A massive raise for junior enlisted troops next year and a ban on some health care for transgender children of service members are now law after President Joe Biden signed the annual defense policy bill on Monday.
Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, into law after Congress approved a House-Senate compromise version of the bill earlier this month.
Under the bill, troops in the ranks of E-1 through E-4 will get a total 14.5% boost in their pay next year, a hike that lawmakers in both parties advocated for after a bipartisan panel found that junior troops were struggling to afford basic necessities while their pay was keeping pace with neither inflation nor private-sector pay.
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Other service members will be getting a 4.5% raise next year, the rate that is required under a separate law that says troops are entitled to an annual raise.
The 4.5% raise will start at the beginning of 2025, while the extra 10% for junior enlisted troops will be added to paychecks starting in April.
While the pay raise garnered wide bipartisan support, the final NDAA turned somewhat partisan after House Republicans successfully fought to include a provision that will prohibit Tricare from covering some health care for transgender children of service members.
Specifically, the bill bans Tricare from covering treatments for transgender minors that “could result in sterilization.” The bill does not specify exact treatments that will be banned, but LGBTQ+ advocates are warning the ambiguous wording will cut off access to hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
It’s unclear exactly how many military kids the new prohibition will affect, but one study found that more than 2,500 children received some form of transgender-related care through Tricare from 2009 to 2017.
Biden, in a statement released from the White House following his signing of the bill, voiced strong objections to the restrictions on Tricare.
“The provision targets a group based on that group’s gender identity and interferes with parents’ roles to determine the best care for their children,” he said. “This section undermines our all-volunteer military’s ability to recruit and retain the finest fighting force the world has ever known by denying health care coverage to thousands of our service members’ children. No service member should have to decide between their family’s health care access and their call to serve our Nation.”
Most House Democrats voted against the NDAA over the ban. While Senate Democrats balked at the provision, most supported the bill overall, arguing the good in the legislation outweighed the bad.
This year’s NDAA had a focus on service member quality-of-life issues. In addition to the junior enlisted pay raise, other measures aimed at improving service member well-being include expanding eligibility for the Basic Needs Allowance and allowing the Pentagon to provide free wireless internet to service members in all barracks.
Some other quality-of-life improvements in the NDAA will need a separate spending bill to be approved by Congress. Most notably, while the NDAA endorses spending more money to build and renovate barracks, that funding won’t be a reality until Congress passes a full-year appropriations bill for the Pentagon.
The sweeping, 1,813-page NDAA will also do everything from ending copays for birth control for military families, to studying the implication of allowing beards in the Air Force, to trying to prevent brain injuries among service members.
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