted for medical treatment purposes, but for preservation of evidence in any future criminal investigation and/or prosecution.”

This has “presented a problem for beneficiaries in the past,” the Pentagon says in a breathtaking bit of understatement.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/community/opinion/army_editorial_tricare_020909/%2e